Describe your latest work. When I started working on Plant-Thinking in 2008, I had no idea that the project would turn out to be as broad as it did....
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cariola119, November 29, 2009 (view all comments by cariola119)
Is it possible for Rose Tremain to write a BAD book? From my experience so far, the answer would have to be "No." Music and Silence is absolutely exquisite. Tremain gets just right the mix of opulence and stringency, melancholy and joy, hope and despair that war with one another in the 17th century court of King Chistian of Denmark. All of her characters may not be likeable (the selfish Kristin, for one, and Tillson's second wife Mordalena, for another); but each one is unique and fascinating in his or her own right. What is Music and Silence about? The disappointment of love--and the perseverance of love. The power of art and the power of words. Family dynamics that can almost destroy its members yet somehow manages to pull them together. The influence of the past and the persistence of memory. And so much more. To give you any more details, if you haven't read this beautiful novel, would spoil the experience. Highly recommended!
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todd budden, July 31, 2008 (view all comments by todd budden)
the story really pulls you along as you go from one group of characters to the next (about four groups in all) and how they are woven together. one character is known as "the almost queen" after her husband, the king, tells her that she can no longer be his queen. beauty of a book. i would also highly recommend "Restoration" from the same author.
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Product details
512 pages
Washington Square Press -
English9780743418263
Reviews:
"Synopsis"
by Netread,
Set in seventeenth-century Denmark, Rose Tremain's dazzling, prize-winning tale is a pungently atmospheric, richly provocative, and masterfully orchestrated romance of point and counterpoint: loyalty and deception...tenderness and violence...community and alienation...peace and conflict...Music & Silence.
Peter Claire is an English lutenist summoned to Denmark to join King Christian IV's royal orchestra. Designated the king's "Angel" because of the purity of his physical beauty, Peter falls helplessly in love with the lovely companion of Queen Kirsten, the king's adulterous wife. The young musician finds himself dangerously torn between loyalties, ensnared in the deep-seated unrest of a royal court where the forces of good and evil, of harmony and dissonance, are ensconced in a battle to the death.
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