![]() At the denouement, Maria N.'s utter lack of guilt seems not chilling, but vapid as if, devoid of emotional depth, she were merely floating above the fray, hoping the dust will settle sooner rather than later. We never can intuit from Sonechka's narration what Maria N.'s feelings for her are. So the most potentially fertile ground in the novella is allowed to lie fallow.Īt the same time, the relationship between soprano and accompanist remains murky. And there is no indication that Sonechka plays any part in Maria N.'s love affair with Ber - not even as a psychological wild card or catalyst (a la Chekhov). But when, at the conclusion of this important scene, Sonechka suddenly informs us that one emotional triangle (Ber- Maria-Sonechka) has just supplanted another (Pavel- Maria-Sonechka), it is bewildering because the dynamics of the latter triangle have never been apparent to begin with. The early chapters contain many deft touches - from the description of Sonechka's first employer, a seedy baritone, to her stage debut with Maria N. Berberova overcomes them over the first two-thirds of the book with some sharp observations, sure pacing and finely tuned prose. The dangers of employing a cipher like Sonechka as narrator are many, yet Ms. And so her fantasy of betraying the singer evaporates. as if I had never existed in the first place.'' Nevertheless, she realizes that despite herself she loves Maria N. has acquired a revolver and in the end, after lovers and cuckold have played out their little dramas, Sonechka complains that ''all that had happened had happened without me. She eavesdrops on the lovers' trysts and timidly hypothesizes as to why Pavel F. If the Travins and Ber form the story's nucleus, Sonechka seems like little more than a free-floating electron. Sonechka is forever wringing her hands over the tragedy hovering close to this trio while remaining curiously detached from them. Lurking in the wings in Paris is Maria N.'s lover, Andrei Grigorievich Ber, who has fled Russia via Finland. ![]() and her corpulent husband, Pavel Fyodorovich, a ''wheeler-dealer'' in the black market. Why? ''Just to prove that there are things more powerful than she, that there are things that can make her cry.'' Sonechka travels to Moscow and Paris with Maria N. Petersburg, Sonechka decides that one day she must betray Maria N. ![]() I'm small, tense, sickly looking.'' Her first day on the job, rehearsing in Maria N.'s opulent flat in grim, post-revolutionary St. She is tall and has a relaxed, strong, healthy body. is everything Sonechka is not, as the latter continually reminds us: ''She is beautiful and I am not. I didn't have much going for me.'' The illegitimate daughter (''I had never had a patronymic'') of a poor piano teacher, Sonechka is taken on as the accompanist to Maria Nikolaevna Travina, a successful soprano soloist. The narrator of ''The Accompanist,'' Sonechka, an aspiring pianist without great talent, sets the tone of her lament from the first: ''I was eighteen years old.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |