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alanaleigh's review
5.0
I must say, I was rather pleased with The Song Is You. It's not that I didn't expect to enjoy this, because I did, but I also expected to feel like it was missing a small something. That's how I felt about Prague and The Egyptologist, both works that I enjoyed, but ultimately finished feeling a teensy bit dissatisfied (and also feeling like they went on just a touch too long). No matter what, though, I still really enjoy Phillips' writing style -- which is why I keep reading his stuff. When LibraryThing listed The Song Is You as an early reviewer's option for the monthly books they offer for free, I threw my hat into the ring and snagged a copy. (Oddly enough, the day I received it in the mail, my friend who gets free books via a literary site that he runs, also offered me a copy, which I passed along to another friend.)
I began reading this without the faintest idea of the plot, beyond a vague knowledge that it must have something to do with music and a relationship. The title supplied me with the music idea and the cover (featuring a young man and a young woman) suggested the relationship bit. That's it. So perhaps I shouldn't summarize the plot, but suggest that you, too, should take a chance on this and just read and fall into it. Perhaps, but I won't. Instead, I'll provide a hazy sketch, because really, the plot is a bit hazy, too -- in a good way. Our main character is named Julian and the book focuses on his relationship to music in his life, and his relationships with two other women. To a great degree, the novel portrays people whose relationship to music can often be seen as a means of pushing back on actual human interactions and how music can be more than just the background soundtrack. The novel starts with a scene involving Julian's father at a Billie Holiday concert. Sure, this was the concert where his future wife and mother of his children was seated beside him, but above all, the siren and her music meant so much that it seems to overpower even the events set into motion on that night. Julian is instilled with a great respect for music, raised by a widowed father alongside an older and antisocial brother. He marries, he has a child, that child tragically dies, and his marriage essentially ends, though the final divorce decree has not yet come down. And then Julian is introduced to a new siren, an Irish redhead whose fame is growing, and they become involved in an intricate dance of longing for connection.
The book jacket calls one's attention to the fact that Phillips is a writer for people who both think and feel. And we all know that "think" can often mean "overthink." This particular book is a beautiful portrayal of characters who perhaps aren't looking for romance and meaning, but once it becomes an option, they are hungry to have it, but constantly overthinking in their attempts to create something perfect and potentially lasting.
I shall certainly be recommending this novel to those who have previously enjoyed Phillips' work... and to those who were not perhaps won over, I shall urge them to give it another shot with this, because I think Phillips has really done something remarkable here. The novel shows incredible growth, away from the somewhat arrogant youth of Prague, and while there is a certain indulgence to the melancholy of romance here, the emotions feel real and true. An excellent work, and I shall continue reading whatever Phillips puts out next.
I began reading this without the faintest idea of the plot, beyond a vague knowledge that it must have something to do with music and a relationship. The title supplied me with the music idea and the cover (featuring a young man and a young woman) suggested the relationship bit. That's it. So perhaps I shouldn't summarize the plot, but suggest that you, too, should take a chance on this and just read and fall into it. Perhaps, but I won't. Instead, I'll provide a hazy sketch, because really, the plot is a bit hazy, too -- in a good way. Our main character is named Julian and the book focuses on his relationship to music in his life, and his relationships with two other women. To a great degree, the novel portrays people whose relationship to music can often be seen as a means of pushing back on actual human interactions and how music can be more than just the background soundtrack. The novel starts with a scene involving Julian's father at a Billie Holiday concert. Sure, this was the concert where his future wife and mother of his children was seated beside him, but above all, the siren and her music meant so much that it seems to overpower even the events set into motion on that night. Julian is instilled with a great respect for music, raised by a widowed father alongside an older and antisocial brother. He marries, he has a child, that child tragically dies, and his marriage essentially ends, though the final divorce decree has not yet come down. And then Julian is introduced to a new siren, an Irish redhead whose fame is growing, and they become involved in an intricate dance of longing for connection.
The book jacket calls one's attention to the fact that Phillips is a writer for people who both think and feel. And we all know that "think" can often mean "overthink." This particular book is a beautiful portrayal of characters who perhaps aren't looking for romance and meaning, but once it becomes an option, they are hungry to have it, but constantly overthinking in their attempts to create something perfect and potentially lasting.
