Ravel

by Jean Echenoz

Overview

Ravel is a beguiling and original evocation of the last ten years in the life of the musical genius Ravel, written by novelist Jean Echenoz.

The book opens in 1928 as Maurice Ravel—dandy, eccentric, curmudgeon—crosses the Atlantic abroad the luxury liner the SS France to begin his triumphant grand tour of the United States. A “master magician of the French novel” (The Washington Post), Echenoz captures the folly of the era as well as its genius, including Ravel’s personal life—sartorially and socially splendid—as well as his most successful compositions from 1927 to 1937.

Illuminated by flashes of Echenoz’s characteristically sly humor, Ravel is a delightfully quirky portrait of a famous musician coping with the ups and downs of his illustrious career. It is also a beautifully written novel that’s a deeply touching farewell to a dignified and lonely man going reluctantly into the night.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781595586704
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	05/31/2011
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	128
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.40(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Jean Echenoz won France’s prestigious Prix Goncourt for I’m Gone (The New Press). He is the author of five previous novels in English translation and the winner of numerous literary prizes. Linda Coverdale is a past winner of the Scott Moncrieff Prize, a French-American Foundation Translation Prize, and the International IMPAC Dublin Award. She has translated almost fifty books, many of them for the New Press.

Editorial Reviews

A beautifully musical little novel.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“Echenoz’s prose is stylish and delightfully soft-pedaled… leaving the sensation of a life lived exclusively for the creation of art.”
—Publisher’s Weekly

“Every word is perfectly placed; the writing is fluid… like a garment that fits beautifully even inside-out.”
—Elle (Paris)

From the Publisher

Ravel was a private man, his life never bared before all, and rather than add gratuitous spice, Echenoz puts his enchanting imagination to work exploring the mundane, the curmudgeonly, the quirky…This beautifully musical little novel, translated by Linda Coverdale, ends in 1937 at Ravel's deathbed, where "he leaves no will, no image on film, not a single recording of his voice."
—The New York Times

Alison McCulloch

Prix Goncourt-winner Echenoz's fifth novel to be translated into English covers the last 10 years in the life of French composer Maurice Ravel, who in 1927 was 52 years old and at the height of his fame when he toured America. Echenoz is most keen on recording the human detail: Ravel's impeccable ablutions and wardrobe, his dainty size, his reading of Joseph Conrad's The Arrow of Goldand his triumphant tour across the United States. Upon his return and at the request of a friend, Ravel offhandedly composed his masterpiece, Boléro. However, lapses begin to intrude in his memory and eventually debilitate him. After harrowing brain surgery, Ravel died in 1937. Like his well-mannered subject, Echenoz's prose is stylish and delightfully soft-pedaled, expertly conveyed by Coverdale—leaving the sensation of a life lived exclusively for the creation of art. (June)

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Publishers Weekly

Echenoz, winner of France's prestigious Prix Goncourt (for I'm Gone), recounts here the later years in the life of the great French composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937). Told as simply as a fairy tale and beautifully translated by Coverdale, the story opens with Ravel struggling to get out of his bathtub without "bumping [his] crotch or risking a nasty fall." The accumulation of ordinary details like this emerges into a lifelike depiction of the composer as he makes his first journey to the New World and tours the United States by train. Along the way, we learn his habits, get to know his friends, and come to appreciate the author's insights into this almost inscrutable man who produced music of ravishing beauty without seeming to have any significant human connections. So what's fiction here? The choice and arrangement of facts that produce a stunning psychological portrait that is vastly larger than the sum of its many little parts. To be enjoyed by all literate readers.
—Edward Cone

Library Journal