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sophia_sol) wrote2020-11-15 06:31 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2020-11-15 06:31 pm
The Kingdom of Back, by Marie Lu
Oh I have some mixed feelings about this one!
Nannerl Mozart, older sister of the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (familiarly known as Woferl), was also a musically-gifted child -- but because of her gender she didn't get anything like the same kind of attention as her brother. This book tells Nannerl's story, and weaves into it the story of the fairytale kingdom Nannerl and her brother used to tell each other to amuse themselves.
A highly compelling premise and I was super excited to read this book, especially since it's been getting such positive reviews!
And I found it a fascinating and lovely read, for sure. I loved the way that the Kingdom of Back (which was something that the real historical Mozart children did invent) was such a huge part of Nannerl and Woferl's lives, and the way that they affected its reality and it affected their reality in turn. And I LOVED the portrayal of the sibling relationship between Nannerl and Woferl, and the shifting dynamics of it over time, and the things that each do and do not know about each other despite their closeness, and how important they are to each other.
But I feel that the way the narrative beats fail to back up the intended theme of the story ultimately weakens the book and undermines the points it's trying to make. And I felt this disconnect throughout the whole of the book and it meant that even while I was enjoying what I was reading on almost any given page, there was always an underlying sense of unease, of being sure I could see the disappointing way the story was going but HOPING the author would successfully pull the themes together in a way that would work for me but knowing really that that wasn't going to happen.
There's three major facets of this problem for me.
1. Nannerl is a very talented musician from a young age. But her first composition is given to her in the patterns of stones in the magical Kingdom of Back, rather than something she creates for herself. And in her first public performance, she plays notably better than she's ever played before, and it's because Hyacinth (from the Kingdom of Back) is helping her. Basically, there are these indications early on that Nannerl's good but not THAT good until she gets faery help! And although faery assistance at composing and performing is never mentioned again, the knowledge that that's how she began hangs over all the rest of her musical success in the book, imo. So the overall impression I got from what the narrative is showing is that although Woferl, a boy, is absolutely brilliant on his own, the only way a girl can measure up is with a magical assist.
2. The driving force of the book is Nannerl's desire to be remembered forever for her musical talent. She's a girl with ambitions! But the result of her being ambitious is that she is ensnared by an evil faery, undergoes great trials, and is misled into doing horrible things to undeserving people. It kind of feels like the narrative is punishing her for being ambitious, given that this is the kind of thing her ambition very directly leads to, and it doesn't lead to anything positive for her. This comes across to me as a narrative implication that acting too directly on your ambition is bad and dangerous.
3. Again, Nannerl's desire is to be remembered forever. And yet her happy ending is to simply know that her brother admires her and she'll live on through her brother. This is led to reasonably by the novel, yes; it's strongly implied that she only wants the immortality of fame because she cannot get her father's approval, and she realises at the end that she never even thought to look for approval from her brother instead. But a brushing aside of the validity of a girl's career ambition is still what it boils down to. And then the epilogue doubles down on this. She is married with children and is working on a history of her dead famous brother, with little indication she still has any focus on her own musical endeavours. This comes across to me as the narrative saying that girls had better direct their ambitions towards a positive family life instead of career, as that will be what's truly fulfilling.
The thing is, based on what the author says in her note at the end of the book, I absolutely don't think that these messages are what she intended! Marie Lu says that she hopes this story will inspire other Nannerls, who are silenced because of something about them that keeps them out of the spotlight, to "share their brilliance with the world." So the author is clearly intending her book about Nannerl to say positive things about both the abilities and ambitions of girls and others who are kept down by societal pressures. Which is what I was expecting from this book when I started it, tbh.
This almost makes me second guess myself, like maybe I'm reading too much into the themes I was seeing? But I'm having trouble seeing another way of reading the implications of the story this book is actually telling. And I found it honestly kind of upsetting to read, this ultimately conservative narrative about a girl who is smart and talented and ambitious and wants something beyond what the world is willing to give her, but is beaten back for having that ambition and ends up happy with a conventional woman's role instead.
