Well, I took a break from reading anything but pulp fiction over the last few weeks, and since that type of reading for the most part does not require much in the way of comment or critique, I won't go into it here. One book I will say something about: Cell, by Stephen King, was not that good. The premise was not completely plausible and the characters not completely likable or very interesting. I would not recommend it.
But I'm back to reading non-fiction now. I've picked up the biography of Mozart that I started years ago but really don't remember much about. Mozart: A Life, by Maynard Solomon, was published in 2005. It is very detailed and filled with information I didn't know about my favorite composer. I'm enjoying it so far, but it's slow going and at 656 pages, it will be a very long read.
One thing I've picked up on almost immediately is that what most people believe about Mozart comes from the movie Amadeus, a screen adaptation of a stage play by the same name. My book's author, Maynard Solomon, disagrees with the movie's characterization of Mozart and seems to be striving in his book to dispute that view, or to at least complicate it. I enjoyed the movie, but looking back, it did seem a bit simplistic.
So far in the book, we are learning about Mozart's parents and their histories and how Mozart's father, Leopold, controlled Mozart's development and managed his early musical performance career. Mozart made him a rich man very early, apparently, and as Solomon contends, he was doubtless dependent upon that income by the time Mozart reached his teen years.
The book is well written and I think will be worthy of my time.
Stay tuned for more dispatches from 18th century Austria.
