Ravel: A Novel (original 2005; edition 2011)

A charming little book about the end of Ravel's life. It's marketed as fiction, but really feels more like a well-researched biography, albeit the fact that it covers a lot of ground in a few pages. There aren't a lot of details but the details and description that are there are all the more poignant. It made me want to go find a real biography of Ravel to find out more about this curious man. ( )

This book of fiction recreates the last ten years of the life of Maurice Ravel, the composer of Bolero and Concerto in D for the Left hand. Echenoz brings to life the domestic life of Ravel in his various dwellings, and his relations with friends often fractious or diffident. Echenoz follows Ravel abroad on his trip to the United States, where he had pretty luxurious accommodations on the Steamship, France. Ravel's journeys and concert while world-winding through America are recounted. The best sections deal with his Bolero (1927) and the two concertos written almost simultaneously in 1930-31. Many catered to Ravel, and many loved him, but he never thought he was fully appreciated. He was very particular about his dress, really foppish in many ways. His decline at the end of life was rather sad. Echenoz is somewhat reflective of the Oulipo's attention to small details, although he doesn't play with them. A worthwhile read. ( )

This is, I suppose, technically a novella, but in actual fact it's more a series of vignettes or impressions: suitable, given that many of the subject's best works are episodic piano works such as Le Tombeau de Couperin and Valses nobles et sentimentales. I loved this book, not just because I enjoy Ravel's music, but because of the way Echenoz deftly weaves together minor themes -- the composer's patent-leather shoes ("without which he is nothing") and passion for very rare steaks -- with the major ones of creativity and mortality.

Echenoz chose to skim over the last decade of Ravel's life; after showing the reader the composer about to embark on a triumphal tour of the United States at the outset, he states bluntly that Ravel would live for only another decade. And the final third of the book, indeed, shows us his gradual mental and physical deterioration and the impact of frustrated creativity in a few heartbreakingly well-chosen words. The writing is sometimes jarringly vivid, as when Echenoz describes Ravel's hands ("too-short, gnarled, somewhat squared-off fingers" and "exceptionally powerful thumbs, the thumbs of a strangler, easily dislocated and set high on the palm"), sometimes laugh-out-loud witty, as when several young women, acolytes, hoist Ravel's suitcase into a first-class train carriage ("The luggage is quite heavy, but these young women are so very fond of music") or a pianist's mangling of Ravel's careful composition (he was "ornamenting phrases that never hurt a soul.")

Echenoz describes the composition of some of Ravel's latest and best-known works, including Bolero ("a thing that self-destructs, a score without music, an orchestral factory without a purpose, a suicide whose weapon is the simple swelling of sound"), but what he is really describing is the slow death of a creative genius. At first the topic is that of insomnia and Ravel's battles with it, such as his attempts to find "the best position, the ideal accomodation of the organism called Ravel to the piece of furniture called Ravel's bed". But really, sleep is a proxy for death, which also elude Ravel as his creative faculties fade. Like sleep, of which Echenoz writes "In a pinch you can feel it settling in, but you can't any more see it than you can look directly at the sun. It will be sleep that grabs you from behind, or from just out of sight", death is an elusive surcease. An impressive and beautifully-written book; I'm off to seek out more of Echenoz's work. 4.6 stars, highly recommended ( )

Ravel by Jean Echenoz is the tragedy of Maurice Ravel, a delicate man who composed beautiful music but was burdened by illness, boredom, and sleep deprivation. I am, I suppose I should say, taking the authors word on the 'beautiful music' opinion, as I've never listened to it. And therein may lay the problem with the novel, for me.

I was not that impressed by Ravel in the beginning. In fact, I was quite bored with it. The foreword touted brilliant authorship and whatnot, as forewords tend to do, but I was not seeing this. Ravel was, to be honest, an annoyance. I just didn't like him at first. Neither did I like Echenoz's writing. I was afraid I was in for 120 pages of disappointment.

Fortunately, as often is the case, I began to like the main character and the author's prose began to make sense after awhile. Ravel is very human, and Echenoz's writing makes this clearly evident. Ravel comes off as prissy and dainty at first and, as small hints about his struggles with illness were introduced, I began to feel sorry for the poor little guy. Many aspects of his personality are on display, positive and negative, which adds to the authenticity and realism to this fictionalized biography.

It wasn't all perfect. My opinion of the novel seemed to shift rapidly, literally from page to page at times, from absolutely loving it and not enjoying it in the least bit. At times I thought it was a brilliant piece of literature and an amazing representation of Ravels life, and at times I thought it was just a poorly written character study involving a bland composer. After finishing it, I wish it were both longer and shorter. I wish some parts of it were removed and other parts fleshed out a bit more, there are aspects that I loved and others that I hated. But did I like it? Well, certainly, and I imagine I would recommend this to others as well, if not only to hear others' opinions of it. But as for my rating for the book, I'm lumping it in with "average." ( )

Echenoz's Ravel is a tiny man who dresses immaculately. Indeed his wardrobe is a character in itself. "In his youth he was observed wearing formal black with a stunning vest, a jabot at his neck, an opera hat, and butter-yellow gloves."
Having never secured an intimate relationship M.Ravel is dependent upon his friends and acquaintances for socialising and succour. He can be difficult, for example, refusing to perform without a particular pair of shoes, and yet his star shines so brightly that someone is always around to solve such problems. Ravel is constantly collected, delivered, reminded and invited.
The novel takes us on Ravel's only tour of the USA. We are also present, though not in the room, when he writes Bolero and Piano Concerto For the Left Hand.
What's interesting about Ravel, the novel, is the pace at which Echenoz races through the last ten years of the composer's life. At first I thought that the story was too superficial, skipping over months and years. But Echenoz's writing has a magic which left me feeling moved, and sad to farewell dear M.Ravel who gave this world some of its most beautiful music. ( )