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The Uncle from Rome Audiobook by Joseph Caldwell
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Title: The Uncle from Rome
Subtitle: A Novel
Author: Joseph Caldwell
Narrator: Liisa Ivary
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-25-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
An American opera singer travels to Naples and becomes embroiled in his strangest role yet.
Michael Ruane is an obscure American opera singer who arrives in Naples to play a small part in an important production of Tosca and star in his own staging of a little-known Benjamin Britten opera. The work comes at a particularly trying time, when hes still raw with grief after his New York lovers death from AIDS. As the productions get under way, Ruane is offered an unusual part: That of the uncle from Rome at a local wedding. According to tradition, the presence of the uncle from Rome at important events confers prestige on the family. However, Ruane is soon enmeshed in a drama that surpasses any role he has played on the stage. The Uncle from Rome is a brilliant and colorfully imagined novel filled with theatrics of operatic proportions.
Members Reviews:
Classic murder mystery set in Italy
American poses as Roman uncle at a wedding, which turns into a murder investigation. Classic, good story, well developed.
What''s it all about?
Frankly, I found the book confusing because the author didn't seem to know where he wanted the book to be. At moments it is very funny, then it becomes dark and the whole point of the exercise by the end seems to be the psychological collapse of the protagonist ... but with little background to make it plausible.
Life imitates opera
The Uncle From Rome is one of those rare books that manages to combine cultural melodrama, personal angst, hilarious comedy, and good cooking - all at once - in a veritable soup of personal and cultural contradictions. Caldwell himself states his case for the incoherence of the human soul when Michael describes the typical Neapolitan as profoundly contradictory - cruel and kind, vain and humble, warm and cold. But Caldwell captures these contradictions of the human spirit neatly, accurately and with scathing humor.
Our hero, Michael, is an ambitious opera tenor who is doomed to play bit parts. Ostensibly, he is in Naples for a performance of Tosca. But, in reality, he has come to Italy so that he can finally be a star in his own production of an obscure Benjamin Britten opera. But the true proof of his under-appreciated talent comes when he is ordered by Tosca's diva to impersonate a fictitious "Uncle from Rome" in order to lend an air of prestige to a wedding. Michael manages to pull his "bit part" off perfectly, but with entirely too much success. In his role as the "Lo Zio da Roma" Michael must prevent a murder - which he does with simultaneously hilarious and tragic consequences. When all the contradictions come together, and everything inevitably falls apart, Michael himself comes unstrung in a tense climax that will have you glued to the pages. The last paragraph is literally to die for.
Caldwell skewers the fantastic and ridiculous world of Neapolitan pride/opera/family (exaggerated, yet somehow perfectly true)with a wit that is so sharp it's painful. The contrast between Italian high melodrama with Michael's own state of desperate, but equally self-dramatized ennui, is truly marvelous. Caldwell is a true connoisseur of the arts, of artists, and of everything that makes "Nabladans" and, well, people in general, simultaneously wonderful and unbearable. Bravo, Giuseppe. Bravissimo!
The Tragedy at the Opera
I enjoyed this book.
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Title: The Uncle from Rome
Subtitle: A Novel
Author: Joseph Caldwell
Narrator: Liisa Ivary
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
Language: English
Release date: 10-25-13
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
An American opera singer travels to Naples and becomes embroiled in his strangest role yet.
Michael Ruane is an obscure American opera singer who arrives in Naples to play a small part in an important production of Tosca and star in his own staging of a little-known Benjamin Britten opera. The work comes at a particularly trying time, when hes still raw with grief after his New York lovers death from AIDS. As the productions get under way, Ruane is offered an unusual part: That of the uncle from Rome at a local wedding. According to tradition, the presence of the uncle from Rome at important events confers prestige on the family. However, Ruane is soon enmeshed in a drama that surpasses any role he has played on the stage. The Uncle from Rome is a brilliant and colorfully imagined novel filled with theatrics of operatic proportions.
Members Reviews:
Classic murder mystery set in Italy
American poses as Roman uncle at a wedding, which turns into a murder investigation. Classic, good story, well developed.
What''s it all about?
Frankly, I found the book confusing because the author didn't seem to know where he wanted the book to be. At moments it is very funny, then it becomes dark and the whole point of the exercise by the end seems to be the psychological collapse of the protagonist ... but with little background to make it plausible.
Life imitates opera
The Uncle From Rome is one of those rare books that manages to combine cultural melodrama, personal angst, hilarious comedy, and good cooking - all at once - in a veritable soup of personal and cultural contradictions. Caldwell himself states his case for the incoherence of the human soul when Michael describes the typical Neapolitan as profoundly contradictory - cruel and kind, vain and humble, warm and cold. But Caldwell captures these contradictions of the human spirit neatly, accurately and with scathing humor.
Our hero, Michael, is an ambitious opera tenor who is doomed to play bit parts. Ostensibly, he is in Naples for a performance of Tosca. But, in reality, he has come to Italy so that he can finally be a star in his own production of an obscure Benjamin Britten opera. But the true proof of his under-appreciated talent comes when he is ordered by Tosca's diva to impersonate a fictitious "Uncle from Rome" in order to lend an air of prestige to a wedding. Michael manages to pull his "bit part" off perfectly, but with entirely too much success. In his role as the "Lo Zio da Roma" Michael must prevent a murder - which he does with simultaneously hilarious and tragic consequences. When all the contradictions come together, and everything inevitably falls apart, Michael himself comes unstrung in a tense climax that will have you glued to the pages. The last paragraph is literally to die for.
Caldwell skewers the fantastic and ridiculous world of Neapolitan pride/opera/family (exaggerated, yet somehow perfectly true)with a wit that is so sharp it's painful. The contrast between Italian high melodrama with Michael's own state of desperate, but equally self-dramatized ennui, is truly marvelous. Caldwell is a true connoisseur of the arts, of artists, and of everything that makes "Nabladans" and, well, people in general, simultaneously wonderful and unbearable. Bravo, Giuseppe. Bravissimo!
The Tragedy at the Opera
I enjoyed this book.