The Bride of the Wind: The Life and Times of Alma Mahler-Werfel

Rating:
Summary: Bride of the Wind: The last of her kind
Review: The Bride of the Wind by Susanne Keegan is the perfect biography for anyone wanting to avoid a stale representation of the illustrious Austro-German arts community in late nineteeth-century and early twentieth century. Written by a woman about a woman, this account contains insights and even some facts that a male biographer would have left out, yet these are the very facts which bring out the qualities of an historical figure which can affect his or her resurrection to the modern world.
Most interesting for anyone intrigued in the enigmatic character of Gustav Mahler are the accounts of Alma's 12 years with him. Keegan sheds light on a side of Mahler most biographers gloss over for fear of blurring the importance of his music. However, one might find that after reading about Mahler from Alma's point of view (and with the help of Keegan's many intuitive insights), that one can dig deeper into the emotional maze that is his music than ever before.
Susanne Keegan has made an accurate and insightful chronicle of a life that affected so many men of importance around her, a life which hitherto has, before this book, been left largely to mere speculation. She has done for Alma what Henri de la Grange has done for Mahler.
Look for the movie based on this book which will hopefully be coming out soon.

Rating:
Summary: An Unsuccessful Portrait of the Muse
Review: The Bride of the Wind, while scrupulously researched, fails to bring its subject to life. Alma Mahler must have been possessed of much charisma and fire to attract the geniuses that she did, but Keegan's dry account of Alma's self-absorption and reputed beauty left me wondering what she had missed, since the portrait does not accord with the events of the subject's life. (The movie of the same title, by the way, has the same flaw, though it at least paints an atmospheric picture of turn-of-the-century Viennese society, which the book also fails to do.) The book also bogs down with information about Austrian history and classical music that is far too inside-baseball to be interesting to a general reader.