I shall certainly be recommending this novel to those who have previously enjoyed Phillips' work... and to those who were not perhaps won over, I shall urge them to give it another shot with this, because I think Phillips has really done something remarkable here. The novel shows incredible growth, away from the somewhat arrogant youth of Prague, and while there is a certain indulgence to the melancholy of romance here, the emotions feel real and true. An excellent work, and I shall continue reading whatever Phillips puts out next.
jervonyc's review
3.0
There is a tremendous amount to like in this book - I'm a huge fan of "The Egyptologist" and the prose is just as exquisite as I'd hoped (and quite a lot of its passages have been Highlighted in my Kindle), and the author's understanding of music's visceral effect on its listeners is absolutely spot-on. And certainly the pains and pangs of unrequited affections, the longing, the fear, the panic, the loneliness, the excitement, the *rush*, the serendipity of crossed and un-crossed paths - these are all beautifully described and deeply moving.
But. There's some stuff in this book that's seriously creepy, yet which is handled in a very stereotypical rom-com sort of way, which is off-putting to say the least; and there's also some stuff in this book that's maddeningly frustrating (at one point I finished one chapter, read the first sentence of the following chapter and immediately and quite literally slammed the cover of the Kindle closed, as I refused to believe what I'd just read); and meanwhile there's a whole separate backstory to the main male character that's heartbreaking and personally affecting (as I also have a two-year-old son) which completely flies in the face of everything else that the author is trying to do.
Regarding the creepy stuff alluded to in the previous paragraph - there's a minor but annoying side-story involving a (possibly sleazy?) cop that doesn't end up going anywhere, which is a mixed blessing because on the one hand it added a layer of distracting and unnecessary tension; and yet, now that I've finished the book, the male lead's actions are SUPER CREEPY, and I can't get over it, and there should've been SOME resolution on that angle.
I dunno. I'm deeply conflicted. I think this book might've been more successful had the author not felt compelled to keep so many spinning plates going at once. The book works best when it's telling its main story - and the good parts are so, so good - but there's also quite a lot of filler that ends up dulling the intended impact.
But. There's some stuff in this book that's seriously creepy, yet which is handled in a very stereotypical rom-com sort of way, which is off-putting to say the least; and there's also some stuff in this book that's maddeningly frustrating (at one point I finished one chapter, read the first sentence of the following chapter and immediately and quite literally slammed the cover of the Kindle closed, as I refused to believe what I'd just read); and meanwhile there's a whole separate backstory to the main male character that's heartbreaking and personally affecting (as I also have a two-year-old son) which completely flies in the face of everything else that the author is trying to do.
Regarding the creepy stuff alluded to in the previous paragraph - there's a minor but annoying side-story involving a (possibly sleazy?) cop that doesn't end up going anywhere, which is a mixed blessing because on the one hand it added a layer of distracting and unnecessary tension; and yet, now that I've finished the book, the male lead's actions are SUPER CREEPY, and I can't get over it, and there should've been SOME resolution on that angle.
I dunno. I'm deeply conflicted. I think this book might've been more successful had the author not felt compelled to keep so many spinning plates going at once. The book works best when it's telling its main story - and the good parts are so, so good - but there's also quite a lot of filler that ends up dulling the intended impact.
thewilyfilipino's review against another edition
3.0
No, it's not a proper review (I leave that up to the experts), but more of an extended observation, which can perhaps be best illustrated with an example of Arthur Phillips' prose, with our protagonist Julian listening to his Walkman in the Manhattan twilight:
It's eloquent stuff, yes, all this aching, the blunt and concise beauty of a phrase like "this quake of joy." And yes, there are small gems like these scattered throughout the novel. But see, it's that word "moodicidal" that's, well, moodicidal. All this rapture, then a tiny thud, as if our appealingly lovelorn but not completely sympathetic protagonist -- the sort of person who would craft a word like "moodicidal" as a form of emotional self-defense, if that makes any sense -- had insinuated himself into the narration. A private grief made more palatable, perhaps, pulled to the surface, manifested and masquerading as verbal artifice. Because after all, the emotional core of The Song Is You is loss (the death of a child, a divorce), its depths momentarily excavated, dragged up to the light, by the fortuitous turn of the iPod's click wheel.
The thing is -- and this is where my disappointment with the novel lies -- The Song Is You is not really about music itself. Music is the milieu, sure -- rehearsal rooms, bars, groupies, message boards, drummers storming off in a fit, the privations of a tour. That is, it's not about music's capacity to transport, though it's actually music's transcendent power that Phillips beautifully captures in the lovely story (about his father and Billie Holiday) that bookends the novel -- the prologue, in fact, was what convinced me to buy the book in the first place -- but the rest of the novel's events simply pale in comparison.
