Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Michael Meehan, Transit Lounge, $32.99.
“I want to tell a story. A long but simple story. A tale of long recovery. A tale of love. A tale of lost and found.”
Award-winning Australian author Michael Meehan delicately explores the links between generational conflict, family and the ingenious act. Set in the early 1700s in France, here is a exceptional story, told to the reader in a distinctive way.
An Ungrateful Instrument is at its heart, a novel that portrays a son’s struggle to be more than a mere instrument of the father’s ambition. Antoine Forqueray and later his son Jean-Baptiste, were each brought up as child prodigies to the court of Louis XIV.
Together, they were said to be the only musicians in France who could play the father’s brilliant, eccentric music for the viola da gamba.
In what is a creative masterly action, the story is told by Jean-Baptiste’s highly attuned mute sister, Charlotte-Elisabeth.
“I am the deep cache, a hidden trove of harsh words and loving words. Of words that bind, and words that cut. I am a moving reservoir for all that drops from normal conversation, the thoughts and words that in the normal way of living and unless in an excess of rage or loving we test first to the air and to the silence, and then draw back and rub a soft life in their place. All these compose the first lode of my remembering…”
It’s a theme that ascends with its understanding and vernacular, which personifies and surpasses the novel’s backdrop.
Who is telling the story in this novel? If the answer is correct, two lucky winners will get a copy of An Ungrateful Instrument. Entries should be sent to [email protected] by Monday, 27 March 2023. Names of the winners will be published in Frank Cassidy’s PS-sssst…! column on 28 March 2023.
