Book: The Music Teacher
Title: The Music Teacher
Author: Barbara Hall
Genre: Fiction
Pages: 292
Source: Free ARC through Goodreads.com
"The Music Teacher, a penetrating look into the heart and mind of a woman who has failed both as an artist and as a wife, tells the story of a violinist who has accepted the limitations of her talent and looks for the casual satisfaction of trying to instill her passion for music in others. She gets more than she bargains for, however, when a young girl named Hallie enters her life. For here at last is the real thing: someone with the talent and potential to be truly great. In her drive to shape this young girl into the artist the teacher could never be, she makes one terrible mistake. As a result she is forced to reevaluate her whole life and come to terms with her future." - from publisher's site
It's obvious, right from the start, that this story is written from someone comfortable writing for television[1]. I say this as a good thing, as I prefer that sort of casual, relaxed tone - I feel it usually offers a deeper insight into the characters in question. They're allowed to be themselves and say what they really mean, rather than squishing into a certain mold to be what the writer is expecting. This character is certainly given room to be herself. Pearl Swain's voice is absolutely fluid - with a touch of prim that comes through via the use of very few contractions[2], only increasing as she becomes more comfortable with herself - and she isn't taking any issue with just letting all of her thoughts out there. For the reader's sake, at least. As a TV writer, I have a feeling that Hall takes from that experience and really hears a person's voice when she writes for them. Can definitely appreciate that.
Very minor spoilers follow:
Similarly, after reading five books by Stephenie Meyer last year, it's quite refreshing to read a story where the protagonist is obviously flawed and bitter to a point of (intentionally) distancing the reader a bit. It's almost like we're not supposed to like this woman, Pearl, because that's the very persona she's giving off - cold and unlikable. She's angry because she sees herself as a failure; in love, in music, in life. These traits are something the protagonist later realizes and tries to resolve for herself.
Struck by the similarities between adult life and the so-called angst of teenage life. The teenager is angsty and struggling to find their own identity, while the adult - at least the protagonist adult of this story - is angsty while struggling to find the way to justify what she feels is her life, yet in actuality is still struggling to come to grips with her identity. Her voice is often bitter and it's easy to say this is the case because she's on the defensive about proving herself, but perhaps it really has to do with not being who she wants to be. It's not so much that she's not getting acceptance from others, it's that she's not getting it from herself. Mother and daughter were much more alike than she might like to let on. They were both ashamed and either making excuses or reallocating blame.
While it almost seems the story ends on a note of settling, I think it also speaks to the notion that you will only find love or peace once you stop waiting for it and just relent to what life is going to offer, maybe even finding new appreciation for what you've otherwise been missing while being too focused on the wrong things.
Quotes:[2]
- Franklin appears to be stuck in this place where youth is the enemy. Maybe it's resentment; maybe it's envy. Maybe he thinks that young people have the gift of opportunity awaiting them, while the truth is that like anyone else, they have to wade through the mud of confusion before they can confront the landscape of possibility.
- I only knew that my name was Pearl, and my grandmother's name was Pearl, and if my mother hated the original Pearl as much as she claimed to, what the hell was I doing lugging her name around?
- But what I also knew about God was that he was listening to everyone. And I was sure all the other prayers were competing with mine.
- When you want your job to define you, fill up all your holes, make up for what is missing, justify your existence, and serve as a stand-in for your own lost ambitions... well, this is when you get into trouble.
- "Maybe when you stop wanting things, you figure out how to live."
- Therefore it is really all right to feel completely lost inside your own circumstances. That we all arrive here disconnected and disconcerted and we just do the best we can, hitting and missing. Hitting more than missing, if we are lucky.
- What I'm thinking is this: Certainly, great accomplishments have been sparked by a headstrong desire to prove someone wrong. Maybe all of them.
- "Things mostly work out. People have their stories, you know? All the calamity and drama, it's a way of putting things off. It's an excuse not to live. [...] Look, how it happens is, people survive stuff. Everybody's story is sad because people like sad stories. But the truth is, we just work through the mess."
- If people aren't ready for hope, it's a cruel trick to put it on their doorstep. Like a bag of shit on fire. They stomp it out because they don't know what else to do.
Words I Looked Up:
nascentcoming into existence; emerging
capoa small movable bar placed across the fingerboard of a guitar or similar instrument so as to raise the pitch of all the strings uniformly
rancora feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will
fuguea musical form consisting of a theme repeated above or below the continuing first statement
[1] This is the same Barbara Hall that is the award-winning creator and writer of the television series Judging Amy and Joan of Arcadia along with writing for such shows as Northern Exposure, I'll Fly Away, Moonlighting, and Hill Street Blues.
[2] Subject to change for final print.