Lovely ... ? If you like the word lovely and the phrase Good God, then this books for you! Violin, by Anne Rice, is the story of a borderline madwoman (former drunk) called Triana, who has a fascination for misery and death. She blames herself for every bad thing that ever happened in her dysfunctional family including the deaths of her mother, father and young daughter. She also takes responsibility for the infidelity of her first husband with a younger sister! Following the death of her second husband, from AIDS, she is haunted by a violin-playing ghost named Stephan, a Russian prince, who seems determined to drive her completely mad. Strangely, the ghost of Stephan can not only be seen by Triana, but by a few select others too including a whole roomful of people attending a concert! Triana, a frustrated violinist herself is both fascinated and repelled by Stephan, while wallowing interminably in her own articulate misery. After what seems never-ending rhetoric, she manages to grab the violin from Stephan, (a Stradivarius by the way) and wont let go! The enraged Stephan then drags her back in time with him to show her his miserable life, and how he saved the violin from a fire, and later shows her his death in Vienna, when trying to save the violin once again, this time from being buried in his murdered fathers coffin. Beethoven pops in and out of the saga occasionally; Im not quite sure why ... except both Triana and Stephan (his former pupil) both adore the "Maestro"! Appraisal This book is very long and wordy. The author knows at least fifteen ways to describe eyebrows and eyelashes and such like, and does so ad nauseum. She slows down whatever action there is with absolutely graphic descriptions of dreams, rooms and other details you dont really want to know about. I think her philosophy is "Hey, if one word will do, why not use 15 instead, especially if each one has five syllables each.! Commendation The only reason I dragged myself to the end of!
this tome was to find out what happened to Trianas youngest sister Faye (if anything). I wont tell you what happened but "Good God, It was lovely"! Reviewer: Val Ford
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