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A review by __emma__
The Great Passion by James Runcie
2.0
I think maybe I was just expecting too much of this book, or hoping for it to be something different from what it actually turned out to be, but most of this really wasn’t good.
I loved a lot of the parts involving Bach himself and his attitude towards music-making, and the actual section (the final 50-60 pages or so) that went over the rehearsal and eventual performance of the St Matthew Passion itself was really good — so good I had tears in my eyes. It was an amazing dive into what might go on inside an incredible composer’s head, and I felt like I was actually in St Thomas’ church at the time it was first performed, feeling everything Bach poured into this composition, and I came away from the book really wanting to listen to it.
It’s a shame about the rest of the book around it, really — i.e. the first 200 pages and the last 5-10, of 260 pages total. I think the book’s choice of narrator — an 11-year-old boy with all the typical little-boy flaws and jealousies etc. — was a real miss, and I found myself entirely uninterested in his story and ramblings. It completely ruined the majority of the book for me, and I only struggled on because I wanted to get to the eponymous section, which was way too long in coming.
It should’ve been a short story or novella, and then for me it would have been perfect. But it was padded out to novel length, which for me did nothing whatsoever for the actual good parts of this story.
A real shame, but I don’t regret reading it, because the good bits were SO good. The ratio of good bits to bad, though, were a real disappointment for me.
I loved a lot of the parts involving Bach himself and his attitude towards music-making, and the actual section (the final 50-60 pages or so) that went over the rehearsal and eventual performance of the St Matthew Passion itself was really good — so good I had tears in my eyes. It was an amazing dive into what might go on inside an incredible composer’s head, and I felt like I was actually in St Thomas’ church at the time it was first performed, feeling everything Bach poured into this composition, and I came away from the book really wanting to listen to it.
It’s a shame about the rest of the book around it, really — i.e. the first 200 pages and the last 5-10, of 260 pages total. I think the book’s choice of narrator — an 11-year-old boy with all the typical little-boy flaws and jealousies etc. — was a real miss, and I found myself entirely uninterested in his story and ramblings. It completely ruined the majority of the book for me, and I only struggled on because I wanted to get to the eponymous section, which was way too long in coming.
It should’ve been a short story or novella, and then for me it would have been perfect. But it was padded out to novel length, which for me did nothing whatsoever for the actual good parts of this story.
A real shame, but I don’t regret reading it, because the good bits were SO good. The ratio of good bits to bad, though, were a real disappointment for me.