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ridgewaygirl 's review for:
White Tears
by Hari Kunzru
When you listen to an old record, there can be no illusion that you are present at a performance. You are listening through a gray drizzle of static, a sound like rain. You can never forget how far away you are. You always hear it, the sound of distance in time.
I didn't want to read this book. Two dudebros meet at a prestigious university and through their shared love of old school methods of recording music and their authentic love of the blues, open a recording studio and do well for themselves. Which is, I discovered to my delight, not actually what happens. Yes, there are two dudebros, wealthy, out-going Carter and passive, detail-oriented Seth. They do become friends in college and, after graduation, they do move to New York and create a recording studio, which specializes in using old equipment for a more authentic sound. But there's more at work here. Seth and Carter aren't really friends. Seth is Carter's sidekick, the faithful friend who tags along and who does the actual work. Carter is wealthy, of the kind of wealthy that can buy himself a recording studio, fill it with obscure and expensive equipment and then run that studio badly, without having to worry about paying the bills. He's wealthy enough to become a collector of old, hard to find blues recordings and to allow that hobby to fill up his time.
Seth spends a lot of his time wandering around the city, recording the ambient sounds. He records a small segment of a song sung by a man leaving a chess match and that piece of music becomes the basis for a recording that Carter and Seth made, intended to sound like it had been made in the 1920s. That recording sets off something much deeper than either man are prepared to handle.
There's a lot addressed here, from classicism to the appropriation of black culture, but Hari Kunzru's skillful handling allows him to hit these issues hard, while never sacrificing the forward momentum of the story. The last third of the novel is relentless and frightening, with every thread and character trait developed in the opening chapters bearing fruit in the final ones. This is a brilliant book that deserves a wide readership.
I didn't want to read this book. Two dudebros meet at a prestigious university and through their shared love of old school methods of recording music and their authentic love of the blues, open a recording studio and do well for themselves. Which is, I discovered to my delight, not actually what happens. Yes, there are two dudebros, wealthy, out-going Carter and passive, detail-oriented Seth. They do become friends in college and, after graduation, they do move to New York and create a recording studio, which specializes in using old equipment for a more authentic sound. But there's more at work here. Seth and Carter aren't really friends. Seth is Carter's sidekick, the faithful friend who tags along and who does the actual work. Carter is wealthy, of the kind of wealthy that can buy himself a recording studio, fill it with obscure and expensive equipment and then run that studio badly, without having to worry about paying the bills. He's wealthy enough to become a collector of old, hard to find blues recordings and to allow that hobby to fill up his time.
Seth spends a lot of his time wandering around the city, recording the ambient sounds. He records a small segment of a song sung by a man leaving a chess match and that piece of music becomes the basis for a recording that Carter and Seth made, intended to sound like it had been made in the 1920s. That recording sets off something much deeper than either man are prepared to handle.
There's a lot addressed here, from classicism to the appropriation of black culture, but Hari Kunzru's skillful handling allows him to hit these issues hard, while never sacrificing the forward momentum of the story. The last third of the novel is relentless and frightening, with every thread and character trait developed in the opening chapters bearing fruit in the final ones. This is a brilliant book that deserves a wide readership.