Abstract

Beethoven as Fiction Hero

The article focuses on the "Eroica: A Novel Based on the Life of Ludwig Van Beethoven," by Samuel Chotzinoff. There are many pages of the indirect discourse, tedious and insipid transcriptions of what Chotzinoff imagines Ludwig van Beethoven's thought. When it comes to descriptions of music, wherein Chotzinoff should feel at hone, one encounters some odd examples of unintended humor, the only kind in the book. The long passage in which the composer ruminates as he labors at the Eroica symphony has to be read to be believed. Of the novelist's license to alter data Chotzinpff avails himself sparingly. For the most part, he keeps close to authenticated facts. Occasionally he ventures into fiction, as when he positively identifies the "immortal Beloved" as Giulietta Guicciardi.