Saturday, August 15, 2009

One Cheer for Norman Lebrecht

Having demonstrated how easy it is to find fault with Norman Lebrecht's The Maestro Myth: Great Conductors in Pursuit of Power, I feel it fair to point out one virtue of the book, even if it was a strictly personal one. I spent two hours in a dentist's chair on Friday morning for the first stage of a crown replacement. This required several intervals of waiting for a moderate period of time. Lebrecht sustained me through all of those periods. This is a text that can stand up to interruption no matter where you happen to be; and you can easily pick up where you left off, regardless of how long the interruption took. I am not used to reading books where you can do that. I suspect it is just as well that such books are not a regular part of my reading diet, but it was there when I needed it to get me through my dental appointment!

1 comment:

Elaine Fine said...

Norman Lebrecht is a good writer. He may not report facts correctly, and he may not be able to predict the future, but he can certainly put compelling sentences and paragraphs together. My dentist's office has copies of Reminisce, old National Geographics (once in a while), a few of the last month's news magazines, and religious matter (for the benefit of his Amish patients). I'll remember to bring my copy of "The Maestro Myth" the next time I go to the dentist.