The novel's narrative of pursuit seems to undercut the sublime quality of the prologue. Its cleverness as a whole -- one might cite "moodicidal" again, at this juncture -- deflates. There's this tension throughout that Phillips balances nimbly: is it a story about stalker and stalked, hunter and quarry... or a raging, unrequited love, of sorts? Well, it's both, kind of -- though not in such predatory terms. Think of the novel's proceedings as a more benign, albeit uncomfortable, pursuit. It's part-Chungking Express (a very good thing), part-Amelie (a not so good thing); these cinematic comparisons are apt, as what fuels the narrative -– a series of missed connections, as it were, between Julian and a singer -– is similarly about physical intimacy deferred. As another American songwriter (Tom Waits) once said, "The obsession's in the chasin' and not the apprehendin' / The pursuit, you see, and never the arrest."
The novel doesn't quite fulfill the promise that the Oscar Hammerstein III song of the title refers to:
What drives the singer crazy -- and I will always have Frank Sinatra in my head when I think of the song -- isn't how his love-object is the physical embodiment of the music, but (again) his longing that must be kept hidden and silent, kept only to himself. Music does not work in the same way that it functions in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, for instance, where the main character's musical obsessions and mix tapes are substitutes for his inability to communicate.
In contrast, Phillips' characters are studiously hyperarticulate, and music, in its general sense, is merely pushed to the background. Perhaps a movie version, paradoxically enough -- freed from the written word and forced to rely on the visual and aural -- will pare the events down to something closer to a musical essence.
...and he had the sensation that he might never be so happy again as long as he lived. This quake of joy, inspiring and crippling, was longing, but longing for what? True love? A wife? Wealth? Music was not so specific as that. "Love" was in most of these potent songs, of course, but they — the music, the light, the season — implied more than this, because, treacherously, Julian was swelling only with longing for longing. He felt his nerves open and turn to the world like sunflowers on the beat, but this desire could not achieve release; his body strained forward, but independent of any goal, though he did not know it for many years to come, until he proved it.
Because years later, when he had captured all that — love, wife, home, success, child — still he longed, just the same, when he listened to those same songs, now on a portable CD player, easily repeated without the moodicidal interruption of rewinding (turning spindles wheezing as batteries failed). He felt it all again. He pressed Play and longed still.
It's eloquent stuff, yes, all this aching, the blunt and concise beauty of a phrase like "this quake of joy." And yes, there are small gems like these scattered throughout the novel. But see, it's that word "moodicidal" that's, well, moodicidal. All this rapture, then a tiny thud, as if our appealingly lovelorn but not completely sympathetic protagonist -- the sort of person who would craft a word like "moodicidal" as a form of emotional self-defense, if that makes any sense -- had insinuated himself into the narration. A private grief made more palatable, perhaps, pulled to the surface, manifested and masquerading as verbal artifice. Because after all, the emotional core of The Song Is You is loss (the death of a child, a divorce), its depths momentarily excavated, dragged up to the light, by the fortuitous turn of the iPod's click wheel.
The thing is -- and this is where my disappointment with the novel lies -- The Song Is You is not really about music itself. Music is the milieu, sure -- rehearsal rooms, bars, groupies, message boards, drummers storming off in a fit, the privations of a tour. That is, it's not about music's capacity to transport, though it's actually music's transcendent power that Phillips beautifully captures in the lovely story (about his father and Billie Holiday) that bookends the novel -- the prologue, in fact, was what convinced me to buy the book in the first place -- but the rest of the novel's events simply pale in comparison.
The novel's narrative of pursuit seems to undercut the sublime quality of the prologue. Its cleverness as a whole -- one might cite "moodicidal" again, at this juncture -- deflates. There's this tension throughout that Phillips balances nimbly: is it a story about stalker and stalked, hunter and quarry... or a raging, unrequited love, of sorts? Well, it's both, kind of -- though not in such predatory terms. Think of the novel's proceedings as a more benign, albeit uncomfortable, pursuit. It's part-Chungking Express (a very good thing), part-Amelie (a not so good thing); these cinematic comparisons are apt, as what fuels the narrative -– a series of missed connections, as it were, between Julian and a singer -– is similarly about physical intimacy deferred. As another American songwriter (Tom Waits) once said, "The obsession's in the chasin' and not the apprehendin' / The pursuit, you see, and never the arrest."
The novel doesn't quite fulfill the promise that the Oscar Hammerstein III song of the title refers to:
I alone have heard this lovely strain,
I alone have heard this glad refrain:
Must it be forever inside of me,
Why can't I let it go,
Why can't I let you know,
Why can't I let you know the song
My heart would sing?
What drives the singer crazy -- and I will always have Frank Sinatra in my head when I think of the song -- isn't how his love-object is the physical embodiment of the music, but (again) his longing that must be kept hidden and silent, kept only to himself. Music does not work in the same way that it functions in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, for instance, where the main character's musical obsessions and mix tapes are substitutes for his inability to communicate.
