The Music Room

by WilliamFiennes (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $3.25

  Our house was almost seven hundred years old . . .

  William Fiennes spent his childhood in a magical place, a moated castle, the perfect environment for a child with a brimming imagination. It is a house alive with history, beauty and mystery, but the young boy growing up in it is equally in awe of his brother Richard. Eleven years older and a magnetic presence, Richard suffers from severe epilepsy. His energy influences the rhythms of the family and the house's internal life, and his story inspires a journey, interwoven with loving recollection, towards an understanding of the mind.

  This is a song of home, of an adored brother and of the miracle of consciousness. The chill of the `dark historical spaces' coexists with the warmth and chatter of the family kitchen, and the surrounding landscapes are distinguished by ancient trees, secret haunts, the moat's depths and temptations. Bursting with tender detail, and combining humour, pathos and wisdom, The Music Room is a sensuous tribute to place, memory and the permanence of love.

• Used

  Paperback
  2009

  $3.25

  From the bestselling author of The Snow Geese comes a mesmerizing tribute to an adored older brother. When William Fiennes was a small boy, his parents inherited an extraordinary home: a castle full of history, secrets and strange artefacts, the perfect hunting ground for child with a brimming imagination. The family set about welcoming visitors - actors, musicians, travelling fairs, members of the public - but behind these very public scenes a more intimate drama was taking place. William's older brother, Richard, had been diagnosed with severe and debilitating epilepsy. Within the enchanted world of the house, Richard is a powerful presence: radiating wit, beguilingly eccentric, and yet also the victim of dark and violent moods. The two brothers are devoted, yet as William grows - ever more independent, ever closer to leaving this idyllic home - Richard's life becomes increasingly circumscribed. One day Will receives a phone call: 'Richard died this morning. Come and join us'. The Music Room captures a child's wide-eyed wonder and an adult's grief. Its incantatory prose builds a house that is almost sentient, a landscape bursting with life, and a family animated by generosity and strength. Utterly unique in its sensibility, minutely detailed and tenderly observed, it is not an elegy but a sensory tribute to home, to the workings of memory and imagination, and, above all, a transcendent lovesong for a brother.

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $12.83

  `Fiennes has exceptional gifts, and he has written a small masterpiece, a tribute to the power of place, family and memory' Sunday Telegraph

  William Fiennes' childhood was one of imagination and curiosity, bounded only by the horizon he saw from the roof-tiles of his ancient family home. His older brother Richard, known for his towering presence, his inventiveness, his great passion for Leeds United, and his suffering due to severe epilepsy, was an adored and charismatic figure in his life.

  Years later, eager to understand his brother's mind as fully as the ancient trees and secret haunts of his own journey towards adulthood, William Fiennes has written a profoundly moving account of his home, his family's care, and above all, of Richard. The Music Room is a luminous testament to the miracle of consciousness and to the permanence of love.

  `On putting the book down I felt as if I had been hypnotised. It held me entranced, afraid and awed. All human grief and glory shimmers off the page' Libby Purves, The Times