The Time of Our Singing : A Novel

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Summary: The Time of Our Singing
Review: Jonah Strom has the voice of an angel. Classically trained, he is capable of lifting his audiences to heights they could not even dare to dream of. As a small child, hearing him sing was a cause for celebration, as an adult, the only valid response was to weep. There is, however, one small problem. Jonah is a half-cast, born of a black mother and a white father, a young adult during the time when America was at the height of racial tension and violence.

Three siblings. Jonah, the oldest and lightest, is the angelic singer. Joseph, a muddier cream, is the pianist, sometime singer, and the narrator of the story. And Ruth, darkest of the three, joins the Black Panthers, angry at the white world for what they have done to her people. Jonah and Joseph - or JoJo as their mother called them both - are musical prodigies, travelling the country and playing together to progressively larger audiences. They suffer the twin indignities of performing a dying music genre, and being the 'nice little Negro boys' who have 'risen above' their race to join the cultured whites. Jonah uses this as a platform to spring even higher in the musical world, constantly challenging himself to greater successes and risk. Joseph is a miserable man in search of an identity, unable to step out from under his enormously talented brother's shadow.

The Time of Our Singing weaves back and forth in time, though it does for the most part follow the linear progression of Joseph's life. We learn about the Strom parents, one coffee, one cream, two very different people together in a time where marriage between race is illegal in a third of the American states. The father, David, is largely oblivious to colour, losing himself in the pure world of mathematics. Delia Daley comes from a proud black family, one that has grown in respect and wealth over the generations by never giving in to how the white men expect them to be. They are united by a love of music, a love they pass on to their children, hoping that it can rise above the difficulties of colour and race.

As could be expected, the book is very musical. Metaphors are often musical; important scenes are described in terms of crescendo, libretto, tenor, piano, Bach. When the focus shifts from music, we are introduced to physics and time, the loves of the father. Powers is at his very best when he mixes the two disparate passions, creating sentences, paragraphs and whole scenes that move effortlessly from D Minor to non-Euclidean geometry. At times the effect stumbles as the mixed imagery fails to create a spark, but thankfully these times are rare, and for every mis-step, there are ten amazing sections, perfectly combining the heritage of Strom and Daley.

The plot quite often moves forward through dramatic scenes of great racial tension. Very early on, there is a lengthy scene describing the horrific beating and murder that a fourteen year old black boy suffered simply because he had the audacity to comment on the good looks of a white girl. In the space of a few pages, we go from a young, slightly cocky boy proud he has a girlfriend and happy to be alive to, 'The face is a melted rubber model, a rotting vegetable, bloated and dis-figured. Below the midline, there's nothing but a single flattened bruise.' The scene is shocking, brutal and sad, serving as an indication of some of the deeper themes running through the book.

The Strom boys - for young Ruth discovers the truth at an early age - must learn that no matter how well they can sing, how high their voices can soar, in the end, they are nothing more than a black slave in a white world. Jonah, when he finally, truly understands, flees to Europe where classical music has not yet died and where colour isn't as much of an issue. Joseph fades into obscurity for years, tinkling away on his piano in a tired Atlantic City bar, loved by a woman he does not love in return.

Powers is, for the most part, in complete control of his narrative, effortlessly creating a passage of deep insight, then a sentence of great technical proficiency, then a summarised page of such scope as to make other writers shied away. Unfortunately, these passages of genius are - perhaps too often - tinged with a 'look at me, I'm smart!' attitude. At times, this is forgivable, because Powers is very clever, both at the intricacies of classical music and time theory, and also has a deep insight into what makes people real. But then there are other sections that aren't as polished and sure, when the cocky smartness of his writing grates. I will say, however, that this negative aspect of his writing is one that is decreasing in percentage to the good writing with every new book he releases, something which certainly bodes well for the future.

Every character is believable and realised, though Ruth does suffer through most of the novel, first by being too young to make much of a splash, then by disappearing for hundreds of pages. Delia Daley and David Strom both come off as amazing people, brought together by a love so strong that all the different influences pushing them apart can't hope to touch. Joseph is the narrator, and it is into his mind that we are pushed the deepest. It is to Powers' credit that, although Jonah is the clear star of the family and the focus of the novels themes, Joseph remains an interesting and important character. So much so that when the two are separated, there is little reason to wonder what Jonah is doing with his angelic voice, because we'd all rather watch Joseph fumble with the realities of his life.

