Resumo de The Time Of Our Singing

The Time of Our Singing.

By Powers, Richard.
Jan. 2003. 640p. Farrar, $28

Reviewed by Jenny Southlynn

Spanning a period from 1939 to the present, Richard Powers remarkable new book,
The Time of Our Singing, delves with a Janusian eye into history, through
World War II and Vietnam to present time; its radar tracking racism, scientific
theories of time, music?s evolution and the emotional lives of three
generations of one family profoundly effected by it all.

The young couple meets at the Washington mall in 1939 at the epochal performance of
Marian Anderson, a world-class African American singer whose song, at the foot
of the Washington monument, is ultimately ironic. It is there
David Strom, a white German/Jewish immigrant, meets Delia Daley, a classically
trained singer, an African American doctor?s daughter from Philadelphia. An unusual connection is made when the pair
discover a lost boy in the crowd and assist the child in finding his family. It
was there and then the two fall in love, but the path to their love was
destiny.

David and Delia marry and produce three fine children Joseph, Jonah and Ruth.
Needless to say the issue of mixed race enters the tale before it?s begun and
saturates it throughout. While David?s family are lost to the Nazi?s during the
war, Delia?s own family retreat when the young couple decide they will raise
their offspring "beyond race".

The children are an amazing combination, the best of both parents. Exceptional,
all three seem to have music in their blood. The family, who spend evenings
immersed in music soon realize that young Jonah is a prodigy with the voice of
an angle. His brother Joseph, who is devoted to his older sibling, learns to
accompany him on piano. The boys are home-schooled until it becomes evident
that Jonah will suffer unless his gift is properly trained. Off to private
school he goes with Joseph tagging along for support, flying uncertainly on his
bother?s coattails, while little Ruth feels abandoned by both of her siblings.

The story is tragic on a grand scale, the sense of loss profound. The boys
having lived under the protective aura of their parents are not prepared for
the ravages of the world, steeped in anti-Semitism, racism and hatred. But, the
boys learn quickly and spend their youth hiding their traumas to protect their
naive parents.

Only Ruth grows to hate the life and what she sees as the failing of her
parents to deal with reality. "The bird and the fish can fall in love, but
where can they make their nest?" The story unfolds as each of the Strom
children suffer the loss of their mother, struggle in search of identity and
create what they can of a life. Joseph, who narrates the story, tells the sad
tale of living in his brother?s shadow and of Ruth?s forays into the militant
world of the Black Panther party. It?s all here, everything from the death of
Martin Luther King Jr. to the beating of Rodney King and the Million Man March.
The book reaches across time and back again, another metaphor simultaneously
conveyed to readers by the physicist David Strom, whose preoccupation with the
subject prevents him from seeing the lives of his children now.

The book is artfully written with music as a central metaphor and emotional
anchor. Powers literally sings the heart-- from graceful passages of musical
evenings spent with the Storm family singing "Crazed Quotations" to
the hymns of mourning after Delia?s tragic death in a fire. Powers is so
articulate even a musical novice will feel the emotive power of song throughout
this amazing novel-- songs of love, rage, triumph, passion, courage and loss--
songs ringing in the hearts seasons while heralding the turning points of
history.

It?s a complex piece of literary architecture that weaves elements of music,
history, and time, like a chrysalis spinning out from the foundation of the
Storm family, giving birth to itself in a surprising end thaat is the books own
beginning.

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