Good Things I Wish You (Ansay)

Good Things I Wish You
A. Manette Ansay, 2009
HarperCollins
256 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780061239953

In Brief 
Battling feelings of loss and apathy in the wake of a painful divorce, novelist Jeanette struggles to complete a book about the long-term relationship between Clara Schumann, a celebrated pianist and the wife of the composer Robert Schumann, and her husband's protege, the handsome young composer Johannes Brahms.

Although this legendary love triangle has been studied exhaustively, Jeanette—herself a gifted pianist—wonders about the enduring nature of Clara and Johannes's lifelong attachment. Were they just "best friends," as both steadfastly claimed? Or was the relationship complicated by desires that may or may not have been consummated?

Through a chance encounter, Jeanette meets Hart, a mysterious, worldly entrepreneur who is a native of Clara's birthplace, Leipzig, Germany. Hart's casual help with translations quickly blossoms into something more. There are things about men and women, he insists, that do not change. The two embark on a whirlwind emotional journey that leads Jeanette across Germany and Switzerland to a crossroads similar to that faced by Clara Schumann—also a mother, also an artist—more than a century earlier.

Accompanied by photographs, sketches, and notes from past and present, A. Manette Ansay's original blend of fiction and history captures the timeless nature of love and friendship between women and men. (From the publisher.)

top of page

About the Author 

• Birth—1964
• Where—Lapeer, Michigan, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Cornell University
• Awards—Nelson Algren Prize, 1992; Pushcart Prize, 1994;
   Friends of American Writers Prize, 1995
• Currently—Port Washington, Wisconsin; New York City


A. Manette Ansay’s first novel, Vinegar Hill, established the writer as a novelist who could tell a difficult story with great grace. Born in Michigan in 1964 and raised in Port Washington, Wisconsin among a huge Roman Catholic extended family, Ansay infuses her fiction with the reality of Midwestern farm life, the constraints of Roman Catholicism, and the toll the combination can take on women and men alike.

Philosophical and cerebral, with a gift for identifying the telling domestic detail and conveying it in a fresh way, Ansay incorporates the rhythm of rural Midwestern life—the polka dance at a wedding reception, the bowling alley, community suppers, gossip, passion, and betrayal—into novels that illuminate the most difficult aspects of maintaining any close relationship, whether it be familial or not. In Vinegar Hill, Ansay examines the forces that hold a Catholic woman in the 1970s hostage to her emotionally abusive marriage. In Midnight Champagne, set at a wedding, she focuses her lens on the institution of marriage itself; the story is told through the shifting points of view of the couples who attend the event.

Readers and critics alike have testified to her talents: The New Yorker said of Vinegar Hill, “This world is lit by the measured beauty of her prose, and the final line is worth the pain it takes to get there.” The novel was selected for Oprah’s Book Club in 1999; Ansay’s following book, Midnight Champagne, was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award.

Like Flannery O’Connor, whom Ansay cites as an influence, Ansay is concerned with moments of grace in which the truth suddenly manifests itself with life-changing intensity. In the wrong hands, her material could be the stuff of soap operas. But Ansay strives for emotional complexity rather than mere bathos, and addresses both suffering and joy with intelligence and sensitivity.

Ansay’s life has been as complex and fascinating as the dramas that unfold in her novels. A gifted pianist as a child, she studied at the University of Wisconsin while still a high school student. Later, while a student at the Peabody Conservatory of Music, she was afflicted by a disease that devastated her neurological system, cutting short her dreams of becoming a concert pianist, and leaving her confined for years to a wheelchair. She had never written fiction before, but turned her disciplined ear and mind to writing, promising herself to write two hours a day, three days a week, the same sort of disciplined schedule she had imposed on herself as a student musician.

Limbo, Ansay’s story of her struggle with illness, is as evocatively written as her novels. Ansay never descends into sentimentality, but instead confronts her medical problems – and the limitations they impose—unflinchingly, describing both the indignities that disabled people face daily, as well as how her own illness has become a personal test of faith.

Extras
From a 2001 Barnes & Noble interview:

• Ansay was still looking for the appropriate title for her first novel when, on the way to a meeting with her MFA advisor near Cornell University, Ansay spotted a street sign with the answer. "I happened to glance up and see a street sign that said "Vinegar Hill." It was perfect," Ansay writes on her web site. "I had never turned onto that street before, and I made a point never to do so afterwards. I wanted it to belong solely to my characters. And it does."

• One scene in Midnight Champagne, the air-hockey table encounter, was written for a friend of Ansay's. She writes, "A friend of mine had been musing about sex and literature, and she said, 'Why is it that we so seldom read about the kind of sex we want to be having?' I said, 'What kind of sex is that?' She said, 'Fun sex.' I said, 'I'm writing a scene just for you."'

