The Prague Sonata
Bradford Morrow, 2017
Grove / Atlantic
528 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802127150
Summary
A literary quest novel that travels from Nazi-occupied Prague to turn-of-the-millennium New York as a young musicologist seeks to solve the mystery behind an eighteenth-century sonata manuscript.
Music and war, war and music—these are the twin motifs around which Bradford Morrow, recipient of the Academy Award in Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, has composed his magnum opus, The Prague Sonata, a novel more than a dozen years in the making.
In the early days of the new millennium, pages of a worn and weathered original sonata manuscript — the gift of a Czech immigrant living out her final days in Queens — come into the hands of Meta Taverner, a young musicologist whose concert piano career was cut short by an injury.
To Meta’s eye, it appears to be an authentic eighteenth-century work; to her discerning ear, the music rendered there is commanding, hauntingly beautiful, clearly the undiscovered composition of a master. But there is no indication of who the composer might be.
The gift comes with the request that Meta attempt to find the manuscript’s true owner — a Prague friend the old woman has not heard from since the Second World War forced them apart — and to make the three-part sonata whole again.
Leaving New York behind for the land of Dvorak and Kafka, Meta sets out on an unforgettable search to locate the remaining movements of the sonata and uncover a story that has influenced the course of many lives, even as it becomes clear that she isn’t the only one after the music’s secrets.
Magisterially evoking decades of Prague’s tragic and triumphant history, from the First World War through the soaring days of the Velvet Revolution, and moving from postwar London to the heartland of immigrant America, The Prague Sonata is both epic and intimate, evoking the ways in which individual notes of love and sacrifice become part of the celebratory symphony of life. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—April 8, 1951
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Raised—Littleton, Colorado
• Education—B.A., University of Colorado
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in New York City, New York
Bradford Morrow is an American professor of literature, a novelist, editor, poet, and children's book writer. His most recent novel, The Prague Sonata, was published in 2017.
Background
Morrow was raised outside of Denver, Colorado, in Littleton, where he developed a taste for travel. He spent the summer of 1967, before his senior year in high school, as a medical assistant with the Amigos de las Americas in Honduras. His senior year was spent in Cuneo, Italy, as an American Field Service exchange student. Even during college, at the University of Colorado, he took a year off to live in Paris.
Morrow did graduate work at Yale University, after which he headed to Santa Barbara, California, and worked as a bookseller. Later, in 1981, he moved to New York City where he began writing novels. He also founded the literary journal Conjunctions, which is now published by Bard College and which he still edits. Since 1990, Morrow has been a professor of literature at Bard and, over the years, taught writing at Brown, Columbia, and Princeton.
Works
Starting with his 1988 Come Sunday, Morrow has written a total of eight novels, three volumes of stories, five poetry collections, and a volume of essays. In addition to his continued editing of Conjunctions, he has also edited other works of poetry and essays, and he has contributed to some 20 anthologies.
Novels include: Come Sunday (1988), The Almanac Branch (1991), Trinity Fields (1995), Giovanni's Gift (1997), Ariel’s Crossing (2002), The Diviner's Tale (2011), The Forgers (2014), and The Prague Sonata (2017). Trinity Fields and Ariel’s Crossing are the first two volumes of his planned "New Mexico Trilogy."
Awards and recognition
2007 - Guggenheim Fellowship
2007 - PEN/Nora Magid Award (magazine editing)
2003 - O. Henry Prize (short story)
1998 - Academy Award: American Academy of Arts and Letters
In addition to his awards, Morrow has served as a member of the board of trustees for the PEN American Center (1998-2002) and as chair of the PEN Forums Committee. (Adapted from Wikipedia and the author's website. Retrieved 11/7/2017 .)
Book Reviews
Sonata takes place in two time frames — World War II and the year 2000 — and, like many dual-period novels, the earlier period is the more engaging. That’s not to say that the contemporary story is dull but that Meta, et al. lack the heft and urgency of the war-time characters: the existential threat back then was dire; not so, 60 years later. All in all, The Prague Sonata is a pleasurable read. Oh, and after you finish, you’ll most certainly want to visit Prague, a beautiful old European city lovingly depicted by Morrow. READ MORE …
Molly Lundqist - LitLovers
Music infuses Morrow’s descriptions of war, revolution, peace, love, friendship, and betrayal. Finely crafted storytelling.… The reading pleasure comes from both Meta’s pursuit and the prose, which brims with musical, historical, and cultural detail.
Publishers Weekly
In the pileup of coincidence and details, the language occasionally goes flat, but the narrative moves satisfyingly to the ending you'll know you want. Verdict: A big, fun, page-turning rush of a novel. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [A] textured, style-rich historical novel.… [E]njoyable for anyone who loves a symphony of words. —Jen Baker
Booklist
The story, which runs a touch too long, takes a conventional whodunit twist with the introduction of a competing musicologist who wants the glory (and money) for himself.… [Nonetheless], an elegant foray into music and memory.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for The Prague Sonata … then take off on your own:
1. In what way does Bradford Morrow's novel resemble a musical sonata, the object at the heart of its plot?
2. One of the difficult questions posed by The Prague Sonata is what should be done with unclaimed relics of war. Who rightfully owns them? Can music be stolen or misused? What are your thoughts after having read Morrow's novel?
3. Follow-up to Question 2: What is the significance of Werner Herzog's epigraph — "Eternity depends on whether people are willing to take care of something" — and how does it relate to The Prague Sonata?
4. If you have read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code or Inferno, do you recognize similarities in those books and this one, say, in terms of set-up and basic plot elements, character development, suspense, or style? In what ways do the novels differ?
5. What does the novel suggest, symbolically, about the power of music as it spans generations, war, and diaspora?
6. How familiar were you (are you) with the history of what is now the Czech Republic: its founding after World War I, the World War II years, its post-war years under communism, and now as a representative democracy?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)