The Kreutzer Sonata
De Moor has built her latest novel around the Kreutzersonate by the Czech composer, Leos Janácek, who, in turn, based his string quartet on the novel of the same name by Leo Tolstoy. In Tolstoy’s story, a man and a woman are playing the sonata Ludwig van Beethoven composed for the French violinist and composer, Rudolphe Kreutzer. The two fall in love as they play, which poisons the husband’s mind with jealousy, so that he kills his wife.
This theme provides the main story of de Moor’s book. The main character is Marius van Vlooten, a blind music critic who, following a disastrous youthful love affair, has never fallen in love again. In a plane on the way to a master class in Bordeaux, he meets a young musicologist–the narrator of the story–who introduces him to the violist, Suzanna Flier. When the critic hears Suzanna play the violin part from Janáceks Kreutzer Sonata, he is entranced and falls in love with her. The violinist returns his love; they marry and are happy together for a long time. But all that changes when Van Vlooten begins to imagine that Suzanna is having an affair with the viola player in the quartet. The critic becomes so jealous that he attempts to murder her.
“An elegant short novel… a subtly elusive composition… a deliciously conceived and executed mystery, seasoned with acute perceptions of how both music and life are seen, heard, and imperfectly experienced and understood by whatever senses humans command. And it’s a strikingly ingenious homage to the great originals (and copies) of Beethoven, Tolstoy, and Janacek. De Moor is rapidly becoming one of the world’s finest novelists.”
Van Vlooten cannot conceive that it is simply the act of making music that is making his wife happy, so he looks for alternative reasons. But can music really be divined and conferred with meaning? Is it not simply form? Significant in this respect is Van Vlooten’s blindness, which unmistakably intensifies his experience of music, but how apt are the words with which he communicates his feelings and how pure is his passion? Love, eroticism, jealousy and music;all are impenetrable enigmas, even if you unravel the meaning of Janáceks string quartet, as the narrator ultimately intends to do. De Moor employs a sensory approach to the story; her sensual style of writing enables the reader to hear, feel, smell and taste as they read, allowing The Kreutzer Sonata to become an intense experience.
“An astute sense of musical form and a wonderful sense of passion.”
“Margriet de Moor is subtle in her description of the most ethereal of perceptions, cleverly varied with essayistic notes, brilliant in the construction of context in which all the details fall into place.”
