My girlfriend handed me 'Body and Soul' very shortly after we met. I had recently moved out to New York and was blazing headlong into my first, feverish and consuming love affair with the city and this girl I found in it. She said that from all she had already learned about me, that she was going to give me a book that she was sure I would love. Aside from the fact that the book arrived at a great time in the midst of ideal, bewildering circumstances - as many of our cherished books tend to do - this was a book that described in very lush, intimate and affecting ways things which are near to my own experiences and understandings. It was a grounding read and, equally measured, a dive into the wide, cloudy ether of musical creation. I'm very far from a musical genius or a virtuoso performer, but I am a musician and I have been one for as long as I can remember, and I know how it feels when music is new. This is a comforting story for most people who read it (I passed it around to some friends after rereading it a couple months later) - there is deep romance, drama, triumph and lots of music (you can hear the piano echoing in line breaks) - but what was most delightful to me were the descriptions of the developing mind and odd life of an artist - in this case, a man with a gift that has been nurtured from the earliest signs of his genius. It's a traditional story. It's an almost archetypal Kunstlerroman, and Manhattan in the 40s is... not a terrible setting for the story of an artist. Frank Conroy sets out this book like a long piece of music, starting with the rudiments... the ways that a child's mind reaches out into the world and gathers up thread for the fabric: for Claude, tin hubcaps sound like a dirty glockenspiel, syncopating with footsteps clacking on the sidewalk, while the 2nd Avenue El drones underneath it all. He quickly begins to make sense of this busy auditory melange. He begins growing and stretching: we face the consuming feelings and questions that compel a novice musician to dedicate himself wholly to his playing, to get better, to search for new approaches and access new territory. There are painful defeats and harsh limits, but they give way. Then we get juice of the creative mind, we hear the crescendos - the moments of absolute tumult and/or clarity that inspire and demand a response. Then the fleeting transcendence when these responses are let loose. Getting the girl, losing the girl; getting the money, losing the money, etc.; and we see our man Claude maturing, changing. And there are many moments when Claude and his music feel very alive and active, and that gives me great pleasure.
Of course Conroy was an accomplished jazz pianist. There is no chance a non-musician could write about music the way this man does. I studied music through to my last year of school; I sing, play piano and guitar. Body & Soul gave me so many ‘a-ha!’ moments; musical moments I did not think could be put into words: the feeling of music hanging around on a separate track from your conscious mind (“as if the music existed independently of him, flowing along in a corner of his brain” (61)); of gorgeous, traumatised Weisfeld explaining the magic of harmonics (72/73); and Fredericks witnessing Claude’s intense emotional connection to music (“He wanted to leave his body and go chase the music into whatever hyperspace had swallowed it” (96); and music being delivered through a muse (329).I am particularly interested in the influence of music on writing. This started long ago, and was revived during my interview with Willy Vlautin, American novelist and famous alt-country musician (www.lovewordsmusic.com). I’ve come to believe a writer who can feel and understand musical rhythm has a more natural understanding of rhythm in writing. Frank Conroy is the best example of this yet. Body & Soul is far-reaching in its cast and its complex weaving of storylines. The characters are unique and believable. I adored his mother Emma’s unexpected love-interest and also Weisfeld’s back story. The book has flaws. I know that. But despite the (at times) lack of depth in Claude (and that he has life too easy) and the at times too-coincidental plot tie-ups, I love this book. It moved me deeply and I will buy a copy so I can re-read over and over again. Personal note: I read this because Frank Conroy was Paula Morris' teacher at Iowa Writers' Workshop, and Paula is my writing teacher at the University of Auckland.
What do You think about Body And Soul (1998)?
A friend lent me this book, describing it as grotesquely uplifting. The style is very casual and easy to get through, reading like a novel directed towards teens, and does not generally stray into philosophical insight too often. However, I find a great number of the ideas useful, but to what is likely a minority audience. To me, the most important aspects are lessons that Claude Rawlings, the main character, has with his piano teachers. As a pianist, I am intrigued at how these may be applied and if the technical ideas are legitimate. Along with a clear description of 12-tone music, this book does well to give some insight into music theory and the process of practicing and composing. The only qualm is that, by being a fiction novel, I am forced to question some of the legitimacy. Also, I am not convinced that someone not in my field could get out of the book what I have - indeed, a background in music theory is necessary to understand a good chunk of it. Overall, a very quick and indeed uplifting read, but possibly to a select audience.
—Michael
Amazing story about a child prodigy, whose piano gifts were discovered by the owner of a NYC music store. I loved the detailed descriptions of music, the story of the triumph of a child living in poverty with a tough lonely mother whose taxi driving had to take priority over parenting, and the importance of earth angels who make miracles happen. The characters, soap opera type events that pop up over the course of a lifetime, focus on relationships, class struggles, romance, and passion for one's own gifts totally enthralled me. I could not believe that an author who was not an accomplished musician himself could begin to portray the technical knowledge that this book describes. Magnificent. I finished this book feeling inspired to embrace my passions.
—Alice Eberhart-wright
Amazing writer. Conroy is a writer I would read regardless of the story he's telling because his style is so wonderful. He wants to write about a genius musician growing up in the New York of the 1940s? Great. I'm there. He wants to write about walking down the street and catching a bus, I'll be there too. More than a few of the passages from the book had me re-reading them over and over. Claude's story may not have been earth-shattering, but Conroy's technical skills with the written word delivering Claud's story were phenomenal.
—Jocelyn