Her own words:

In my early 20s, my health rapidly deteriorated for reasons that are still unclear. At 19, I was a piano performance major at a nationally renowned conservatory; by 21, I was so weak I couldn't stand up long enough to take a shower. After spending a year under my parents' care, visiting specialist after specialist, my health improved to the point where I could return to my life—though a different one—with the help of a power wheelchair. Limbo is the story of learning to live within the physical and emotional limbo of an undiagnosed illness, an uncertain prognosis, an uncertain future. It is also the story of how the unraveling of one life can plant the seeds for another, and the ways in which illness has challenged—in ways not necessarily bad—my most fundamental assumptions about life and faith.

Growing up in rural Wisconsin, I was formed by a place where the roads met at right angles, a landscape in which cause and effect were visible for miles. I was raised to believe that every question had its single, uniform answer, and that that answer was inevitably God's will. But the human body, like the life it leads, is ultimately a mystery, and to live my life without restraint, to keep moving forward instead of looking back, I have had to let go of the need to understand why what has happened has happened. It is not that I believe the things that happen to us happen for a reason. I certainly don't believe that "things have a way of working out for the best," something I've been told countless times by well-meaning doctors, family members, and friends. But I do believe that we each have the ability to decide how we'll react to the random circumstances of our lives, and that our reactions can shape future circumstances, affect opportunities, open doors.

The writer Ann Patchett talks about awakening in the hospital after a terrible car wreck at the age of eight, and thinking, with absolute clarity: Now I can be anything, and I want to be a writer. I started writing on January 1, 1988, shortly after I began to realize that this new, altered body was mine to keep. Thirteen years and five books later, I continue to write as a way of making sense of a world that doesn't. I write to create the kind of closure that rarely exists in life. The best advice on writing I've ever heard is this: Try to write the kind of story you yourself most want to read. Limbo is that story." (Author bio and interview from Barnes & Noble.)

top of page

Critics Say . . . 
A poignant and arresting duet of the historic and the contemporary.... Ansay sprinkles bits of letters, photographs and drawings throughout the novel, a deft touch that adds to the book’s evocative moods of past and present.
Miami Herald

Ansay’s novel addresses the important question of what role art plays in life.... The photos convey a more intimate account of history, as if the reader were flipping through a personal scrapbook belonging to Clara’s or Robert’s descendants.
Minneapolis Star Tribune

In this pleasure of a book, two love stories are entwined.... Photos, scraps from letters and diaries, make this book a fascination. The questions posed by Hart and Jeannette are timeless, as Ansay has them debate the true nature of the Clara-Johannes relationship.
Providence Journal-Bulletin

In Ansay's slight new novel, Jeanette Hochmann is a recently divorced mother writing a novel based on the 40-year relationship between 19th-century German pianist Clara Schumann and her husband's protege, composer Johannes Brahms. Through a dating service, Jeanette meets a German entrepreneur, Hart, and while they appear to have little in common, Hart's 16-year-old daughter—like Jeannette in her youth—is a budding musical prodigy, who lives in Leipzig near the former residence of the subject of Jeanette's book. Although Jeanette and Hart attempt to have a platonic friendship, it quickly (and predictably) evolves into more, and their lives begin to overlap with the characters of Jeanette's novel. The story is most compelling when examining the fascinating bond between the 19th-century musicians. Less compelling are the pages devoted to navigating the more mundane contemporary world of dating and Starbucks coffee runs. While the photographs, sketches and letters interspersed throughout the book provide interest and help to elevate the material, in the end, Ansay's novel feels piddling and ordinary. We know exactly where Hart and Jeanette's relationship is going, and as a result, it's a strain to get there.
Publishers Weekly


Critics were intrigued by Ansay's premise—a comparison of two superficially connected women and their relationships—but most found Clara's story to be far more interesting than that of her contemporary counterpart.
Bookmarks Magazine

Intriguingly accompanied by reproductions of Schumann-Brahms ephemera, Ansay’s inventive exploration of this eternal romantic conundrum is equally paradoxical in its execution. Spare yet sumptuous, precise yet lavish, Ansay nimbly sifts historical fact through an admittedly autobiographical filter to deliver a richly textured study.
Booklist

From novelist and former concert pianist Ansay (Blue Water, 2006, etc.), metafiction about a novelist writing about pianist Clara Schumann. Clara is a fascinating subject. The greatest pianist of her day-think Britney Spears and Meryl Streep combined-she defies her father to marry composer Robert Schumann and largely gives up her career to be a mother and wife, devoted to Robert even when he goes mad. Along comes young Johannes Brahms. Clearly in love with Clara, he cares devotedly for Robert and the kids. Meanwhile Clara begins jumping at every chance to leave her family to go on tour. While Robert is in a sanitarium, Clara and Johannes travel together, apparently platonically, and exchange passionate letters, but once Robert conveniently dies, so does their passion. What remains is a mysterious, if abiding friendship. Unfortunately, fictional character Jeanette Hochmann, who is writing a novelized account of the musician's life, is less riveting. A divorced college professor and successful novelist devoted to her small daughter, Jeanette yearns for a man in her life as well as more free time to finish her book. Through a dating service she meets Hart, a divorced German doctor/entrepreneur. Coincidentally, they have planned trips to Leipzig at the same time, Jeanette to research Clara, Hart to visit his adolescent daughter, a musical prodigy he rarely gets to see since a nasty custody battle with his ex-wife. Jeanette writes her affair with Hart into her novel without telling him as their irritatingly ambiguous relationship evolves. Even when he proposes marriage to Jeanette, Hart cannot pretend to have the passionate kind of love he felt for his ex. That's what Jeanette claims she wants, but although she identifies with Clara's conflicting creative and emotional needs, what she really wants remains murky. An ambitious attempt to combine intellectual concepts with the emotional energy of fiction, but in this case thought overpowers feeling.
Kirkus Reviews

