3 Nov 2009

VIOLIN.

Violin By Anne Rice.

Triana's grief is deep and almost boundless. Death has marked her, and taken her husband. Now only the music in her dreams can carry her from night to night. And now, into those dreams, into those nights, comes Stefan, the restless, tormented ghost of a Russian aristocrat.

Stefan's musical genius will first enchant Triana, then dominate her so that she will be drawn into the cruel past in which he lived his earthly life. Finally Triana will find herself in the realms of ghosts and spectres where an ally awaits her ....

Surreal, dramatic and mesmerising, VIOLIN moves across time and continents to bring together three lost souls bound to one another through music, passion and rapture.

.... From the back, outer cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (from the 'proem', page 1): What I seek to do here perhaps cannot be done in words.

As an author, Anne Rice comes highly recommended and is a favourite with one of my closest friends so I had high (perhaps too high?) expectations of Violin and really wanted to enjoy the story, but didn't and, if I'm totally honest, found it to be one of those novels that left me feeling that, whilst I had understood the main premise, I was somehow or other missing the point, not picking up on something that was crucial to my understanding. A bit like me and abstract art - I just didn't get it.

With a hauntingly beautiful and mesmerising front cover, if only the same could be said of the story therein, I found the book jumped around too much, so much so it bordered on shambolic, and was repetitive - if I had had to read about the circumstances surrounding the various deaths of Triana's loved ones again, I fear I may well have screamed.

However, that said, it also contained one of the best lines I have read in a book for quite a while .....

"Don't be so stupid," I said calmly. "Stupidity doesn't become a being that doesn't have mortality as an excuse."

MY RATING: 1 out of a possible 5. May have been well written but lacked a certain something.

3 comments:

serendipity_viv said...

Sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it. I haven't read any of her books yet, so I don't know what they are like. I did pick up the Witches series of books that she wrote, but haven't had time to read them. Perhaps this isn't one of her best works.

Kelly said...

I think I only got through two, maybe three of the vampire series before I tired of them. The only other book of hers I read was "Cry to Heaven", which I remember loving. You might want to check it out.

Melissa (My World...in words and pages) said...

Sorry to hear you didn't care for the book. I have heard so many great things of this author. But I don't think I had heard of this book, usually her name is referenced with other titles. Maybe this is that one book that wasn't her best work??? I don't know, I have not read any of her work yet.