The Variations by Patrick Langley Paperback Book

Description: The Variations by Patrick Langley An eerie ability is passed from grandmother to grandson—who now must reckon with a new cacophony of voices and sounds, all from the past, overlaying his life in the present—in this stirring new novel from one of the UKs most exciting young writers.Selda Heddle, a famously reclusive composer, is found dead in a snowy field near her Cornish home. She was educated at Agness Hospice for Acoustically Gifted Children, which for centuries has offered its young wards a grounding in the gift—an inherited ability to tune into the voices and sounds of the past.When she dies, Seldas gift passes down to her grandson Wolf, who must make sense of her legacy, and learn to live with the newly unleashed voices in his head. Ambitious and exhilarating, The Variations is a novel of startling originality about music and the difficulty—or impossibility—of living with the past."If Hilary Mantels Beyond Black were written by John Banville channelling M. John Harrison, the result would look something like this. And yet Langley has made something new and unexpected about how the present is, necessarily and always, an echo corridor of the past. Beautifully written, powered by a wonderfully intelligent conceptual dynamo, and deftly sprung with surprises, The Variations is an utterly original book about haunting. It is strange, resonant, and, yes, haunting."— Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others FORMAT Paperback CONDITION Brand New Author Biography Patrick Langley is a novelist and art critic. His first novel, Arkady, was longlisted for the Royal Society of Literatures Ondaatje Prize and the Deborah Rogers Writers Prize. He is an editor at e-flux and writes about art for frieze, Art Agenda, and other publications. The Variations is his second novel. He lives in London. Review "There is something otherworldly about the setting of The Variations, and its alien qualities are only enhanced by the occasional references that remind us were in contemporary England....For all The Variations unusual elements, Langley handles traditional storytelling modes expertly. He can nail a character in a few lines... He can do action. And he has a knack for ending chapters with the expertise of a theatrical director ramping up the tension and then—curtain!—dropping into silence....a book whose oddness stretches the reader without estranging us. It asks more questions than it answers, but provides plenty of delight to compensate." —John Self, Financial Times"The wonderful latest from Langley (Arkady) tells the story of a British avant-garde composer, semi-estranged from her family and friends, who dies while walking in a snowstorm in Cornwall...the story of four generations of gifted individuals unfolds, taking readers from WWII to the present, from Seldas birth to her death. Langley is a mesmerizing guide to Seldas music and the fantastical world of the hospice, a variously demonized, patronized, scorned, venerated, vilified, and today largely ignored and near-bankrupted institution. This is exquisite." —Publishers Weekly "Ecstasy is a word Id happily associate with Patrick Langleys lyrical and looping novel The Variations, a work with a similarly thrilling Nabokovian intrigue in the relationship between patterning, form and meaning....it takes place in a world that looks very much like our own but feels alien and strange, as if brushed by the supernatural. In The Variations, reality is ever so slightly askew." —Matthew Janney, The Guardian"The Variations is a wonderfully mysterious novel suffused with a Lynchian eeriness. I was totally under Langleys spell and under the thrall of the eerie rhythms governing The Variations. Simply unforgettable." —Brandon Taylor, author Real Life"If Hilary Mantels Beyond Black were written by John Banville channelling M. John Harrison, the result would look something like this. And yet Langley has made something new and unexpected about how the present is, necessarily and always, an echo corridor of the past. Beautifully written, powered by a wonderfully intelligent conceptual dynamo, and deftly sprung with surprises, The Variations is an utterly original book about haunting. It is strange, resonant, and, yes, haunting." —Neel Mukherjee, author of The Lives of Others "The Variations is a passionate meditation on how past and present meet and annihilate one another in the flare of individual human experience. Music is presented as a kind of weather, blustery and changeable, unlimited by its own time. It takes you up, puts you down, whirls you away. Langleys prose, lyrical and accurate, enlivens and illuminates. A tremendous, seriously ambitious novel." —M. John Harrison, author of Wish I Was Here "I thought The Variations was remarkable. I loved its hallucinatory vision of music as both gift and affliction, as a sort of crystallised form of human history. A book of strange and revelatory genius." —Anna Smaill, author of The Chimes "A skillfully told story about inheritance and inspiration, music and time. Langley has a fine eye for detail and scene-making, and The Variations is full of startling observations and images." —Martin MacInnes, author of In Ascension Details ISBN1681378396 Author Patrick Langley Publisher The New York Review of Books, Inc Year 2024 ISBN-13 9781681378398 Format Paperback Imprint The New York Review of Books, Inc Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2024-02-06 NZ Release Date 2024-02-06 UK Release Date 2024-02-06 Audience General Publication Date 2024-02-20 US Release Date 2024-02-20 Pages 472 DEWEY 823.92 We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:158380046;

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