Goldberg: Variations - by Gabriel Josipovici (Paperback)

From the Back Cover

At the turn of the eighteenth century, a writer--a Jew--enters an English country manor, where he has been invited to read through the night to his host until the gentleman falls asleep. What unfolds then are seemingly unconnected stories covering a vast array of topics--from incest to madness to a poetic competition in the court of George III. And what emerges by the end is a breathtaking tapestry in which past and present, imagination and truth, are intricately woven together into one remarkable whole.

Review Quotes

"I am a constant admirer of [Josipovici's] talent and intellect." - Muriel Spark
"Josipovici is able to relate ordinary human concerns to some of the most important intellectual issues of the twentieth century. There are few writers in England of whom this could be said." - Times Literary Supplement (London)
"...an intriguing textual fugue on J.S. Bach's Goldberg Variations...a winning puzzle book á la Michael Frayn, best read as an homage to Bach's masterpiece's thick history." - Publishers Weekly
"A philosophical jigsaw puzzle of a novel dares the reader to discover how the pieces fit together. Taking his structural cues from Bach's Goldberg Variations, Josipovici...presents variations on recurring motifs through 30 interlocking stories. The result is a small work...filled with big ideas, as the Italian-born, England-based professor...shows the wide range of literary interests and intellectual curiosity that have marked his prolific career as a writer of stories, novels, plays and criticism...Heady stuff..." - Kirkus Reviews
"Taking its name from Bach's Goldberg Variations, as well as inspiration from its formal structure, this work hybridizes breezy philosophical meditation and fragment-based novel... Josipovici displays a deep understanding and compassion for the various modes of artistry, be it a drawing by Klee, a fugue by Bach, or the epic poems of Homer, and how essentially they can relate to one another. Eschewing conventional narrative structure in favor of art-house modernism with a welcome lack of pretense, he reveals at no great length or depth how our interaction with the artistic process is, well, variable." - Booklist
"Like Johann Sebastian Bach's renowned Goldberg Variations, Josipovici's (humanities, Univ. of Sussex; The Singer on the Shore) novel, comprising 30 interrelated stories based on a seemingly facile plot, is ambitious and serious... This brilliantly conceived and executed novel is a brainteaser; its eclectic and varied scope will lead thoughtful readers to further hours of study and reflection..." - Library Journal
"...ambitious...intricate puzzle of a novel...a book vibrating with ideas... 'Goldberg: Variations' - first published in Britain in 2002 - is a hall of mirrors disguised as a novel, a place in which notions of what art and literature can mean to us are examined, turned inside out, temporarily catalogued and later dusted off for further observation. A work of fiction written by a literary critic and a retired professor of humanities like Josipovici is a double-edged sword: His store of references is broad and deep...and he shows boundless energy and enthusiasm for applying those references...parts of it could be read aloud, beautifully." - Los Angeles Times Book Review