(To be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with getting pleasure from a retiring home life focused on family. Different things are right for different people! But it doesn't feel right to me for that to be a happy ending for Nannerl.)
And like. This is a lot of words to write about a book, and I wouldn't be saying so much with so many feelings if I didn't honestly care! Lu made me really care about Nannerl and her world, and if there weren't so many elements of this book that really clicked for me, I wouldn't be this worked up about it. I want so much to love this book because honestly it's really good. BUT. But. Sigh.
Nannerl Mozart, older sister of the famous Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (familiarly known as Woferl), was also a musically-gifted child -- but because of her gender she didn't get anything like the same kind of attention as her brother. This book tells Nannerl's story, and weaves into it the story of the fairytale kingdom Nannerl and her brother used to tell each other to amuse themselves.
A highly compelling premise and I was super excited to read this book, especially since it's been getting such positive reviews!
And I found it a fascinating and lovely read, for sure. I loved the way that the Kingdom of Back (which was something that the real historical Mozart children did invent) was such a huge part of Nannerl and Woferl's lives, and the way that they affected its reality and it affected their reality in turn. And I LOVED the portrayal of the sibling relationship between Nannerl and Woferl, and the shifting dynamics of it over time, and the things that each do and do not know about each other despite their closeness, and how important they are to each other.
But I feel that the way the narrative beats fail to back up the intended theme of the story ultimately weakens the book and undermines the points it's trying to make. And I felt this disconnect throughout the whole of the book and it meant that even while I was enjoying what I was reading on almost any given page, there was always an underlying sense of unease, of being sure I could see the disappointing way the story was going but HOPING the author would successfully pull the themes together in a way that would work for me but knowing really that that wasn't going to happen.
There's three major facets of this problem for me.
1. Nannerl is a very talented musician from a young age. But her first composition is given to her in the patterns of stones in the magical Kingdom of Back, rather than something she creates for herself. And in her first public performance, she plays notably better than she's ever played before, and it's because Hyacinth (from the Kingdom of Back) is helping her. Basically, there are these indications early on that Nannerl's good but not THAT good until she gets faery help! And although faery assistance at composing and performing is never mentioned again, the knowledge that that's how she began hangs over all the rest of her musical success in the book, imo. So the overall impression I got from what the narrative is showing is that although Woferl, a boy, is absolutely brilliant on his own, the only way a girl can measure up is with a magical assist.
2. The driving force of the book is Nannerl's desire to be remembered forever for her musical talent. She's a girl with ambitions! But the result of her being ambitious is that she is ensnared by an evil faery, undergoes great trials, and is misled into doing horrible things to undeserving people. It kind of feels like the narrative is punishing her for being ambitious, given that this is the kind of thing her ambition very directly leads to, and it doesn't lead to anything positive for her. This comes across to me as a narrative implication that acting too directly on your ambition is bad and dangerous.
3. Again, Nannerl's desire is to be remembered forever. And yet her happy ending is to simply know that her brother admires her and she'll live on through her brother. This is led to reasonably by the novel, yes; it's strongly implied that she only wants the immortality of fame because she cannot get her father's approval, and she realises at the end that she never even thought to look for approval from her brother instead. But a brushing aside of the validity of a girl's career ambition is still what it boils down to. And then the epilogue doubles down on this. She is married with children and is working on a history of her dead famous brother, with little indication she still has any focus on her own musical endeavours. This comes across to me as the narrative saying that girls had better direct their ambitions towards a positive family life instead of career, as that will be what's truly fulfilling.
