joelrw

That's odd. It's there now: http://www.artsjournal.com/tobias/2012/04/glimpses-4-re-inventing-tanny.html She added it two days later.

The reviewer read the book. The Kirkus reviewer had a different impression of the author's portrayal of LeClercq, as did I. I feel strongly that the O reviewer took away something from the book that wasn't in it. (Incidentally, I also thought the reviewer's impression of O'Connor's Balanchine depiction was off the mark). But different people see different things. Indeed, if a book gives rise to exactly the same feelings for all readers, it's probably not a very deep book. Nevertheless, it's important to realize that the O reviewer's take may not exactly be spot on. I can readily understand your "This is what I was afraid of" comment in light of how LeClercq is described in the review. On the other hand, no one around here is commenting, "This is what I was hoping for" in response to the Kirkus or the Publishers Weekly reviews. Incidentally, the book isn't quite published yet. Two more days to go.

This is a complete misreading of the book! A more accurate take can be found in the Kirkus Reviews review (http://www.kirkusrev...rs-muse/#review), which ends as follows: this is not a novel about victimization or the malevolence of genius, but rather about the painful accommodations all of us make for the things and people we love. Thoughtful, tender and quite gripping, even for readers unfamiliar with the historical events the author sensitively reimagines.

I posted a message to Tobi Tobias's blog yesterday, in which I pointed out that either (1) she hasn't read O'Connor's book or (2) her description of it is so far removed from what the book actually is as to be a gross distortion. Everything Tobias writes from "Do we really need to hear the couple's pillow talk?" onward is beyond ludicrous. I also left O'Connor's response to such criticism, published in Publisher's Weekly, in my message ( I've given it here earlier in this thread). But perhaps needless to say, Ms. Tobias deleted my message soon after I posted it.

The entire piece had been available to subscribers only, but it is now available here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blogs/soapbox/article/51080-finding-the-truth-in-fiction.html The PW review can be found here: http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-4516-5538-4

I don't think so. We disagree about what's tasteful, respectful and classy, and what's not, but that doesn't make them to-each-his-own questions. Sure it does. To-each-his-own questions are those that are value oriented, and cannot be resolved in some sort of objective fashion. Whether Lobenthal's review is positive or negative seems to be the issue here. One person writes positive, another negative, ergo to each his own. Personally, I found the review quite positive. Recall that Lobenthal's final sentence was this: Yet I was glad, as I read the novel, that this extraordinary artist and woman had stimulated yet another imaginative act of creation.

There is an author's note in the book which describes more fully the extent of Ms. O'Connor's research. It includes at least one very important interview with someone who was on the European tour, and this has a major ramification in the book; viewing all of Le Clercq's available performances, both online and at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library; viewing hundreds of hours of documentaries and performances relating to Balanchine, his ballet predecessors, Le Clercq, Robbins, etc.; reading almost every book in English related to Le Clercq and Balanchine; Le Clercq's two books; examination of dozens of photographs, etc. The quote "hundreds of hours of documentaries and NYCB footage" does not mean hundreds of hours of Le Clercq dancing! I think this thread has reached a point of diminishing returns. Arguments on both sides of the issue have been pretty much exhausted, and all I can add at this point is, when it comes out, read the book! Or rather, hesitate to criticize it if you decide not to read it. You can take it out from a library if you don't want to contribute to the author's wellbeing, but don't assume that the book isn't as good as Toibin or Tsypkin, or anyone else on the basis of ignorance.

I teach music education at McGill University, play the piano, am an expert Scrabble player, and love all forms of art. Although I have always enjoyed ballet, I have come to know it a lot more deeply in recent years. I look forward to learning even more about it here!

This type of writing goes back all the way to Shakespeare. Richard III probably never said "My kingdom for a horse," and he probably wouldn't have liked his portrayal. Whether he was a private person, kept his feelings to himself, etc. did not concern Shakespeare. It didn't concern Salman Rushdie either (though it should have!), nor Colm Toibin when he wrote about Henry James, etc., etc. Sure, any author who attempts to get into the head of a formerly or currently living person is committing an act of hubris. Call such an act repugnant if you wish, but keep in mind that we wouldn't have a whole truckload of great literature if one were to apply this criterion universally; same is true of many great movies — and while it is true that there are probably a hundred truckloads of schlock based on the lives of actual people compared to one truckload of great art, I wouldn't want to be without the great stuff. As for Ms. O'Connor's book — well, you can really judge it without reading it, right?

As someone who has read The Master's Muse, I have been following this thread with much interest. I'd like to make the following points: Holly Brubach, in her T Magazine piece, writes: Ferociously private, she bridled at the first sign of prurient curiosity, and as the years went on refused most invitations. Talking to her, you got the sense that there were subjects you didn’t dare broach. and: And yet, as a friend, I can’t help regarding “The Master’s Muse” as a violation, made even more brazen by the fact that it’s narrated in the first person. Nothing in this book is more farfetched than the premise that it’s Tanny herself telling us her story, inviting total strangers to spend 244 pages inside her mind — a place that was off-limits even to her closest friends. This I think is the central point of Brubach's criticism of O'Connor's book. It reflects a certain proprietary attitude that Brubach holds regarding Le Clercq, and it cannot be denied that as a friend of Le Clercq's for 23 years, and as the person who wrote the text for Le Clercq's memorial service and who interviewed her in print more than once, she is certainly an expert in this regard. However, to assume that Le Clercq lived totally in the present — that she never reflected on her past because she never did so in her friend's presence — is an assumption that I believe is untenable. Brubach writes that Le Clercq contemplated suicide for 10 years and once she got over that, she was fine. Le Clercq may have said those words, but really? It is true that Tanaquil Le Clercq was a very private person; had her friend Holly Brubach decided to write a novel about her, I could see how that might be considered an act of betrayal. But when a writer comes upon the circumstances of a life that take hold of her, and that excite her imagination to the boiling point, she doesn't say to herself, "No, I won't do it, because she wouldn't have wanted me to do it, and neither would her friends have wanted it." Literature doesn't work that way. The novelist forges ahead, does her research, and writes. If the resulting book is good, it accomplishes something very special — it aligns a person's inner and outer life in a harmonious and satisfying whole. Moreover, it connects something important in that person's life to something important in the lives of many readers. As for whether a biography would have been preferable to a novel, I don't think this is an either/or supposition. Many biographies, even those claiming to be meticulously researched by their authors, have met with incredulity by friends and family of the subject. Brubach presents a pretty good summary of Le Clercq's life in her T Magazine piece — but to go beyond the facts, to make assumptions concerning Le Clercq's inner life, would probably raise her hackles as well as the hackles of others who knew Le Clercq. Finally, I'd like to also point out that there is nothing in the book even remotely derogatory about Le Clercq in The Master's Muse. It is a sympathetic portrait of a nearly forgotten great artist, and I believe that any interest it reawakens in Tanaquil Le Clercq is all to the good. The Kirkus Reviews review concludes as follows, and I hope it will persuade at least some of you to reconsider the negative attitudes that have been expressed toward the book in this thread: This is not a novel about victimization or the malevolence of genius, but rather about the painful accommodations all of us make for the things and people we love. Thoughtful, tender and quite gripping, even for readers unfamiliar with the historical events the author sensitively reimagines.