Klarinet Archive - Posting 000041.txt from 2000/06

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Clarinets in fiction
Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2000 21:44:57 -0400

On another thread, I said I couldn't remember any fiction about clarinet
players. Color my face red! I not only know of an excellent novel about a
clarinetist, *I reviewed it*! I was seriously ill at the time and the fact
that I failed to remember the book reflects on me, not on Due's writing.

The novel is a dark fantasy, _My Soul to Keep_, by Tananarive Due (New York:
HarperCollins, 1997 hb; it came out in ppb later). One of the protagonists,
Dawit (now known as David) is a variant on the world-weary vampire. This
one, an Abyssinian atheist, became immortal by receiving a sacrament of the
blood of Jesus at Golgotha. In one of his recent human guises, David is a
well- known jazz clarinetist.

I gave this novel a strongly positive review in _Necrofile_ #28 (Spring 1998,
p. 18), although my review was more critical than the others I read. I
complained mainly about too many coincidences driving the plot and about
inaccuracies in the descriptions of clarinet playing. (The clarinet-playing
scenes are brief enough not to spoil the book for clarinet players, IMHO, but
I found these scenes distracting.) I hastened to add, however, that "the
strengths of the book far outweigh the weaknesses. . . . . These people live
and breathe, and all, including the monsters, evoke the reader's sympathy.
Without ever resorting to the Slash-O-Matic school of horror writing ('It
slices! It dices!'), Due also knows how to make a reader's skin crawl." The
novel comes to a particularly satisfying conclusion.

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Spike: If every vampire who said he was at the Crucifixion was actually
there, it would have been
like Woodstock.
--Episode "Inca Mummy Girl" on "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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