The thing is, based on what the author says in her note at the end of the book, I absolutely don't think that these messages are what she intended! Marie Lu says that she hopes this story will inspire other Nannerls, who are silenced because of something about them that keeps them out of the spotlight, to "share their brilliance with the world." So the author is clearly intending her book about Nannerl to say positive things about both the abilities and ambitions of girls and others who are kept down by societal pressures. Which is what I was expecting from this book when I started it, tbh.
This almost makes me second guess myself, like maybe I'm reading too much into the themes I was seeing? But I'm having trouble seeing another way of reading the implications of the story this book is actually telling. And I found it honestly kind of upsetting to read, this ultimately conservative narrative about a girl who is smart and talented and ambitious and wants something beyond what the world is willing to give her, but is beaten back for having that ambition and ends up happy with a conventional woman's role instead.
(To be clear, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with getting pleasure from a retiring home life focused on family. Different things are right for different people! But it doesn't feel right to me for that to be a happy ending for Nannerl.)
And like. This is a lot of words to write about a book, and I wouldn't be saying so much with so many feelings if I didn't honestly care! Lu made me really care about Nannerl and her world, and if there weren't so many elements of this book that really clicked for me, I wouldn't be this worked up about it. I want so much to love this book because honestly it's really good. BUT. But. Sigh.
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IDK, I feel like Catherine Called Birdy, while it has a similar conservative narrative, didn't bother me nearly so much (in fact, I really love that book) because Catherine herself was of her time and reacts believably (and complicated-ly) of someone of her time to the strictures that bind her, if that makes any sense? (And even though it's a happy ending, it's also emotionally complicated for her!)
But as for your other point, at least from the part I read, some of Woferl's music was actually due to Nannerl, right?
(Also, I did look at the afterword and it made me a little annoyed that she was all "how could I never have heard of someone who was called one of the greatest performers of her age? Clearly it is because of SEXISM" and I was like... so, because of my recent fandom, lol, I have just been finding out about all these great performers in the 18th C, both male and female, whom no one has ever heard of because... there were no recordings! Unless you were a composer, you weren't remembered. And even then, some of the composers weren't remembered either. I mean, this is a bit of a dumb nitpick because obviously there WAS a huge (HUGE) amount of sexism and obviously it DID affect things and it obviously did affect how far Nannerl could go, it's just... let's blame sexism for the (huge amount of) stuff it's actually guilty of :)
ETA: I think it annoys me not because of the sexism point per se, which hopefully is obvious -- there is no way you could ever entice me to live as a woman in eighteenth century Europe -- but because it is further evidence that I can't trust her with regard to understanding the eighteenth-century viewpoint, even if we don't agree with it. Whereas I trust Cushman, for example, rather more in this respect.)
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And - I had definitely heard of Nannerl Mozart a bunch prior to this book, and I'm not even the kind of person who spends a lot of time reading about or listening to classical music. And you're so right about how in general performers aren't remembered in the era before recordings, only composers.
But as for your other point, at least from the part I read, some of Woferl's music was actually due to Nannerl, right?
That's the case in the book, yes, though there's no proof in reality. But she is hugely upset at least at first when her compositions are published under her brother's name, it's clear she doesn't see it as a way to achieve that immortality she seeks but instead as another way of dismissing her.
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Well, I think part of my issue is that I don't think historical Nannerl's deepest dream was fame. That was part of Wolfgang's motives, but I think what Nannerl really wanted was to be able to make her own choices - she couldn't marry the man she loved because her father didn't want it and Wolfgang didn't come through (as usual), she spent her life taking care of her father and brother and then presumably a husband she was less enthused about, she never really had any choices about whether to perform or not perform, and even if she wanted to pursue music more seriously, that simply wasn't a social option for her at all. And so it's tricky to fix any of that, especially if one is trying to stay within the constraints of history - both the timeline and the setting. But by halfway through, I was both not drawn in and felt like Nannerl and Wolfgang had too-similar motivations, plus it didn't seem to be heading towards resolving any of things I wanted resolved about historical!Nannerl's story. (And I agree with
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