2024-01-27 06:44:34
Regarding the Hay Festival that is taking place these days in Colombia, I want to recommend a book that fits perfectly with the atmosphere of books, talks, academic sessions and the vibrant culture of the world in our territory.
The first thing that caught my attention regarding this book is that the most used word in its 280 pages is: music. Music changed the life of that main character, that character that was not created or fictionalized, because he had the courage not only to live, but to narrate it to make it eternal.
This is a book of memoirs, music, medicine and madness, and also, a violent anecdote, loaded with a degree of sincerity that few would dare to reveal.
It tells the life story of James Rhodes, a boy who was born into an upper-class Jewish family in St. John’s Wood, north London. He studied at the Arnold House School, a private school, a school that also changed his life forever. There, his physical education teacher, Mr. Lee, raped and abused him for years, in a lonely room, while the other children continued studying and the other teachers continued his teaching work. Those violent and clandestine moments caused endless trauma that Rhodes managed to reveal only until he was 31 years old.
His life was not the same, he became a lonely, empty, strange child with no future. He suffered from depression, alcohol, drugs, self-harm, suicide attempts and the loneliness of psychiatric hospitals.
Until he discovered a cassette with the genius of Bach and his life changed forever, because in addition, the desire to become a musician was born, he turned to the piano and never wanted to leave.
He fell in love with a Steinway grand, met all the classical composers and performers, immersed himself powerfully in the stories within compositions of death and resilience like the Chaconne, or in lives as complex and beautiful as those of Beethoven, Schubert, Scriabin , Schumann, Ravel, Grigory Sokolov, and other geniuses.
For my part, thanks to the book, I entered into his life, I suffered it, I set it to music and I enjoyed it. Reading the book was a wonderful midnight experience, with headphones on, with considerable volume, and the symphony orchestras reaching the heart in the form of tachycardia, while I calmly enjoyed the pages.
I had never approached classical music with such vertigo. I think something was stored in me and this book was able to find it. Instrumental has more voices than any symphonic band, it is full of them. Voices of fear, loss, loneliness, death, but also courage.
But beyond talking regarding his traumas and his dangerously lonely life, Rhodes talks all the time regarding music, its power, its fury, the way we listen to it and how it might be an already part of our lives. lives, and above all, he pays a poetic and musical tribute to Bach, the musician who saved his life and brought him closer to a concept of love so similar to the sound that for him it was perfect.
If you want to read a good musical story this might be one of them. A good book and a great bet from Rey Naranjo Editores, an independent and loving national publisher. Highly recommended, because with its titles, it brings us unforgettable and frenetically powerful stories to the nightstand.
1706355660
#book #memories #music #medicine #madness
