Mr. Beethoven, shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize and the fourth novel by Welsh author and librettist and music critic Paul Griffiths (Let Me Tell You), is a playful and innovative work of historical fiction. The virtuosic performance befits the titular composer.
In 1833, an elderly and august Ludwig van Beethoven sails to the United States, having accepted the invitation of a Boston classical music society to compose and debut an oratorio in the young republic. Along the way, the author takes every opportunity to remind readers of his story's artifice ("Suppose the year was 1833, as well could have been the case"; in fact, Beethoven died in 1827). This move--the novel's insistence on plausibility while drawing attention to its own contrivances--distinguishes Griffith's approach to historical fiction, as he invites readers to revel in, as his narrator puts it, "the allure of alterity."
Once in Boston, Beethoven sets to work completing his oratorio, vexing his beleaguered librettist and, as the debut draws steadily nearer, his increasingly anxious patrons. The world Griffiths constructs is vivid and eminently convincing, conveyed by a narrator who frequently interrupts the narrative to fuss over primary sources or even revise whole scenes. Particularly brilliant is the character of Thankful, a musically gifted girl from Martha's Vineyard who is appointed as Beethoven's interpreter and teaches the composer, who is now entirely deaf, a form of sign language. Lest Griffith's more experimental flourishes come off as overly cerebral, the friendship between Beethoven and Thankful is both thought-provoking and disarmingly tender. With unyielding inventiveness and verve, Mr. Beethoven is a delightful exploration of historical contingency and artistic process. --Theo Henderson, bookseller at Ravenna Third Place Books in Seattle, Wash.