The Voice of the Air - three interlinking John Howard short novels here: The Fatal Vision, The Lustre of Time and The Process of Fire, all brought together in this exquisite Egaeus Press edition.
I will be posting separate reviews for The Lustre of Time and The Process of Fire as I move through the book. Meanwhile, I'll begin with the first -
THE FATAL VISION
We're
in 1939, the time of Hitler's invasion of Poland. The tale focuses on
two men, primarily Dr. Cristian Luca, Professor of Architecture and Town
Planning at the University of Steaua de Munte. As for the second man,
he's one of Luca's architecture students at the university.
Steaua
de Munte is a fictional town influenced by memories and impressions of
real towns John Howard paid visits to in central Romania. In many ways,
Steaua de Munte could be among the invented cities in either Inner Europe or Secret Europe, two books John Howard co-authored with Mark Valentine.
The Fatal Vision
consists of thirty mini-chapters toggling back and forth between an
objective third-person reportage of Luca's life as professor, planner,
family man and student Victor Petrescu's first-person account of his
shadowing Luca through Steaua de Munte. In this way, the novella takes
on the tone of a detective story.
So as to not spoil any of the
mystery and thus leave discoveries at each stage to a reader, I'll make a
quick shift to a number of Fatal Vision snapshots:
Utopian Vision
Mid-twentieth
century visionary architects like Le Corbusier and Luca planned out
concrete and glass cities with their clean white buildings on a linear
grid as a first step in creating a transformed society of the future.
However,
at the moment, under the omnipresent shadow of the German Führer
sweeping across Europe, Luca looks out the window of his train and can
see “shacks and caravans, lit by oil lamps with open fires outside,
where some of the building workers were living.” Luca thinks there are
probably gypsies among the workers. “And other undesirables, no doubt.”
Thus
we have the tension between an idealized, sanitized future and the grit
and grime of peoples judged repellent, troublesome and simply unwanted –
with more than a touch of racism and xenophobia tossed in.
Press of History and Politics
Luca
is no fool. Luca knows unfolding events propelled by Hitler place him
in a dangerous position. Therefore, to maintain secrecy, especially when
it comes to his most creative architectural projects, he must retreat
to a secret apartment, a closely held secret from both his family and
his university.
Luca designed the very building, detail by
detail, where he has his secret apartment. “And Luca was especially
proud of the staircase that led directly to the top floor: he had
designed it to share the space originally intended to be occupied only
by the service staircase – the second set of stairs interpenetrating
with it but having connections to it.”
If we pay close attention,
we'll appreciate things like white cubes, walls, towers, stairs,
colonnades playing an important part as the tale unfolds.
Refreshing Rewind
As
noted above, the chapters alternate between third-person Luca and
first-person Victor. I found one of the more intriguing scenes to be
where Victor and Luca meet in Luca's university office and we as readers
are treated to the same conversation from both Luca focused
third-person and student Victor's point of view.
Seeker/Detective, One
Victor
has strong reasons to remain in his native town of Steaua de Munte to
study architecture. “I'd wanted to be taught by Cristian Luca...there
had been times when his designs had opened up other worlds of space,
mass, proportion, and light. All I wanted was to somehow become part of
it all.” Ah, but Victor, will you seek revenge if Luca disrupts your
plans?
Seeker/Detective, Two
“There was nothing false or
base, cheap or shoddy in any of the rooms I wandered through: the very
shapes and proportions of the spaces reflected back an inner assurance
like beautiful music playing too low to hear but which could be felt in
the depths of the heart.”
The above are Victor's musing when he
sneaks in to explore Luca's secret apartment where “every room was
exposed to the changing natural light of the sun and sky.” It is as if
Luca's apartment is an oasis of utopian perfection. But then Luca
unexpectedly returns to his apartment during Victor's exploration.
Crisis in Utopia.
One element of The Fatal Vision worth
emphasizing: much in the tale goes unsaid. John Howard's understated
storytelling leaves room for a reader's imagination - fill in the gaps
or allow the voice of the air to remain in the air, the choice is yours.
Seeker/Detective, Three
“Some voice of the air had taught
me the right moment, the moment of his life at which an act of
unexpected young allegiance might most come home to him.” This quote
taken from Henry James' The Death of the Lion, a quote serving as the novella's epigraph. To find out why John Howard chose this particular line, contact Egaeus Press for a copy of The Voice of the Air and read for yourself. Link: http://www.egaeuspress.com/The_Voice_...
British author John Howard, born 1961
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