Product Description

"The Courage Consort", possibly the seventh best-known acappella vocal ensemble in Britain, are given two weeks in a Belgian chateau to rehearse their latest commission, the complicated Partitum Mutante. But can the piece be performed?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #119775 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 121 pages

Customer Reviews

Fortissimo
I read Michel Faber's latest, The Courage Consort, this morning after giving up on Peter Carey's workmanlike True History of the Kelly Gang. Yes, it's one of those books you can read at a sitting - or, as I was in bed, a lying. It's an ostensibly comic novella about a group of acapella singers - "possibly the seventh most renowned in the world" - called The Courage Consort. The action, such as it is, centres on their stay in a secluded European chateau to rehearse a larynx-bogglingly complex piece of modern choral music called Partitum Mutante. Cue lots of ker-razy Europeans to laugh at (presumably an in-joke as the Highlands-bound Faber is Dutch by birth).

However, as with Faber's last two books, Under the Skin and The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps, the central vein of the story is in the mind of an unhappy woman, this time Catherine Courage, the 47-year-old wife of the founder of the group. The first page finds herself contemplating suicide by jumping out of the window of their apartment, unsure whether four storeys would be enough to kill her. This gives us the fine closing line to the first paragraph: "If she could only drop from a height of a thousand storeys into soft, spongy ground, maybe her body would even bury itself on impact." There's enough like that to dispel any fear that Catherine might be a whingeing Plathette, and Faber manages to keep her sympathetic and likeable throughout.

If retreading the unhappy female territory means he will never suffer Martin Amis's accusations of misogyny, he would do well to his neglect of male characters. In Under the Skin, the men were - literally and figuratively - leering lumps of meat - and in The Hundred and Ninety-Nine Steps the male was, albeit necessarily, a lantern-jawed hunk with little inner life that we got to see. Here too the men are fairly one-dimensional: from Roger, the unsympathetic husband who constantly asks Catherine if she has "given any more thought to" giving up her anti-depressants, to Julian the pansexual lustbucket; with only Ben, the 20-stone bass, to provide a little light and (ahem) an enormous amount of shade.

The story is simple enough, and like the rest of Faber's books, remains in the head despite its apparently slight construction. As comic novels go, it's not that funny (I laughed once) but it's satisfying and affecting and re-readable and what more, I suppose, could one ask for in 120 pages? Just don't let the fact of a quote on the front cover by Brian Eno put you off.

The Courage Consort
Michel Faber's The Courage Consort is one of those books where you wish it were longer or part of a collection. A novella of 150 pages it follows the story of a group of singers sent to Belgium for two weeks in order to rehearse a new avant-garde piece for an upcoming event. As they spend more time in each other's company the group falls apart due to personality conflicts and personal problems.

Roger Courage is the founder of the singing group, named The Courage Consort, although the courage in their name comes from their willingness to tackle contemporary pieces in addition to the traditional standards. His wife, Catherine, is a manic depressive who, in preparation for the trip to Belgium, has forgotten her pills. Ben is an overweight bass singer who lives in his own personal world of silence. Julian is a seemingly bisexual vocalist with a love for Bohemian Rhapsody. And Dagmar, a young German, is the opposite of Catherine in her love for life; she has also, for the trip, brought along her newborn child, Axel.

The book begins with Catherine Courage sitting on the window ledge contemplating whether the four storey drop would be enough to kill her as her husband sit in the next room. As it continues the quintet spend the days practising Partitum Mutante, the avant-garde piece of Italian composer Pino Fugazzi, while the nights provide them with an over exposure to each other that leads to constant arguments about the direction the group should take. Their inability to work with each other leads to an incident that eventually breaks up the group, who are "possibly the seventh most renowned in the world", although there is some hope for the group as evidenced by the optimistic ending.

The prose is light, the vocabulary restrained, and the plot simple. There is humour in this book but it's not laugh out loud funny; the Brits' interpretations of European accents, and the way characters communicate with each other. The characters are nicely done although the woman were better drawn than the males, a common occurrence in Faber's work. Catherine, as the main character, is well conceived - her thoughts were realistic, her dialogue seemed right, and her mania added that extra bit of depth.

Faber's novella is a good read, although, like in The Crimson Petal and the White, he leaves a few things unanswered - the source of a recurring noise from the nearby forest being a prime example - but this does provide scope for interpretation. Maybe we can presume that some parts of the story are delusions of Catherine's. The Courage Consort almost succeeds as a standalone book, but I couldn't help but feel that the characters needed a little more to fully appreciate them. That said, the story is still worth appreciating.

Utterly brilliant comic novel with unexpected depths
One of the finest comic novels I have ever had the pleasure to come across. Despite its brevity and lightness of tone it has a substance and a pathos that I found particularly moving. It's not often I have enough confidence in a book to recommend it unreservedly, but in this case I have no hesitation, enjoy.