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A review by sbbarnes
The Poor Fiddler by Franz Grillparzer
3.0
A man enters a framing device, that is a folk festival, and sees a poor violinist who has actually brought sheet music instead of just playing from memory. He is so confused by this that he stalks the guy for a bit and gives him money. The musician tells his life story: his dad was wealthy and powerful, but he could never live up to expectations and was shunted off to a dumb office job. Then he heard a girl singing a beautiful song and took up the violin. His father died; he inherited a lot, he wanted to marry the girl, but he invested unwisely and she left him. Now he's a poor street musician who does nothing but play the violin all day to diminishing returns. Then he dies of heroism, because he saves little kids from a flood. The girl who turned him down is sad.
This is, to me, a pretty nothing story. I know it's a german classic but it's not all that exciting. The framing device narrator also seems like kind of a tool, in that Enlightenment/Sturm und Drang sort of I-am-so-sensitive-and-such-a-good-person-but-I-have-so-much-money kind of way. The violinist is interesting, I guess, but I really don't know why this is a thing that would be taught in school. There's not a whole lot there to read into, and the prose is pretty meh. It's kind of your standard wealth does not make happiness story. I guess what interests me most is the implication that despite all his practice etc. the violinist is just really not that good.
This is, to me, a pretty nothing story. I know it's a german classic but it's not all that exciting. The framing device narrator also seems like kind of a tool, in that Enlightenment/Sturm und Drang sort of I-am-so-sensitive-and-such-a-good-person-but-I-have-so-much-money kind of way. The violinist is interesting, I guess, but I really don't know why this is a thing that would be taught in school. There's not a whole lot there to read into, and the prose is pretty meh. It's kind of your standard wealth does not make happiness story. I guess what interests me most is the implication that despite all his practice etc. the violinist is just really not that good.