The Courage Consort - Softcover

Faber, Michel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1841952265 ISBN 13: 9781841952260

Publisher: Canongate Books, 2002

Synopsis

The esoteric world of avant-garde classical music is the unlikely setting for a story of rare power - perhaps the most moving Michel Faber has yet written.

About this title

Review:

"Faber has a quirky imagination and a sharp eye, is clever but sympathetic to the reader, generous and sincere." (The Independent)

"This is a beautifully distilled piece of work. Its brevity cannot disguise its depth, indeed it emphasises it... The story is told with a dry wit that should carry a warning for the reader not to strike a match anywhere in the book's vicinity. This is a beautifully-assured novella." (Hugh MacDonald The Herald)

"Rites of passage don't come much subtler than this. Or, oddly, given the subject matter, much funnier." (New Statesman)

"His prose veers sharply from a delectable descriptiveness to spikily comic insights. Cerebral and observant ... here is a talent in the ascendant." (The Observer)

From the Back Cover:

'A devastating portrayal of a woman on the verge of madness . . . His writing is as spare and sharp as ever." Daily Mail

The Courage Consort, possibly the seventh best-known a cappella vocal ensemble in Britain, are given two weeks in a Belgian chateau to rehearse their latest commission, the monstrously complicated Partitum Mutante. Their composer is a maniac, the group is full of sexual tension and fiercely differing temperaments - and what of the inhuman voice in the woods?

"This novella confirms [Faber] as something of a class act, with admirable economy of style and a good nose for character and social comedy . . . This small work is near-perfectly formed." Sunday Times

"Very subtle and completely engaging." Brian Eno

About this edition

• Publisher: Canongate Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1841952265
• ISBN 13: 9781841952260
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 126