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Clara A Novel Janice Galloway Books

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Clara A Novel Janice Galloway Books

This is, quite simply, a wonderful book. Janice Galloway has written a masterwork. Galloway has struck a very difficult balance between historical fact -- which much of the book details -- and its interpretation through the mind of one of the most remarkable women of the nineteenth century. For those interested in the subject, I recommend also another fine novel about the Schumanns, "Longing" by J.D. Landis; but Galloway's book towers above it in its depth of feeling and understanding of -- to quote the title of Schumann's song cycle which Galloway has used as a template for her book -- a woman's life and love. Highly recommended.


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Clara A Novel Janice Galloway Books Reviews

Janice Galloway's Clara is such a complex and modern character, particularly for the period she lived in. Galloway portrays her as such a strong, independent woman with a fiercely stubborn streak, yet also having such compassion and tenderness towards her husband Robert. Clara arranges her concert tours, organizes the household, writes her own music, teaches students, tends to her ailing husband, and manages to produce eight children! No easy feat. Whether her independent streak was forced on her by the shortcomings of Robert, or by her fiercely dictatorial father is unclear. Galloway hints that it was probably a mixture of both.
During all this time Clara's life was bound up with her husband's and they were separated only by the exigencies of her profession. She devoted herself not only to his society, but also the to bringing out of his music much of which owed its reputation to her. The story gives us a powerful overview of her life from her time as a child and a musical protégée under the tutelage of her strict and authoritarian father. Then we move onto her meeting, strained courtship and eventual marriage to Schumann. The novel is also notable for introducing us to many of the other composers of the period - Chopin, Brahms and Mendelssohn - all friends and respected colleagues of Clara and Robert Schumann.
Clara is a beautifully and passionately written love story, and Galloway writes in a style that blasts us with images of their profound and very deep love. Her work is extremely ambitious in its scope - using threads from their music, letters, diaries, and itineraries, and also incorporating a type of "stream of consciousness" where we are see into the minds of the main protagonists. Galloway creates piece of work that is absolutely breathtaking in scope and complexity, and a real challenge to read.
But the novel is so much more than a love story. The reader constantly is bombarded with images from the Victorian era the musical community of the 1800.s; the sites of Leipzig, Vienna and the other cities if the area; the sounds of the performances; the smells of the cities; the sexual attitudes, childbirth, and the domestic and household life of the period. Galloway's research is indeed meticulous and I'm sure the reader will find a lot to appreciate in this fine piece of work. Clara isn't an easy novel to read, but I'm sure that if the average reader sticks with it, they will be richly rewarded and they will finish having an interesting insight into the life of the wife of one of the world's greatest composers.
Michael
Janice Galloway's Clara, a biography as fiction of Clara Schumann, born Clara Wieck, pianist and composer, who married Robert Schumann and bore him 8 children, was something of a struggle, for many right reasons, but also, perhaps, a victim of its attempt to write from both an objective perspective, and from a within the mind of both Robert and Clara. Robert Schumann suffered episodes of extreme mental disorder, most possibly bipolar disorder, as his diagnosis at the time recorded periods of extreme and prolonged `melancholia' followed by periodic attacks of `exaltation'. This means that writing `within his mind' becomes remarkably confusing, distressing and jumbled at times.

Galloway has written very well `within the mind of breakdown' before, in her mordant, painful and often very funny The Trick is to Keep Breathing - but this worked in part because the central character of that book had a degree of wit about herself.

Here, the tenor of the book as a whole, despite some fine passionate intensity about music itself, as the major players - Clara, her music teacher father, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Mendelssohn, Brahms, are all musicians and or composers - is overwhelmingly bleak and full of despair.

I am very admiring of Galloway's writing, most particularly because of her ability to leaven the tragic with a lightness of touch, and, in her own biographical books, a certain cool stoicism.

However, in this book, looked at (as we can't help seeing it) through twenty-first century eyes, through the journey of a century where much has been achieved, primarily by fiercely battling women, to change consciousness, in both women and men in attitudes to women, Clara Wieck, then Schumann's story, filled me with horror, rage, despair. As it should have done, but I wished there had been some more lightness in the telling, and that Galloway had found a less confusing way of narrating, as the shifts between within Robert's mind, within Clara's mind observing Robert, and the overall view of an outside narrator were not always easy to navigate, for this reader.

Briefly, Clara's story is that she was `groomed' as a musical prodigy pianist by her autocratic father, as evidence of his brilliance as a teacher, and evidence of the brilliance of his methods. He also taught Robert Schumann piano. Robert and Clara fell in love and the match was violently and viciously opposed by Wieck. The couple did marry, but Schumann's mental instability was already obvious. Clara was a devoted wife, but she was also a world renowned artist in her own right. Society, even progressive bohemian society had in the main very old fashioned views about the duties of wives and mothers. So, Clara was always on a rack and pulled at from both within her own psyche, within that particular time and place, and from without, by the oppositions of Father and Husband. Even without Robert's mental illness, two highly lauded creative artists within a relationship, within the same field, one male, one female, creates some obvious tensions. Who is the supporter in that relationship, whose creative needs come first, who limits and curtails their own creative needs in order to allow the other to fully flower. Clara Schumann's story has its echoes in other many other places

I do recommend this strongly, despite my reservations about the narrative voice, and my wish that Galloway had made the journey a little more high speed, rather than stopping at every station, and sometimes waiting around before starting again. I wasn't quite as surrendered to every moment, every page, as I usually am with her writing
Clara was intersting reading, that describes the period and lufe in Germany. It was a bit boring at times and I did not like the writing style of the auther
A brilliant rendition of the life of a fiercely talented women. Janice Galloway manages to get inside her subject's head, and give us a very real understanding of a strong and loving woman. You could sense Clara's passion for her music and her love for her husband. She very deftly weaves all these strands together. The story never wavers - it causes you to want to know more about these two people. I found myself searching out there music once I had read the book. Janice Galloway writes with great sensitivity for her subject. She must have put in hours of research. It was an inspiring read.
This is, quite simply, a wonderful book. Janice Galloway has written a masterwork. Galloway has struck a very difficult balance between historical fact -- which much of the book details -- and its interpretation through the mind of one of the most remarkable women of the nineteenth century. For those interested in the subject, I recommend also another fine novel about the Schumanns, "Longing" by J.D. Landis; but Galloway's book towers above it in its depth of feeling and understanding of -- to quote the title of Schumann's song cycle which Galloway has used as a template for her book -- a woman's life and love. Highly recommended.