Middle C (novel)
First edition cover
|
|
| Author | William H. Gass |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Postmodern Bildungsroman |
| Published | 2013 (Knopf) |
| Media type | Print (Hardback) |
| Pages | 395 |
| ISBN | |
Middle C is a 2013 novel by William H. Gass. It was started sometime after 1998, with a first excerpt appearing in 2001.
The novel tells the story and concerns of Joseph Skizzen, whose father got the family out of Austria in 1938, pretending to be Jewish, then disappeared in London. Relocated with his mother and sister to the fictional Woodbine, Ohio, Skizzen grows up to be a thoroughly middling nobody, a low-skilled amateur piano player who finds his niche as a professor of music at a small Bible college, by passing himself off as just the right kind of exotic, specializing in Arnold Schoenberg and atonal music, and successfully lying about his training and credentials. Isolated, he lives with his mother, his only hobby a fantasy life as the curator of his Inhumanity Museum. He obsesses over revising a single sentence, "The fear that the human race might not survive has been replaced by the fear that it will endure."
One review described the novel as being written in a style imitative of Schoenberg, with no scene having more dramatic significance than any other. Another review compared the novel to a concerto, with parts for Joey, Joseph, and Professor Skizzen. It won the William Dean Howells Medal in 2015.
The novel has two main threads: a bildungsroman describing the life of Joseph Skizzen, and Skizzen's own private philosophical meditations on how horrible humanity is. In addition, there are a few separate scenes from Skizzen's life, including two lectures on contemporary music to freshman, and conversations with his mother about gardening.
In the late 1930s, the Austrian Rudi Skizzen decides the current situation with Nazi Germany is only going to get worse, and decides to escape to London with his pregnant wife and young daughter. He successfully passes off his family as Jewish refugees, changing the family name to Fixel, his to Yankel. His son Yussel Fixel is born in London, and grows up with memories of the Blitz. Having made it to London, Yankel Fixel changes his name to Raymond Scofield, the better to blend in with the British. Having won a surprise payoff at the racetrack, he and the money disappear. The police cannot tell whether he was killed by criminals or if he bought himself yet another identity and emigrated.
After the war, the remaining Fixel family is relocated to America, ending up in the small town of Woodbine, Ohio. The family name reverts to Skizzen, with Yussel becoming Joey or Joseph, his mother keeping the name Miriam, and his sister becoming Deborah. In high school, Joey scrapes along as a mediocre student, and learns to play the piano passably. He develops a low-key interest in classical music, and works at a record store. Facing theft charges, he quits, and attends Augsburg Community College, which despite its name, was a Lutheran private college, not a "community college".
...
Wikipedia