Synopses & Reviews
Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his provincial town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan street hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.
Colum McCann is the author of the novels This Side of Brightness and Songdogs, as well as the story collections Everything in This Country Must and Fishing the Sloe-Black River. A contributor to The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, and GQ, he has been awarded a Pushcart Prize, the Rooney Prize, the Hennessy Award, the 2002 Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award, as well as being nominated as finalist to the IMPAC Prize. Born in Dublin, Ireland, he currently lives with his wife and children in New York City.
A Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired the adoration of millions, an artist whose name was a byword for genius, sex, and excess. The magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work is known, but now Colum McCann, in his most ambitious and daring novel to date, reinvents this erotically charged figure through the light he shed on the lives of those who knew him.
Boldly embellishing the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices. There is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who, banished from St. Petersburg, rescues her preternaturally talented protégé from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; Victor, a decadent Venezuelan, who revels in the hedonism of the gay celebrity set; Odile, the legendary cook, who finds love at middle age while feeding the great and their hangers-on. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the killing fields of World War II to the wild abandon of New York's gaudy eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous, real and imagined. Shoemakers, nurses, translators, and hustlers take the stage alongside Margot Fonteyn, Erik Bruhn, and Andy Warhol. At the heart of this lavish spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, ambitious, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.
Writing in ecstatic prose, as if inhabited by the spirit of his extraordinary subject, Colum McCann evokes the distinct consciousness of the man and the glittering reflection of the myth. The result is a monumental twentieth-century story of love, art, fame, and exile.
"Exuberant and exhilarating . . . A brilliant leap of imagination."San Francisco Chronicle
"The goal of a book like this is to catch the spirit of the person and his age. It's a tall order, and one that Dancer pulls off brilliantly."The Seattle Times
"A beautiful, floating novel about Nureyev's life and art."The New York Times Book Review
"Fascinating . . . A triumph of voice . . . McCann's fluid lyricism brilliantly conveys Nureyev's towering professional achievement and the wasteland of his personal life."Newsday
"Breathtaking . . . Every sentence sounds new and beautiful, no matter how often it's read."USA Today
"McCann writes as if the fate of the world depends on it. Worry not, the world is saved: Dancer is a masterpiece."Aleksandar Hemon, author of Nowhere Man
"Nureyev took a leap from Soviet Russia to Paris and the postwar New York of Andy Warhola vertiginous leap. The reader follows, entering lives lived at the opposite poles of human experience and feeling, as in childhood, the extraordinary and terrible largeness of the world: blood and dancing, massive choirs and solitary monologues. Colum McCann is a precise and uncanny listener. And so an unforgettable storyteller."John Berger, author of The Shape of a Packet
"Dancer has the wingspan of a great Russian novel, which is only fitting for an imagined life of Rudolf Nureyev. This is the book you'll want to take on a long plane ride; you'll be so seduced you'll sip the wine and eschew the dinner. And you'll admire Colum McCann for taking big chanceswar, Russia, ballet, life in three continents, the pursuit of beauty. The writing issues from a knowing and compassionate heart: hard, when necessary, as the frozen ground of wartime Leningrad; supple and liturgical as Nureyev raising Fonteyn to heaven."Frank McCourt, author of 'Tis
"Dazzling . . . an intimate portrait . . . Dancer is bigger than the dance, bigger than biography, too. . . . Relish McCann's dizzy, fascinating glimpse."The Miami Herald
"Rudolf Nureyev was an extremely complex person, yet Colum McCann has admirably captured the essence of this great man."Maria Tallchief, prima ballerina
"An engrossing portrait of a man so complex that no mere biography could possibly convey more than a sliver of his personality . . . The Nureyev who strides impatiently through its pages seems entirely convincing." Terry Teachout, The Baltimore Sun
"I finished Dancer several days ago and am still spinning. This is a beautiful book, layered with all the nuance and sweat and disciple that accompanied Nureyev's genius. In the purity of the storytelling, in its flawless narrative construction, this is prose that is itself a dance."Jeffrey Lent, author of Lost Nation
"McCann is a consummate stylist who nonetheless imbues his fiction with the cold stamp of reality."The Boston Globe
"An impressive evocation of life on three continents in the last half of the twentieth century . . . McCann's talent lies in imagining a life staged so publicly by creating the intimate lives and stories of those only watching from the wings."Houston Chronicle
"Colum McCann has written a most generous book. Compassionate and at the same time restrained in all the best ways, Dancer is suffused with both energy and grief, liberation and loss."Anne Michaels, author hFugitive Pieces
"Remarkable: What McCann imagines so beautifully is the way a hero walks through life somewhat differently from the rest of us, the mere breeze of his passing setting off a thousand ripples of change, both good and bad."Salon.com