Another unfortunate aspect of the novel is its length. It feels 150 pages too long, and almost all of that blame can be placed upon the ill-advised trip to Europe that Joseph undertakes on the behest of his brother. When this occurs, Joseph has mostly come to terms with himself and his failings, and all the Europe trip does is send him back to square one and waste our time. Throughout the novel a climax has been steadily building and this side journey does nothing to help it.

Happily, Powers handles the difficulties of a thematically race-based novel with great skill. The trials and tribulations of black against white and white against black is captured from many different view points with sensitivity and believability. It is interesting that we never really see a white person's perspective throughout the novel, rather, we are presented with the full spectrum of emotions - from anger to acceptance to defiance to denial - through various black characters. The easy way was certainly not chosen with this novel, and it shows. Not all of the black characters agree on what should happen to their race, how it should happen, or even when.

So in the end, what we have is a novel that tackles some pretty hefty themes, and for the most part succeeds in its aims. I can't help but think that a 400-page novel rather than a 600 would have presented the message in a better way, but what we have is still enjoyable, relevant, and very powerful.

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Summary: Time and Punishment
Review: "The Time of Our Singing" by Richard Powers is brilliant. It is also, at times, overwrought, repetitious, and boring.

Historical references (having to do with race relations) from the 1930's to the 1990's are woven into the story of a "mixed"
family. The white,Jewish man who married a black woman produced three children who form the heart of the novel. The two brothers and their sister are extremely musical, and the interplay between time, musical and otherwise; mathematics (the father is a professor of math); and life experiences, draws the reader into the story.
The brilliance of this work comes mostly from the prose. Much of it is written in a beautifully developed style that includes word-play in its highest form. It reminds one of Stoppard's plays. In addition, thoughts expressed are often eloquent and spellbinding in their originality.

The main reason this book does not receive 5 stars, hinges on the very topic that develops the book's theme. The 600+ pages could have fit nicely into 400+ pages...there would not be the repetition, but at the same time, the time it took to do all the reading would be compacted, and the author's obsession with time itself would have been compromised.

Nontheless, the writing is great, the story is interesting and the characters are believable. Read it.

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Summary: A staggering work of genius...
Review: ...that is heartbreaking in its beauty and its tragedy. And its hope.

I thought for a long time regarding how best to describe this book in one sentence. In this, I felt as if I had been put in the predicament experienced by a New York Times book reviewer who, two decades ago, in describing a favorite work of literature, wrote "...I find myself nervous, to a degree I don't recall in my past as a reviewer, about failing the work, inadequately describing its brilliance." And, with apologies to another author whose title words I paraphrase above, this is how I choose to describe this powerful new novel.

The overarching theme of the story is race, and what it is like to be black in America (even if that "blackness" is barely apparent and issues of class and culture are largely absent). It is the story of three siblings ' two brothers of nearly the same age and a younger sister ' flung apart repeatedly by the centripetal force of race and its effect on family and career in the latter half of the 20th century, only to be brought back together time and again by the pressure of events, both familial and racial. Powers uses the subthemes of classical music and contemporary physics to compelling effect in weaving together both the narrative of the siblings (and their family) and the greater story of "being black in America." In the process, he cuts across time, flashing backwards and forwards in the narrative while telling both the story of the siblings and the history of race relations from their parents' generation to the near-present. The latter is dealt with in a series of brilliant set pieces covering every race-relations event of significance over this period, from Marian Anderson's Lincoln Memorial concert of 1939, in defiance of the D.A.R., to the Million Man March more than half-century later; in the process, the story's protagonists appear, "Zelig-like," at the periphery of these events.

Told more "linearly" than Powers's style of cutting back and forth in time, the story is about an interracial couple (he, a German Jewish emigre physicist recently escaped from Nazi Germany, she, a talented black singer without opportunity for a professional career due to color) who choose to rear these siblings "colorless" and home-schooled in their formative years (including intensive attention to music and singing). The choice ' largely that of the father ' can be read as a well-intentioned but ultimately failing effort to increase racial "entropy," a term from physics that Powers doesn't use explicitely but nonetheless seems to suggest.

