Recital

Our first house concert was not elegant chamber music, but rock/blues/jazz offered by...me. Twenty-two good sports came to hear forty-five minutes of my compositions performed on piano and electronic keyboard. I was quite nervous, so I cannot say that I had fun playing the music from memory. But, hearing people's reactions was indeed fun. No one had any idea what to expect, especially those who had heard Debbie's concerts. The pieces had diverse moods and a wide range of sounds from the keyboard, and I think this is what most people reacted to. For example, the recital began with a slow, dark jazz piano piece that evoked its title, Film Noir. This was followed by a few short vignettes that showed off the keyboard's sound banks. Then, rocking electric guitar, jazzy electronic harpsichord, blues piano, and what one guest described as "science fiction music"! I've taken a break from the keyboards and performance anxiety since then and have been painting. 

J.M. Ledgard's Submergence

I finished my 2013 reading with a strong novel, J.M. Ledgard's Submergence. It is a tightly told double-helix of a British intelligence officer in east Africa and a biomathemetician who works on ultra-deep sea research. They meet on a brief vacation & fall in love, an emotion which is unusual for both of them. James More is then kidnapped in Somalia by Jihadists and begins a long period of brutal captivity. Danielle Flinders prepares for and begins a dive in a submersible to the abyssal deep of the Greenland Sea. They have both been loners in their worlds of espionage and advanced mathematics. In their journeys in the story they are both quite alone again. This gives Ledgard a platform for their reflections on many global issues, from Jihad to long-term ecological concerns. Ledgard has been a foreign correspondent for The Economist in Africa since 1995. 

This is definately not a spy novel.  There is very little time spent describing More's life in intelligence before the kidnapping. His treatment during the rest of the book is not remotely martini-glamorous. Ledgard's insights into the men and boys who are fighting the Jihad are subtly made, when he could have been heavy handed, a nice touch. His observations and speculations about the nearly-alien life forms in the deepest seas are thought provoking. Submergence is a short ride that will stay with you for some time to come.

David Gilbert: & Sons

David Gilbert's second novel, & Sons, is a gift to readers of novels: good story, insights and characters, all painted with great writing and a deft touch. This novel is chock full of wonderful one-liners that display playful word-smithing while bringing meaning to the passage. Gilbert keeps the gloves off and the prose is never over-written. & Sons is the story of two families, fathers & sons, husbands & wives, friends, love & meanness, and...writing. The aging A.N. Dyer is a hugely successful novelist, and a not very good father or friend. His lifelong friend, Charles Topping, loved him, and was dominated & hurt by Dyer. Their children are more or less dysfunctional or bruised, each in their own way. They are lovingly and honestly drawn by Gilbert in all of their frailties & faults. Some of these characters are more aware of their own brutality, others blind to it, and some of their love and need. It is not a coming-of-age novel, thankfully, and has none of Jonathan Franzen's sophomoric vignettes of childhood & parents, thankfully again. Each year I read many novels, snooze through too many and am captured by a very few. In 2013 there were two highlights: The Dinner by Herman Koch,  a very dark and very human story, and & Sons, a very human and unblinking story of fathers, sons & friends.