Friday, January 17, 2014

Time Will Tell by Donald Greig

A musicologist Andrew Eiger discovers a manuscript of a new piece of music by Ockeghem.  Before academic kudos are his he has to convince an ensemble to perform the work.  The narrative switches between his point of view and the the conductor of the group.  Interspersed are also chunks of a fictional memoir of a compatriot of Ockeghem.

Unfortunately most of the characters in the book are simply unlikable.  Eiger comes off as Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory unable to figure out even basic social cues.  Blundering into situation after situation.  It's not funny just irritating.  There's plenty of over analysis of simple dialog and pages of description.  When finally there is action in the last two chapters it comes out of left field and has nothing really to do with the agency of either of the two main characters.

Not recommended.

This was received through LibraryThing's early review program.



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