If fiction is the art of revivification, then let Mr. Beethoven be one of the most self-aware products of its wonders. The 2021 novel from Paul Griffiths grafts archival leaves to branches of nourishing speculation to imagine a journey the German composer might have taken in 1833 (six years after his death) to America to finish an oratorio on the Biblical figure of Job.
Although the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston indeed considered commissioning such a work, the only motif of it we will ever know may be articulated in the mind’s ear as we read of its stumbling fruition and premiere. Written in a narratively and stylistically episodic style and using only statements recorded as having been uttered by Der Spagnol, it unfolds not unlike his Ninth Symphony, building a dome’s worth of clouds one wisp at a time until the light of something divine pushes its way through to illuminate the ground at our feet anew.
If any of this sounds too good to be true, that’s because it’s too true to be good. Whereas the “real” Beethoven—as if the persona of that name weren’t already enigmatized by our constant recapitulations—reads to us today like the quintessential poète maudit, he marks the zoetrope of this book in moments of pandering frustration but also, more importantly, cadenzas of openheartedness, interpersonal profundity, and sheer delight.
Hints of a holistic portrait shade the opening act, wherein we encounter Beethoven as an enigma aboard a ship in the Atlantic bound for New England. He is a figure rendered by charcoal in intercontinental candlelight rather than oil in the Roman sun. “A stare, from a stranger,” we are told, “can be a flooding of humanity through whatever dams of difference.” Thus, we see and feel through the eyes of characters as fleeting as their target’s evergreen status. Such moments point to one of the novel’s most brilliant aggregations of historical impulse in Griffiths’s ability to articulate Beethoven before his place in the canon, itself in flux at this point, was assured by the validation of hindsight. By the same token, it emphasizes the unique disjointedness of place one experiences at sea before making landfall in realms of emotional economy. Says the muse of takeaways: Recognition is never universal.
By the time he gets to Boston, Beethoven’s dishevelment reads not like a caricature of the man but as the ravages of a harrowing journey. When encountering subsequent dramatis personae, we view them as he does: in his polite disinterest in Lowell Mason (responsible for the commission), in his enjoyment of Quincy under the auspices of hostess Mrs. Hannah Hill (a widow in whose company the bee legs of his heart collect no small amount of pollen), in his disappointment with the Reverend Ballou (a dismal librettist whose failures end up provoking a textual revival), and in his enchantment with Thankful (a sign language teacher and interpreter variously dubbed his “ear” and “amanuensis”). Every instance in which Herr Beethoven shakes a hand, exchanges words, or consumes a morsel of food reinforces the illusion that the music is imminent.
Each chapter is a composition unto itself. Whether in his iridescent vignette on the Fourth of July or in the careful construction of possible yet unprovable interactions, Griffiths sews his story with a leitmotif of concerns that make it clear he is wrestling as much as we are with the implications of his reality. While Chapter 32 is almost entirely footnotes, 33 only dialogue with dynamic markings, and 38 a single run-on sentence, these artifices never feel out of place or contrived. Each is a libretto unto itself for a musical work yet to be written.
From the selection of voices to travails with the local punditry, the story arc is pulled like a shuttle through looms marked by clefs instead of wooden frames, culminating in a virtuoso performance from musicians and Griffiths alike, as the author provides a full text for the oratorio, interleaved with reflections such as:
“To this Boston audience, the music is untoward, beyond familiar reference points, and yet at the same time wondrous, perhaps most of all in its successions of harmonies, how they float, swerve or dive while also proceeding forward inexorably, how they keep their sights on that one sure path while sometimes veering to the side or soaring high above, carrying their first listeners into new air.”
The book’s constant fourth-wall breaking may be its greatest pleasure. At one point, Griffiths even invites us to call him out on his conceit, only to retreat further into its fascinating depths. Hanging on what-might-have-beens (“it could all so easily have gone a different way,” “Scraps of paper might have survived,” etc.), he is content to vary his approach to the theme at hand as a seasoned improviser at the keyboard.
Among the many things to adore about Mr. Beethoven is that it sidesteps the trap of forcing a creative swoon. Unlike The Agony and the Ecstasy, whose Michelangelo rhapsodizes in the presence of unhewn marble, itself a cipher for escape, we get none of the romantic privilege of the artist at work. Hints of influences, witting or not, also make this a joyful effort. Top notes of James Cowan’s A Mapmaker’s Dream and Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon and a splash of Umberto Eco in the middle make way for a powerful dry down that leaves plenty of room for Griffiths’s base notes to settle in the nose for the long haul. In the latter vein, nods to his own work (“Let me tell you,” says Mrs. Hill at one point, naming his Ophelia novel) remind us of who is telling the story. Setting aside such comparisons leaves us with a three-dimensional object to regard in the light of our hopeful imaginations. The more we turn the key, the more it can sing when we let go.
Like the composer, we hear nothing yet feel every note.
Mr. Beethoven is available from New York Review Books (pictured below) for those in the U.S. or from Henningham Family Press (pictured above) for those in Europe.
