Chorale

Rating:
Summary: Underappreciated
Review: It should come as no surprise to me that I'm the only person so far who has reviewed this book, since in SF circles these days Barry Malzberg is fairly obscure and this novel doesn't have the benefit of winning the John W Campbell award like "Beyond Apollo" or whatever award "Herovit's World" won, to name two of his nominally more well known books. Probably the only thing in print by this fellow is the current collection "On a Planet Alien" which is recommended just to get you started in wanting to find the really good stuff. Speaking of "good stuff" does Chorale count as being part of said "stuff". I'd say so. Malzberg's books are often marked by odd concepts that aren't clearly spelled out for the reader and often take a little bit of digging to figure out. Also, he often uses unconventional techniques, quirky narration, off kilter time shifts, basically the opposite of your usual straightforward heroes with ray guns and spaceships SF, which may account for why he's so unread today. This novel doesn't rank as his best, but it's certainly up there, taking a really original concept and running with it for all its worth, and using generous helpings of his dry, dark humor (a Malzberg trademark, "Galaxies" has to be one of the funniest "serious" books I've ever read). In this story, a borderline madman named Kemper has postulated that time is sort of wobbly and only by having people recreate the lives of certain influential famous people, can history and the present survive. That said, for whatever reason people take that advice to heart and after his death an institute is set up to recruit people to go back in time and basically live out the lives of famous people in history. The main character is forced to relive the life of Beethoven, who wasn't a real cheerful guy to begin with. To make it worse, he hates music, is tone deaf and is basically miserable, but he continues out of a sense of duty, following his instructions to make sure everything stays the same. What follows is Malzberg's skewering of staid thought processes and the idea that everything has to stay the same, culminating in a revolution of sorts. The point isn't explicit, but the novel is viciously funny in a dour sort of way, moving along in quick bursts of chapters as the character tries to figure out what the whole point of this is. In the end, perhaps he finds a point, but whether it's the one you expect is for you to judge. Like most of Malzberg's work it's easy enough to find used (his stuff sold decent back when it was in print, so there are plenty of copies floating around) and also like most of his work it's well worth investing your time and money to track it down and read. He might be unjustly forgotten by most of the Star Wars-raised readership of today, but it doesn't have to be that way.