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A review by reader_fictions
Sight Reading by Daphne Kalotay
3.0
One of the reasons that I've become so taken with young adult fiction in recent years is the focus on coming of age, of finding oneself and accepting that person. Though young adults may grow and change more overtly, this is a lifelong process, and something universally relatable. Yet, somehow, adult fiction rarely focuses on these themes in a similar way, instead showing the way change affects adults through the lens of marital strife and infidelity. Sight Reading is just such a novel, detailing the various affairs of three adults. Though the book is beautifully written, I dislike stories about cheating, so I failed to love Sight Reading as much as Russian Winter.
Daphne Kalotay's prose is glorious. Her writing is the kind that I want to take in slowly, and I make slower progress through her books than I might otherwise, because I really like to chew on the words and appreciate the prose. Her novels feel powerful and meaningful, and have the sort of quotes I want to turn into art for my wall, if I were not too lazy and unartistic for such things.
The parts that focus on the music, too, are brilliant. I loved her descriptions of Nicholas composing and Remy playing the violin. She captures both the love, the suffering, and the boredom that come from their careers. Remy has a constant spot on her neck from her violin. Nicholas suffers from fear that he's no longer the composer he once was and that he'll never complete his symphony. Remy loses her passion for a while, playing by rote and no longer feeling the same drive. Through it all, though, music runs their lives and they could never do anything else, nor would they wish to. The passion, power, and beauty of music runs through the novel.
The big downside for me was that all of the rest focused on the affairs. Nicholas starts out married to Hazel, and they're established as very much in love, drawn to each other from the very beginning. Inevitably, though, he starts getting that itch when she leaves to support her mom during her father's decline in health, and takes up with his student, Remy. Wonderful.
Later on, there are even more affairs, and the behavior of all parties made it impossible for me to like any of them. I didn't feel like any of them really deserved marital happiness, except for Hazel, who I still took an immediate dislike to. At the end, everything resolves into this happily ever after for the couples, now in their fifties (forties for the younger Remy). No cheating story should end with a happily ever after in my opinion, or at least not with the couple still together. That is not my idea of romance or a happy life. That message really does disgust me.
Daphne Kalotay is massively talented, but I do wish she'd taken on some better subject matter than a series of tawdry affairs. Such plots are trite in adult fiction, and she didn't add anything new or satisfying to that framework. Sight Reading is still worth reading for the writing and the music, but it's not one I'll ever be revisiting.
Daphne Kalotay's prose is glorious. Her writing is the kind that I want to take in slowly, and I make slower progress through her books than I might otherwise, because I really like to chew on the words and appreciate the prose. Her novels feel powerful and meaningful, and have the sort of quotes I want to turn into art for my wall, if I were not too lazy and unartistic for such things.
The parts that focus on the music, too, are brilliant. I loved her descriptions of Nicholas composing and Remy playing the violin. She captures both the love, the suffering, and the boredom that come from their careers. Remy has a constant spot on her neck from her violin. Nicholas suffers from fear that he's no longer the composer he once was and that he'll never complete his symphony. Remy loses her passion for a while, playing by rote and no longer feeling the same drive. Through it all, though, music runs their lives and they could never do anything else, nor would they wish to. The passion, power, and beauty of music runs through the novel.
The big downside for me was that all of the rest focused on the affairs. Nicholas starts out married to Hazel, and they're established as very much in love, drawn to each other from the very beginning. Inevitably, though, he starts getting that itch when she leaves to support her mom during her father's decline in health, and takes up with his student, Remy. Wonderful.
Later on, there are even more affairs, and the behavior of all parties made it impossible for me to like any of them. I didn't feel like any of them really deserved marital happiness, except for Hazel, who I still took an immediate dislike to. At the end, everything resolves into this happily ever after for the couples, now in their fifties (forties for the younger Remy). No cheating story should end with a happily ever after in my opinion, or at least not with the couple still together. That is not my idea of romance or a happy life. That message really does disgust me.
Daphne Kalotay is massively talented, but I do wish she'd taken on some better subject matter than a series of tawdry affairs. Such plots are trite in adult fiction, and she didn't add anything new or satisfying to that framework. Sight Reading is still worth reading for the writing and the music, but it's not one I'll ever be revisiting.