The subtheme of music propels the narrative forward. Jonah ' the older son ' is destined for great things as a singer; he has a voice of such beauty and purity that one like it comes along, at best, once per generation. Joseph ' the younger son (by a year), and the story's narrator ' is not the talent that Jonah is, but he is the main support backbone ' an "enabler" ' for Jonah, as well as his accompanist, over much of the tale. Ruth ' the sister, younger by a few years ' might well have been the greatest of the three in terms of talent, but an early tragic event takes her in an entirely different direction.

Powers uses the physics subtheme to entirely different effect. The nature of time (in the context of the role it plays in Einstein's Theory of Relativity) is brought to into question on the discontinuities in the narrative and the near-repetition of specific events, as if time has the ability to fold back on itself, even repeat itself from an "event standpoint." In one of the better set pieces in the book, Powers places the father and the two boys in The Cloisters (at the northern tip of Manhattan) when they are quite young. This is their first experience at hearing medieval music, and the experience will eventually fold back on itself ' decades later ' in a way that I found astonishing yet logical.

It needs to be said, too, that that this is not just the story of Jonah, Joseph and Ruth. Or simply the story of "being black in America." As Powers's story unfolds, we see that events have a way of taking their toll on the extended family at whose core are these siblings. Late in the book, there is a passage regarding the maternal grandparents, the male figure of whom had long been estranged from his grandsons due to a severe falling out between himself and their father. When notice of the grandfather's death is passed on to Joseph from his uncle, we find that this estrangement had taken its toll on the grandparents' relationship as well; only at death is a tragic secret revealed.

In a supreme irony, the folding back of time, at the end, finds the gansta rap son of Ruth, grandson of the physicist whose "experiment in racial entropy" gives the story its initial impetus, repeating the path that his grandfather had a half-century before. He listens to Louis Farrakhan, and concludes ' with a wisdom far beyond his years, and totally contrary to his demeanor ' that Farrakhan's message is all wrong: The arrow of time really flows in only one direction, and that direction is measured by the increase in entropy.

Powers ' a polymath for sure ' throws an awful lot at the reader, leaving it up to him to sort it all out. But at its best ' and the "best" is there page after page ' Powers's prose simply leaps off the page. Nowhere is this better than when he describes music and the effect that a perfect voice can have on the human heart and sensibilities. He writes so beautifully about music and the power of the human voice that the pages themselves literally sing.

This is not a book that can be adequately summarized in so few words. It is a great and IMPORTANT book.

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Summary: The First Great Novel of the 21st Century
Review: A dazzling, dense, ingeniously constructed and beautifully written novel, The Time of Our Singing is, perhaps, the first truly great novel of the new century.
It tells the story of the black Philadelphian Daley family and the marriage of their daughter to a white Jewish emigre in the 1940s and charts the fortunes of their life together, and, most crucially their children. Set against the backdrop of the emerging civil rights movement, it is never judgemental in tone or an overtly political book, but it conveys its message with beauty and subtlety.

The prose is quite simply beautiful. Though the text is dense, and the book long, Powers never descends into the sort of vainglorious obscurity of other American novellists, such as Don DeLillo. Everything has a purpose, nothing - in more than 600 pages - is there unnecesserily. I normally guzzle down books in a day or so, but found myself savouring this one, almost hoping that it would never end. Alas, it did, but now at least I can turn my attention to Powers' other works.

I can't state my admiration for this book highly enough, but buy it now, and you can tell your grandchildren that you read a classic within a couple of years of its publication. It's that good.


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Summary: I love this book!
Review: All right, I've previously found Richard Powers a bit too cerebral, but I am absolutely in love with this book. Read in pretty much in one sitting. It's a real page turner and a more understated contender for Great Americal novel than (for instance) Delillo's Underworld, which is impressive but not nearly as emotionally engaging as this. This is a must-read. Great NY WAshington Heights-Juilliard scenes (if you ever thought about becoming a professional musician, this is the novel for you), memorable account of Marian Anderson singing in DC, compelling characters and family life. Please get it! It's the weird twin of James Baldwin's "Just Above My Head," for one thing (a great underrated novel of the 1970s), and an interesting sequel to Rebecca West's "The Fountain Overflows." Gripping. Read it. I think it's the best novel published for some time in the USA.

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Summary: Breathtakingly good
Review: As a fervent classical music-lover and voracious reader, I have read many novels over the years that had music as a background. One immediately thinks of Vikram Seth's 'An Equal Music,' which was fine, and a wonderful debut novel, 'Disturbance of the Inner Ear,' by Joyce Hackett.