top of page

Book Club Discussion Questions 

1. What meaning does the title Good Things I Wish You hold for the two main couples in the book?

2. Throughout the novel there is much speculation about the relationship between Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Do you think they consummated their relationship? Why or why not? Could they have just been good friends? What do you think accounted for their break?

3. At the beginning of the story, Jeannette reveals that she has had two rushes of déjà vu in her life. What were they? She describes it as the "steep inevitability one feels at the start of a steep accidental fall." Is this an apt description for the events she describes? Have you ever felt déjà vu? What was your experience like?

4. Clara Schumann was an extraordinarily accomplished artist. "My Clara wasn't raised to waste her life on domestic bliss," her father, Friedrich Wieck, proclaimed. Yet her life—and her father's ambition for her—was overshadowed when she met Robert Schumann. Why do you think she chose love over her artistry?

5. Describe Clara's relationship with Schumann and Brahms. How did each man view her? What was her significance to each and to their music?

6. Over the course of the novel, we learn of three men in Jeannette's life: her piano teacher when she was a teenager, her husband Cal, and the elusive doctor, Hart. Compare and contrast the men and the relationship they shared with Jeannette. How do they compare to Clara's relationships with her husband and her friend, Brahms?

7. Why do you think Jeannette's piano teacher told her about Clara Schumann? For her sixteenth birthday he gave her a portrait of Clara at 35, telling her, "it would help her understand things about men and women most people don't figure out until after it's too late." What advice was the piano teacher trying to convey to Jeannette?

8. Neither Jeannette nor Hart believe in coincidences. Do you? Why or why not?

9. Hart tells Jeannette that there are things about men and women that do not change and that men and women can never be friends. Why does Hart tell her this? Yet another man who loves Jeannette—L___— agrees with her that true friendship is not only possible, but necessary. Examine the issue from both sides. How is each man's position supported and belied by his bond with Jeannette? What elements can forge a platonic relationship? Which character do you sympathize with more in terms of the question, Hart or L___.

10. In a diary written for her children, Clara admonished them not to "heed those small and envious souls who make light of my love and friendship, trying to bring up for question our beautiful relationship which they do not understand nor ever could." Why do you think she felt that so few could understand her "beautiful relationship"? Why do so many people have difficulty with the subtleties that infuse a relationship such as that which she shared with Brahms?

11. Passion versus rationality and freedom versus the bonds of commitment are two of the novel's themes. Discuss how each is manifested in the story. Speaking of passion, how important is it to romantic love? Does one sex have a monopoly on passion—feel deeper or more sincerely—than the other? What about romanticism? Would you call Brahms and Hart romantics in the classical sense? What about Clara and Jeannette? HOw would you describe them?

12. Ansay also touches on the themes of art and desire. How does desire fuel creativity throughout the book? Does contentedness stifle creativity? What did Clara desire? Brahms? Hart? Jeannette?

13. In the novel, the author imagines that Clara and Brahms consummate their love, an action that leads to their separation. Why do some people, like the character portrayed by Brahms, seem to prefer the chase to the prize? Have you known anyone like this?

14. Jeannette's young daughter draws a picture of her mother. "Why is your mother frowning? The teacher asked her. "Because she is lonely. My mommy likes to be lonely." Does this capture Jeannette's personality? Heidi also uses the word "lonely" to mean "different." Are the two words interchangeable? How so?

15. Why do you think the author chose to include photos and excerpts from Clara and Brahms's letters? Did the photos and excerpts add to your reading experience? How might the novel have been different without them?

16. What role does Jeannette's friend Ellen play in the story? When they discuss prospective love interests they are quick to dismiss for a variety of reasons. Do you think they are too picky? Are people too demanding when it comes to love?

17. Ellen pushes Jeannette to define her relationship with Hart. Should relationships always be defined? Can't they just be enjoyed for the moment's sake? How does the act of defining impact a relationship?

18. Talk about Hart and Jeannette. What kind of couple do they make? Were you surprised at the turns their relationship takes? What attracts them to each other? Are they good together? Could marriage ever work between them?

19. Where you satisfied by the novel's ending? Can work and art sustain us through our loneliness? Does it offer and solace and hope—fill a void? How so—and for how long?

20. While writing her book, Jeannette asks herself, "What could I take from the life of Clara Schumann as a working artist, living in the world today? As a mother? As somebody's former wife? As somebody standing on the edge of what must be a whole new life?" How would you answer these questions? What lessons did you take from Clara's life? What about Jeannette's?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

top of page