Variations on the Beast

by Henry Grinberg

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0976818116
• ISBN13: 9780976818113
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Dragon Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.7" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating Study of a Talented Narcissist

Henry Grinberg has written a pitch perfect novel that illustrates the split within people (and not coincidentally, within cultures)who are immersed in the love of art and music, yet who are simultaneously exploitative, emotionally unattached, and almost "innocently" self-centered. Such is the character of the protagonist, Hermann Kapp-Dortmunder who is an opinionated, arrogant and completely narcissistic pianist and conductor whose talent moves him ineluctably to the top of the German musical world during the rise of the Nazi movement and the ensuing war. Very little interferes with Kapp-Dortmunder's progress including the demands of human relationships which wash up as wreckage in the wake of his ascent. The absolute miracle of this novel is the fact that Grinberg has made Kapp-Dortmunder an interesting and perversely appealing character that kept me involved, if not fascinated, with his exploits. In a sense it is a picaresque novel about a truly awful human being who exemplifies the culture in which he lived.

Variations, fascinating and scary

In 1961 Stanley Kramer's film Judgment at Nuremberg asked us who were the guilty responsible for the Nazi genocides? The ending of Kramer's film struck an American nerve--suggesting that in various ways we all shared in the guilt for allowing butchery of the innocent. Now Henry Grinberg's novel dissects a highly sensitive "variation" of the beast. How could traditional exemplars of culture, beauty, and spirit, specifically conductors of Beethoven, Brahms and Bach, be guilty of advancing their careers by ignoring and thereby accepting the slaughter of those dumped into mass graves? To answer the query, Grinberg creates Kapp, a very young Hungarian pianist who tells his own story of how note by note he climbed his career ladder to become a major concert conductor for the Third Reich. The genius of Variations on the Beast is that the young protagonist does not start out as an anti-Semite; indeed, he is grateful to two Jews who lift him onto his career ladder. Surely anyone, who loves classical music with so much gemütlichkeit, will never become a beast. But he does. This may annoy some readers, even those familiar with the Faustian formula of artists who bargain their souls for wealth and women; however in Grinberg's tale, the boy not only betrays his own soul, but the reader's, and while that may be painful, it is the author's genius. A second goodie of the novel, is the security one feels in Grinberg's erudition. Both novice and scholar of recordings and their artists, will enjoy being in the concert halls with an author who thrills at the music, and who loves being there with you. This is a five star read.

A very Compelling Novel

Henry Grinberg has written a brilliant novel illuminating a complex relationship between a highly gifted conductor who at the time is a despicable character. We are faced with understanding the interplay of such creativity and yet it comes through a person we begin to destest. Grinberg bears great insight into his character and it seems that his psychoanalytic knowledge helps to make this novel so rewarding. I found the writing to be first class. He really is in control of both his subject and the movement of the novel. It was hard to put this book down and I would refer to it as a page-turner. The subject that Grinberg chooses to write about, the conflicts that he turns his attention to indicates the mind of a highly insightful and successful novelist who is always in command of the nuances of good fiction writing.

Brilliant and Highly Readable

In this brilliant and highly readable page-turner, it's amazing how a morally empty, yet talented character can sustain our interest as well as teach us about the tenuous ties between conscience and culture. Grinberg's deep insights into both character and classical music illuminate the novel, and his way with words makes Variations on the Beast a unique contribution to Holocaust literature and literature in general.

A Novel of the Coexistence of Great Art and Horrendous Inhumanity

Ferenc Kapp, who renames himself Hermann Kapp-Dortmunder after he discovers that Kapp means 'condom' in street-German, is the narrator and protagonist of this novel set in Austria and Germany in the Weimar Republic period and later the Nazi era. Kapp, from a humble Austro-Hungarian Magyar background, has a world-class gift for classical music, first as a pianist and later as a magnificent orchestral conductor. He also is amoral, vain, sexually driven and blindly ambitious. One follows his rise in the music world against a background of the relentless burgeoning of Nazi antisemitism. Not particularly political himself, he is nonetheless never at a loss for claiming the main chance and his ability to manipulate people or take advantage of favorable events is detailed in his own at first naïve and later calculating narration. Author Henry Grinberg, a New York psychoanalyst whose first novel this is, provides a page-turning story. This book will be particularly interesting for those interested in classical music and in events of the first half of the twentieth century in Germany. As primarily a classical music reviewer, I was transfixed by the musical matters of the story, noting no obvious solecisms in the detailing of this complicated subject. I was sickened by the almost matter-of-fact telling of the anti-Semitic attitudes and horrendous acts of the era as witnessed and participated in by Kapp-Dortmunder. This was definitely a book with more than its share, for me, of approach-avoidance. And yet I couldn't put it down. There is some awkward writing and plotting, but on the whole this book provides a believable description, if not explanation, of how the good German Volk could simultaneously pour heart and soul into the creation of great musical art while committing horrendous and inhumane acts. Scott Morrison