I've just finished one that is head and shoulders above either of those mentioned: 'The Time of Our Singing,' by one of our greatest living novelists (and I don't say that lightly), Richard Powers. I've read all his books ever since my daughter gave me a copy of 'The Gold Bug Variations' (which itself has an awful lot of music in it; and yes, that pun that is more than just a catchy title).

The book's theme, if one can say it is just one thing, is what it's like to be of mixed race in America (and in the latter pages, in the Old World). I won't bore you with a plot outline. I will say that there is not a page that doesn't have some reference to music, primarily classical, although there are some pages that refer to gospel songs, popular music, jazz, even smoky bar music. The writer never puts a foot wrong; he obviously is a music-maker himself. There is no other way, I think, he could have written such detailed, emotionally right passages about making music. The only solecism I detected in 600+ pages was a reference, in passing, to Simon Estes as a tenor. As far as I know he has always sung as a bass-baritone.

The characters are Powers's most appealing. The plot has more twists than a Rocky Mountain switchback. The prose is poetic in its evocativeness. And we CARE about what happens.

I believe that this is Powers's best book - and again I say this as a fervent admirer of his 'Plowing the Dark,' 'The Gold Bug Variations,' and 'Three Farmers on Their Way to a Dance,' as well as 'Galatea 2.2.'

NOW: Scroll down and read Francis McInerney's customer review. It is brilliant.

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Summary: I was totally enraptured
Review: I absolutely loved this book. I had never read any of Powers's previous work, and I'm not sure I would have picked this one up on my own, but a friend gave it to me. The writing was beautiful, and kept me enthralled for the whole book. At the same time, the author covered such a huge range of topics -- race relations, music, human relationships, Civil Rights -- that I felt that I was getting an education as I read. It's a smart, lterary, moving page-turner.

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Summary: This book was written for me.
Review: I've enjoyed several of Richard Powers' books, but this one was like reading a book written exclusively for me. The interweaving of social justice issues (race, economic justice, etc.), music, contemplation on time, and pragmatic religion resonates. This book is beautiful and moving in many ways. Read it.

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Summary: Powerful story, remarkable descriptions of music
Review: If for no other reason, read this book for the many remarkable ways Mr. Powers describes music. His fascination with transposing sound into word permeates his story from the vocal competition that opens it through the tender flash-back that closes it.

There are, however, many other reasons to read about the journey of Delia and David Strom, who meet at Marion Anderson's historic Easter Sunday concert at the Lincoln Memorial, and their three children: Jonah, Joseph and Ruth. First and foremost, this is an engrossing story. Powers sets the intertwining lives of these three siblings against the tumultuous history of the American civil rights movement, letting each of the three explore a different route to self-fulfillment: black, white and in-between. Joseph, the middle child, and the one who fluctuates in-between, narrates major portions of the book. Interspersed among his first-person narratives are third-person flashbacks (apparently someone else - and it is not clear that Joseph knows everything that this omniscient observer knows) that focus on Delia.. Like Miss Anderson, Delia Daley has an enormous vocal talent and grows up in Philadelphia; unlike her, she does not discover the path to musical fame.

Powers has an interesting play between his historical and fictional characters. I was particularly fascinated with his description of the child prodigy, Philippa Duke Schuyler, and astonished to learn that was she an actual person whose story was just as Powers told it. Her life story fits several of the themes in the book so well, I began to wonder whether she might have been the inspiration for this novel.

Convincing and sympathetic characters, deft descriptions, conflict and resolution, nothing is lacking in this engrossing book. I could write on and on about what I liked about it, but it is better experienced first-hand.

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Summary: A Necessary and Powerful Book
Review: If Jonah Strom has a voice that "could make heads of state repent," surely this story of Richard Powers could likewise make the Klan relent. Nothing in my experience of literature, history, or sociology argues so eloquently and dispassionately, so evocatively and palatably to the audience that most needs convincing, against the evils of racism. This novel is far more than a polemic however. It is writing and story-telling at its finest, an argument in and of itself that the novel is not only not dead, but remains as necessary and powerful a tool as it was in the days of Zola and Dickens. The tragedy is that this singular novel should have sprung from the imagination of a writer as obscure as Richard Powers, and will never receive the attention, nor the readership, it merits. It easily deserves the highest honors the literary world has to offer, and one would hope that it receives them. Only then will it gain its rightful place at the heart of the desperately needed discussion that no one of any prominence has had the courage to initiate.