Klarinet Archive - Posting 000042.txt from 2000/06

From: "William J. Maynard" <klarinet@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] Clarinets in fiction
Date: Fri, 2 Jun 2000 01:22:32 -0400

Hi Lelia, Thanks for the suggestion. My computer tells me our local library
has a copy, which is on the shelf at the moment. I'll run over tomorrow and
see if in fact there is a copy to check out. If so I will give a read and
get back to you.

Nice to hear from you. Best wishes, Bill Maynard

-----Original Message-----
From: LeliaLoban@-----.com>
Date: Thursday, June 01, 2000 6:45 PM
Subject: [kl] Clarinets in fiction

>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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