In contrast, Phillips' characters are studiously hyperarticulate, and music, in its general sense, is merely pushed to the background. Perhaps a movie version, paradoxically enough -- freed from the written word and forced to rely on the visual and aural -- will pare the events down to something closer to a musical essence.
queenie_nyc's review
1.0
As soon as the plot turned into a creepy love story about a stalker and his (apparently eager to be stalked) stalkee, I lost interest.
heritage's review
3.0
A recently separated, middle-aged director, for whom music plays a big part in his life, hears a young Irish singer performing in a local bar one night. This sets off a sequence of events that, while merely helpful and somewhat disinterested at the start, grow in boldness as their flirting escalates, using all forms of technology and communication available in our 21st century.
I don't normally read novels where romance plays a big role, but I'm a big fan of Arthur Phillips' novel "Prague", so I make an effort to see what he's up to. Also, this novel isn't a straight out Romance novel, it just happens to deal with the subject. Including all the Romance movies I've ever seen, I have to say the approach Phillips uses in this story is unique and refreshing. I have never seen such a flirty, cat-and-mouse relationship before--and one that finally acknowledges people today have the internet, cell phones, discussion forums, websites, etc.
It's interesting to look at the way the relationship develops in this novel to see how people today are using technology to pursue each other from a safe distance, especially when they have emotional scars and insecurities to hide. It also highlights the misinterpretations that can result, often to comedic effect or thought-provoking self-examination on the part of the characters. A few of the incidents left me a scratching my head as to whether people would really go that far, but the story also works well as a hyperbole in those situations.
Music is also another big factor, and how it affects our emotions and memories--even how it can shape our lives. Most people aren't as interested in music as these two characters are, but it's nice to see their pure love for music--as opposed to love of media-hyped-corporate-controlled-pop that we see so much of in high schools and on MTV.
The bulk of the story is told through the eyes of Julian, the middle-aged man. However, we do get points of view through Cait, the singer, as well as Julian's wife and his older brother. Although the protagonist is fairly interesting to follow around, it's the sass of Cait and the condescending brilliance of Julian's brother, Aidan, that really make the characters memorable.
That should be enough for a four-star rating, and typically it would get it from me. However, the narrative style Phillips chooses is vastly overblown. This novel has relatively few events, so the author chooses to overwrite most sentences. I'm okay with a weighty narrative for weighty material. I can enjoy the expansive, verbose narrative of Philip Roth and the detailed, interjecting style of Gore Vidal. But those guys know how to master it where I feel Phillips was just trying to appear sophisticated and add length. I think an approach more like Nick Hornby would have suited the material better--and earning it a justifiable four-star rating.
The only other thing that bothered me is that Phillips seems to be targeting a certain segment of readers: people who love all things Apple. The word "iPod" appears 53 times (according to my software's search feature). I think the term "MP3 player" would have been more appropriate and less pretentious...unless you're trying to piggy-back off of someone else.
This novel has apparently been optioned as a film. If done by a competent, character-focused director who likes music and technology, this could be a rare case where the movie is better than the novel. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this novel--it is indeed a fine, well-crafted story--I just want people to be prepared for what they get.
I don't normally read novels where romance plays a big role, but I'm a big fan of Arthur Phillips' novel "Prague", so I make an effort to see what he's up to. Also, this novel isn't a straight out Romance novel, it just happens to deal with the subject. Including all the Romance movies I've ever seen, I have to say the approach Phillips uses in this story is unique and refreshing. I have never seen such a flirty, cat-and-mouse relationship before--and one that finally acknowledges people today have the internet, cell phones, discussion forums, websites, etc.
It's interesting to look at the way the relationship develops in this novel to see how people today are using technology to pursue each other from a safe distance, especially when they have emotional scars and insecurities to hide. It also highlights the misinterpretations that can result, often to comedic effect or thought-provoking self-examination on the part of the characters. A few of the incidents left me a scratching my head as to whether people would really go that far, but the story also works well as a hyperbole in those situations.
Music is also another big factor, and how it affects our emotions and memories--even how it can shape our lives. Most people aren't as interested in music as these two characters are, but it's nice to see their pure love for music--as opposed to love of media-hyped-corporate-controlled-pop that we see so much of in high schools and on MTV.
The bulk of the story is told through the eyes of Julian, the middle-aged man. However, we do get points of view through Cait, the singer, as well as Julian's wife and his older brother. Although the protagonist is fairly interesting to follow around, it's the sass of Cait and the condescending brilliance of Julian's brother, Aidan, that really make the characters memorable.
