Wednesday Book

Yes, it’s the Wednesday Book, and yes, it’s Friday! It’s been a busy week at Holden with a busier one to come. Nothing slows down here very much even as the number of guests diminishes as we get closer to Fall and Winter.

The Women's Book Group at Faith gave me a stack of books at my last meeting with them in August. Each one came with a special recommendation and review from the giver, and these books are my first reading list at Holden. A few days ago I finished Evening in the Palace of Reason by James R. Gaines, which I believe the book group also read for their September meeting. I loved this book about the effect of the Enlightenment and the use of reason on the intuitive sense of transcendence and mystery. Set at a meeting of Johann Sebastian Bach and Frederick the Great, Gaines tells the story of each of these men in the context of the changes going on around them. Frederick was the voice of reason and change, Bach the master of articulating the power of transcendent mystery in his music, expressing his own deep and abiding faith as well.

Gaines has a clear preference for Bach, which is probably one reason (sic) I thoroughly enjoyed this book. His artful weaving of the “Royal Theme” - the very complex 21 note fugue theme Frederick (or someone working for him) set for Bach to improvise on the spot in three parts - makes for an ingenious plot device. We are allowed enough history to stay clued in, and enough drama to keep us interested. Even the complicated musical descriptions make for good reading, although I’d be interested to hear how those sections are for non-musicians. The Royal Theme becomes Bach’s foundation for A Musical Offering, one of the last works of his life, and even the structure of that piece is full of the intrigue of the whole debate. It was fun to listen to that piece as I read.

Here is a quote from the end of the book:

The Enlightenment, which set out to rid the world of its superstitious credulity, still usefully instructs us to find and tear down the veils of illusion wherever they exist, to be just to one another, and to keep studying; even if empiricism could not find a perfect order hidden in the universe, after all, it took us to the moon. ... The beauty of music, of course, what sets it apart from virtually every other human endeavor, is that it does not need the language of ideas; it requires no explanation and offers none, as much as it might say. ... Bach’s music makes no argument that the world is more than a ticking clock, yet leaves no doubt of it.

A great read. Thanks, Marilyn!