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Andrea Stoeckel's Reviews > The Education of Delhomme
The Education of Delhomme
by
by
"Like the quartz I found by the river,I experienced my own turbulent transformation. But that education has forged my soul into a beautiful piece of quartz."
Beaulieu Delhomme,son of a rural country doctor was bullied into Medical School,a place he soon knew wasn't for him. It took his father's death before he began his apprenticeship as a piano tuner, learning how changeable the world is and how compromise makes everything better.
In the middle of the attempted revolution from the French Monarchy, Delhomme is hired by Frederick Chopin whose body of musical work was changing the way piano music was performed. With his close friendship with Chopin, Delhomme's provincial mindset is educated by Chopin's world: Berlioz, George Sand, and many others become well known to him, even if he doesn't agree with them.
All he wants to do is make enough money to marry Lili. Because of that, he gets entrapped in working for a "spy" whose allegiance is only himself. Will Delhomme break free and believe he can be himself? And how does that affect his stand in the community?
Author Mary Burkehalter has taken a little known part of French history and played it well through the eyes of real people. However, the writing is difficult to follow at times. I was struck with the loving descriptions of pianos and tuning. The artists of the time were overlooked. However, those in power easily used them for their own means. This made me uncomfortable enough to lose the story line and detracted from the book. It's a good book, but sometimes hard to follow.⅘
[disclaimer: I received this book as part of #Francebooktours. I chose to read and review it]
https://francebooktours.com/2020/07/1...
Beaulieu Delhomme,son of a rural country doctor was bullied into Medical School,a place he soon knew wasn't for him. It took his father's death before he began his apprenticeship as a piano tuner, learning how changeable the world is and how compromise makes everything better.
In the middle of the attempted revolution from the French Monarchy, Delhomme is hired by Frederick Chopin whose body of musical work was changing the way piano music was performed. With his close friendship with Chopin, Delhomme's provincial mindset is educated by Chopin's world: Berlioz, George Sand, and many others become well known to him, even if he doesn't agree with them.
All he wants to do is make enough money to marry Lili. Because of that, he gets entrapped in working for a "spy" whose allegiance is only himself. Will Delhomme break free and believe he can be himself? And how does that affect his stand in the community?
Author Mary Burkehalter has taken a little known part of French history and played it well through the eyes of real people. However, the writing is difficult to follow at times. I was struck with the loving descriptions of pianos and tuning. The artists of the time were overlooked. However, those in power easily used them for their own means. This made me uncomfortable enough to lose the story line and detracted from the book. It's a good book, but sometimes hard to follow.⅘
[disclaimer: I received this book as part of #Francebooktours. I chose to read and review it]
https://francebooktours.com/2020/07/1...
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You say about Vidocq "a "spy" whose allegiance is only himself." Does it mean that only Delhomme was working for him? Actually Vidocq started the very first detective agency, and he had a huge network of people working for him. But maybe I didn't understand your sentence.
I'm curious, what passages did you find difficult to follow?