That should be enough for a four-star rating, and typically it would get it from me. However, the narrative style Phillips chooses is vastly overblown. This novel has relatively few events, so the author chooses to overwrite most sentences. I'm okay with a weighty narrative for weighty material. I can enjoy the expansive, verbose narrative of Philip Roth and the detailed, interjecting style of Gore Vidal. But those guys know how to master it where I feel Phillips was just trying to appear sophisticated and add length. I think an approach more like Nick Hornby would have suited the material better--and earning it a justifiable four-star rating.
The only other thing that bothered me is that Phillips seems to be targeting a certain segment of readers: people who love all things Apple. The word "iPod" appears 53 times (according to my software's search feature). I think the term "MP3 player" would have been more appropriate and less pretentious...unless you're trying to piggy-back off of someone else.
This novel has apparently been optioned as a film. If done by a competent, character-focused director who likes music and technology, this could be a rare case where the movie is better than the novel. I don't want to discourage anyone from reading this novel--it is indeed a fine, well-crafted story--I just want people to be prepared for what they get.
jonbrammer's review
2.0
I thought that this would be a Nick Hornby-esque meditation on music and relationships by someone who actually likes music, but here we have only a perfunctory taste of what the music mentioned in this book actually sounds like. We are presented with a live recording of Billie Holiday singing "I Cover the Waterfront", and the narrator's father's obsession with the song and memories associated with it, to show us how music and love are entwined with obsession. Or something. None of it is very convincing, especially the fact that the narrator, Julian Donahue, and an up-and-coming rock singer, Cait O'Dwyer, have a very strange and compulsive relationship based on nothing more on some drawings Julian left for Cait on some bar coasters. The lyrics to Cait's songs are not very good, and Julian seems to listen to nothing else on his iPod, which leaves his love of music in question. Also, no spoilers, but our hero Julian also turns out to be a weird, selfish dick in the end. I don't recommend this one. Cheers.
kristennd's review
3.0
I probably would have enjoyed this more if I were a music fan. That at least would be something to relate to. The characters weren't particularly likable nor realistic, and I need at least one of the two. I did really like all of the stories of his parents, even the music parts. Both parts of the ending were disappointing -- how his relationship with each woman is resolved. Not disappointing as in I wished for something better so much as just "what a horrible decision; who would really do that?" The figurative language tended to pile up into these logjammed multi-metaphor paragraphs, and a couple sentences were confusing enough to be editing errors, but most of the writing was vivid. I just couldn't care for what he was writing about.
jasonfurman's review
5.0
I think this is Arthur Phillips best novel (although I haven't read Prague). It is a perfectly written and plotted story about middle-aged man obsessed with a younger singer, who also appears obsessed with him. But they keep passing it in the most glancing of manners. Reading it through the lens of the unreliable narrators in Phillips' earlier books made it more interesting.
shelfimprovement's review
2.0
I read the gorgeously written prologue at the bookstore, and was convinced that it was well worth the $10.05 I'd pay with my employee discount. Boy, was I wrong.
I have to say, skimming through the reviews that I'm a little bit surprised by the comments. Am I the only one who didn't enjoy the prose in this book? I found the vast majority of Phillips' sentences to be poorly constructed. Half of them ended in a place so far removed from the beginning of the sentence that I had to read them twice in order to make sense of them. Dear Mr. Phillips: enough with the commas.
The end result is Julian, a completely uninteresting character with no emotional depth -- it was impossible to empathize with him in any way. Phillips attempts to use music to make the emotional connections, in a way reminiscent of High Fidelity, and it was hard not to picture John Cusack as Julian. However, the emotional connections that Phillips and Julian have with the music simply do not find their way off the page. I barely sludged my way through fifty pages of this atrocity before deciding I couldn't handle him anymore.
I have to say, skimming through the reviews that I'm a little bit surprised by the comments. Am I the only one who didn't enjoy the prose in this book? I found the vast majority of Phillips' sentences to be poorly constructed. Half of them ended in a place so far removed from the beginning of the sentence that I had to read them twice in order to make sense of them. Dear Mr. Phillips: enough with the commas.
The end result is Julian, a completely uninteresting character with no emotional depth -- it was impossible to empathize with him in any way. Phillips attempts to use music to make the emotional connections, in a way reminiscent of High Fidelity, and it was hard not to picture John Cusack as Julian. However, the emotional connections that Phillips and Julian have with the music simply do not find their way off the page. I barely sludged my way through fifty pages of this atrocity before deciding I couldn't handle him anymore.