"The melancholy, sparkle, sinew and temperament of Dancer are as great as its hero's. Colum McCann's lyrically powerful prose creates, expands, and reveals life upon life, making truth out of myth and heart out of history."Amy Bloom, author of A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You
"A vibrant, imaginative patchwork of a novel . . . a lovely showcase for McCann's fluid prose and storytelling skill."Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review
"Faithfully capturing the pathos and grim poverty of the Soviet Union at mid-century, McCann also reveals a splashy tabloid affinity for the excesses and effects of fame and notoriety. Though the focus here is narrower than that of McCann's previous works, the novel is a lovely showcase for his fluid prose and storytelling skill." Publishers Weekly
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"Both the Soviet Union of the war-torn 1940s and the displacement and hopefulness of an exile's life are perfectly evoked, and Nureyev impossible, erratic, and brilliant is a golden flame that sets everything ablaze." Library Journal
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"Only a novelist as deep, intelligent, and intuitive as Colum McCann could have written such a book. " Adrienne Miller, Esquire
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"Reading Dancer is like awakening a ghost a painfully beautiful ghost of a life that is more than a life a symbol of the hope and the hunger of our times." Orlando Sentinel
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"It is not Nureyev himself that concerns McCann as a novelist but the impact that one person can have on the lives of others. In fiction, as in life, the story of an individual is created from the stories told by those he has touched." Houston Chronicle
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"McCann has taken genuine risks. At every turn he has risen grandly to the occasion." Boston Herald
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"McCann dances Nureyev alive again..." San Antonio Express-News
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"McCann, with utterly self-assured prose and a wealth of perfectly placed detail, has breathed life into every anecdote and each pirouette." Portland Oregonian
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"Dancer is bigger than the dance, bigger than biography, too, its flights of fancy and poignancy beautifully showcased in McCann's satisfying and touching conclusion." Miami Herald
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"In his sensitivity and understanding McCann moves beyond the often clunky historical novel form to true literature." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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"Dancer is rich with voices and characters who orbit one sun: Nureyev.... Each description is an exquisite solo performance that both reveals and obscures Nureyev's fierce personality.... McCann displays a dazzling, inventive talent." USA Today
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"Dancer may well bring readers closer to the real Nureyev than any other book to date." San Francisco Chronicle
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"McCann has done an awesome amount of homework, not merely about the backstage world of ballet but also about a long list of other Nureyev-related topics ranging from life in wartime Russia to how one picks up men in gay bathhouses." Baltimore Sun
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"The goal of a book like this is to catch the spirit of the person and his age. It's a tall order, and one that Dancer pulls off brilliantly." St. Petersburg Times
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"It is glorious in every way, a gift of language to be savored." Book Sense
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"In the fictional reimagining of Dancer, McCann's fluid lyricism brilliantly conveys Nureyev's towering professional achievement and the wasteland of his personal life....Above all, the novel is a triumph of voice." Newsday
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"A beautiful, floating novel about Nureyev's life and art." The New York Times Book Review
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"A monumental life...Stylistically, Dancer is a leap itself." Los Angeles Times
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"The goal of a book like this is to catch the spirit of the person and his age. It's a tall order, and one that Dancer pulls off brilliantly." The Seattle Times
Synopsis
Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts of Rudolf Nureyev's life, McCann tells the story of a famous dancer through a chorus of voices. Spanning four decades and many worlds, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous. The result is a monumental story of love, art, and exile.
Synopsis
From the acclaimed author of
This Side of Brightness, the epic life and times of Rudolf Nureyev, reimagined in a dazzlingly inventive masterpiece published to coincide with the tenth anniversary of Nureyev's death
A Russian peasant who became an international legend, a Cold War exile who inspired millions, an artist whose name stood for genius, sex, and excess the magnificence of Rudolf Nureyev's life and work are known, but now Colum McCann, in his most daring novel yet, reinvents this erotically charged figure through the light he cast on those who knew him. Taking his inspiration from the biographical facts, McCann tells the story through a chorus of voices: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protege from the stunted life of his town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set.
Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of Stalingrad to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, Margot Fonteyn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection. In ecstatic prose, McCann evokes the distinct consciousness of the man and the glittering reflection of the myth. The result is a monumental story of love, art, and exile.
Synopsis
Taking his inspiration from biographical facts, novelist Colum McCann tells the erotically charged story of the Russian dancer Rudolf Nureyev through the cast of those who knew him: there is Anna Vasileva, Rudi's first ballet teacher, who rescues her protégé from the stunted life of his provincial town; Yulia, whose sexual and artistic ambitions are thwarted by her Soviet-sanctioned marriage; and Victor, the Venezuelan street hustler, who reveals the lurid underside of the gay celebrity set. Spanning four decades and many worlds, from the horrors of the Second World War to the wild abandon of New York in the eighties, Dancer is peopled by a large cast of characters, obscure and famous: doormen and shoemakers, nurses and translators, Margot Fonteyn, Eric Bruhn and John Lennon. And at the heart of the spectacle stands the artist himself, willful, lustful, and driven by a never-to-be-met need for perfection.
About the Author
Colum McCann is the author of the novels This Side of Brightness and Songdogs, as well as two critically acclaimed story collections. He has received a Pushcart Prize, been an IMPAC finalist, and was named the first winner of the Grace Kelly Memorial Foundation Award and the Princess Grace Memorial Literary Award. A contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and GQ, he lives in New York City.
Reading Group Guide
1. The novel is told from a variety of viewpoints, from close first-person testimony to diary entries, from the documentary-like lens of the opening pages to the second-person imprecations of Nureyevs time in Leningrad to the intimate third-person tales of street hustler Victor Pareci or cobbler Tom Ashworth. Why do you think the story of Rudolph Nureyev is told by so many people other than Rudolph Nureyev? Which voices feel more fully-realized to you than others, and why?
2. The objects thrown on stage following Nureyevs performance; the details of the Russian soldiers marching in the snow; Nureyevs various purchases; the gifts he brings back to his family and friends in the U.S.S.R.; the items of his life being auctioned off. What is the significance of lists in the novel?
3. What is the use and larger implications of the term “former history” at the bottom of page 75.
4. Discuss the novels intermittent use of the second-person voice. What is implicit in its direction and command? What sort of commentary does it indirectly offer on the ideas of Celebrity or History?
5. The physicality of dance is often scrupulously, even tenaciously rendered throughout the novel. In addition, great care is given to the wording invoked in describing dance, from precise craft and medical terminology to the sound of turning joints or the rendered power of eye-contact. On page 91, a narrator turns intentionally vague when she says that Nureyev “was using something beyond his body.” What does such a phrase say about Nureyev as an artist? What does it say about Yulia as an observer?
6. For a book so concerned with the movement of history and personal history, there are also intense moments of stop-time. Think of Rudi pausing in mid-air. Think of the phrase uttered on the top of page 149: “Its our function in life to make moments durable.” Is this preservation of beauty, this preservation of the immediate the purpose of Art? What exactly is preserved by creating beauty, and furthermore, is history then a record of such preservation?
7. “Poverty lust sickness envy and hope, he said again. It has survived them all.” This is said of the last remaining piece of family china, a saucer dish, given to Yulia by her dying father. How is the saucer a symbol for other things in Dancer?
8. The only portions of the novel narrated by Nureyev are told in diary-like entries, and while the entries can be fairly lengthy and/or specific, none of them express how the man thinks or feels. Why do you think we are held at a remove from Nureyev, both in his own portion and by dint through all the other portions of the novel?
9. Explain the role of Victor Parecis section in the larger scheme of the book; also, in Nureyevs life. Think of the comparison made between Victor and Rudi on page 235, the two men being the edge of the coin.
10. How is violence a form of affection in the novel? Are the motivations to harm the same as those to love?
11. Dancer is a novel of communication. The communication of art, performance, feeling. Likewise, its a novel of communication communicated to the reader by voices. What does one learn from Nureyevs life by looking at it through the lens of the communicated? How does it alter or expand ones notion of novelwriting. What does it say about the art of storytelling? Think back to the story of the maimed soldier told in the middle of page 135, or the brief metaphor of the chess game used in the middle of page 327.