The Violin Conspiracy: What Should Really Matter?

 I just finished The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb. It led me to ruminate about self-definition.  It seems to me that what someone values most is what defines that individual.  If you value money most, you are going to lead a very different life than someone who places the most value on tranquility or safety.  

 In the case of someone who is deeply involved with one of the arts, that art is likely to be what that individual values most.  It is at the center of this person's existence.  She or he will define themselves according to the role they take in the particular art. 

 Some roles require an object beyond the self.  If you are a singer, you require nothing but your voice. Yet a violinist, like the protagonist of The Violin Conspiracy, needs a violin. 

                                

                                 

  The skill with which the violinist plays is important, but the connection that the musician has to the violin may be equally important if not more so.  Certainly, a singer performs best when she or he has a personal connection to the song.  So the violinist will produce his or her best work with a violin to which he or she feels personally connected. 

 The protagonist's violin is incredibly valuable.  It's a Stradivarius which means that it was made by the legendary luthier Antonius Stradivarius  in the 18th century.

Below is a public domain image of Antonius Stradivarius in his workshop examining a violin. 

 

                             Print of a painting by Victor Bobrov

  The central character's  violin was worth millions of dollars. Yet I felt that to Ray, the protagonist of The Violin Conspiracy, it mattered more that the violin had been his grandmother's and that she had given it to him.  He wanted to be worthy of his grandmother's trust.  

 Some people dismiss an attachment to an object as "sentimental".  Sentiment refers to emotion, and some emotions run deeper than others.  For many people, there is no deeper emotional attachment than the one to family.  It may seem strange to some readers, but for Ray his violin was part of his family.

So you can imagine how Ray felt when it went missing. It's mentioned in this book that musician Yo Yo Ma absentmindedly left his Stradivarius cello in a cab once. (There is an account of Yo Yo Ma's incident here .) There is absolutely no comparison, however, to the deliberate planned theft of Ray's violin in The Violin Conspiracy.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the role of racism in this novel. Ray is an African-American.  Black violinists are uncommon.  Being unable to afford lessons would tend to exclude many Black families from being able to support children who aspired to be violinists.  This is an example of systemic racism.  Ray also did meet with prejudice in the process of developing his musical career.  There are numerous examples throughout the narrative.

 In the Author's Note, Brendan Slocumb mentions that one of the professors he had in college thought that Blacks played Chopin so well because of the "jungle rhythms" in their blood.  I wonder what this professor was implying about Chopin, the composer, whose work included "jungle rhythms".  Of course, such a statement reflects more poorly on Slocumb's  professor than on Chopin.

The Violin Conspiracy reflects very well on Brendan Slocumb.  I thought it was excellent.  It's the first novel that I've given a grade of A in some time.  I didn't read any A rated fiction in 2022. 

 Oh, and by the way Slocumb is himself a violinist and a music educator.  This novel lives and breathes music because Slocumb is the real deal.  Go to Brendan Slocumb's  website.  I guarantee that you will be impressed.

                                     

 

 

Memoir of an NBC Editor Containing Hawaiian Issues

Since I don't have any requests from authors, editors or publicists at the moment, I decided to review a memoir with the title of Local by an NBC editor who is part Native Hawaiian. Her name is Jessica Machado which clearly isn't a Native Hawaiian name.  I selected her book as my December Amazon First Read which I downloaded for free, and finished on January 30.  I love its colorful cover.

                              

Native Hawaiians call themselves Kanaka.  They are distinguished from those who either are settlers in Hawaii from the U.S. mainland, or those who are descended from these settlers.  Machado refers to settlers as locals.  Yet I imagine her own self-identification is complex due to her mixed heritage.  

When Machado was called "Haole",which is the Hawaiian term for settlers from the U.S. mainland, she was upset.  Yet it occurred to me that Machado's heritage is primarily Haole.  Her mother was 100% Haole from Shreveport, Louisiana.  Machado learned to speak with her mother's Southern accent.  Her father was part Kanaka and part Portuguese. Yet his Kanaka ancestry wasn't on his birth certificate.  Her part-Kanaka heritage wasn't on his daughter's birth certificate either.  She still identifies as part-Kanaka.

 The overwhelming majority of the content of this book doesn't deal with either politics or Hawaiian culture.  Actually, 95% of this book didn't interest me. As a result of Local 's emphasis on personal events , I wasn't aware that Machado is currently an editor at NBC News until I saw her profile on Goodreads after I had finished reading the book.   

Local has inspired me to read further about Kanaka culture.  I have found books dealing with Kanaka philosophy that are available in libraries.  I would like to investigate their approaches.

I learned from this book that the word "Aloha" isn't just a greeting.  It's a concept that is found in all Polynesian languages. See the Wikipedia article on Aloha here.

Another significant Hawaiian concept is "Ohana".   Machado doesn't really define Ohana.  She thinks of it as a feeling that's associated with family. There are many Ohana graphics celebrating Ohana and family on the internet.   Here's one I particularly liked.

                                  

 

I also liked the extended family and sense of community definition of Ohana that I found at Dictionary.com  here.

 When Machado went to London for her sophomore year of college, she called her father saying she felt alone.  Her father told her that she needed to get used to it.  "All you have in life is yourself."  She felt that was anti-Ohana, but she thought it was true. (I think that someone's attitude about attachment or alienation is a choice, and that it's not a permanent one.  I've vacillated between feeling contentedly immersed in a community and feeling totally apart from community.)

Machado does discuss Hawaii's past and how it became what it is today.  A significant event in Hawaiian history was King Kalakaua being forced to sign a document known as The Bayonet Constitution  on July 6, 1887.  The Bayonet Constitution gave the King less power and restricted the rights of Kanaka voters. 

There is a Hawaiian sovereignty movement. Machado briefly discusses it and Kay Trask, a prominent activist in that movement.  I read a brief memorial account of Trask's  life after she passed away in 2021 here.  Machado asked her father what he thought about Hawaiian sovereignty.  He said that it was too late for that.  I don't think it is too late.  Hawaiians can still choose to unite behind the sovereignty movement.  They can have sovereignty rallies.  They can hold an election. An island choosing sovereignty after having been colonized hasn't always worked out well (e.g. Haiti), but I think the Hawaiian traditions of Aloha and Ohana are advantages that could potentially lead to a peaceful and prosperous future for a sovereign Hawaii.  Of course, the future of Hawaii should be up to the majority of Hawaiians.