Tags
1970s, 1980s, Broadway, fantasy, fiction, non-fiction, Philip Pullman, series, theatre
I was making such good progress and catching up on my book reviews. I really was! And then this fall, life happened, and I am just starting my book reviews for my 2023 reading on this 3rd to last day of that same year. However, I am on holiday break, so get ready for the traditional year-end burst of book reviews!
However, I’m starting with something a little different than what I usually do: a post that features two books with a shorter evaluation than my usual reviews. One is a companion book to one I read in 2022, and the other is the second one (sort of) in a series, but both function best within the context of other books.
First up is Razzle Dazzle: The Battle for Broadway by Michael Riedel. I previously read his book, Singular Sensation, about Broadway’s resurgence in the 1990s and LOVED it. It sang with my musical theatre kid heart and winked knowingly at my love of third, fourth, and fifth-hand gossip. (The detailed explanation for diva Patti LuPone’s ongoing feud with Andrew Llyod Webber still feeds my soul.) As such, I was really excited to dive into Razzle Dazzle, his exploration of Broadway’s nadir in the 1970s and 80s. Overall, I really liked it, though not as much as Singular Sensation. That makes sense to me, though. Singular Sensation bubbles with the joy of art rising to the top again, the momentum of musical theatre re-taking the country by storm, and an industry with enough financial stability to indulge in the petty dramas and scandal that we (ok, I) so love to see unfold. Razzle Dazzle, on the other hand, is about Broadway’s fall from its Golden Age, an industry being crushed under the weight of knotty bureaucracies and increasing costs in a declining economy, its leaders desperately trying to keep it from disappearing forever. It is much more about the business of theatre than the excitement of performance. In some ways, Riedel tries to maintain the tone of the neighborhood gossip that he deploys with such delight in Singular Sensation. There is no shortage of asides about cutthroat business deals, real opinions of long-time business partners shared behind closed doors, and a detailed exploration of the somewhat inexplicable quasi-father-son relationship between Schubert Organization president, Bernard Jacobs, and choreographer Michael Bennett, a tragic James Dean-esque figure of the theatre world. But even so, you need to be ready for many more discussions of business deals and financial strategy than you might expect. While not my favorite of the two, though, I do think it provides an important counterpoint to Singular Sensation and provides a grounding that I missed when reading it previously–in order to truly understand Broadway’s 90s and early 2000s heyday, you have to understand what it took to get there. Reidel’s books should absolutely be read together and are a must-read for any musical theatre lover.
My second book of the year was The Secret Commonwealth, the second book in Philip Pullman’s The Book of Dust series, which, in itself, is a sort of but not really prequal series to his His Dark Materials series. From that convoluted pedigree alone, I wouldn’t normally write a review of it as I try not to review every book in a series. But there are a few things I think worth noting. His Dark Materials was a series written for young adults. The Book of Dust series seems much more geared toward adults, but that vibe really comes into its own in The Secret Commonwealth. It is clear that Pullman is aware that he is continuing the story for the adults who first joined Lyra and Will on their journeys between worlds decades ago as children. Second is the jump in time from The Book of Dust‘s first book, La Belle Sauvage, where we meet Lyra as an infant and Malcolm as a young boy and experience events referenced in His Dark Materials, to The Secret Commonwealth, which takes place after His Dark Materials, when Lyra is at university at Oxford and Malcolm a professor there. (Hence the “sort of not really a prequal series” description.) The tonal shift is interesting as well. La Belle Sauvage was, essentially, the Odyssey, while The Secret Commonwealth owes its tone much more to the original series with more than a dash of 1930s adventure novels. And finally, the structure follows Malcolm, Lyra, and Pan, Lyra’s daemon, on their own separate adventures, a structure I was not sold on at first but ultimately grateful for as it provides relief from the (rather tiring) intent late-teenage angst Lyra and Pan feel about their fraying relationship. In particular, I loved Malcolm’s sections. Malcolm’s path in life and the formation of his identity may have been jumpstarted by Lyra in La Belle Sauvage, but she never defines him. It would take a lot to pull the narrative center away from Lyra, and while Pullman never lets Malcolm do that, he’s created a complex, layered protagonist confident enough in himself to go toe-to-toe with Lyra for that narrative center. It seems like the third book in this trilogy, if it is ever published, will be much more closely tied in time to The Secret Commonwealth, and I am excited to experience the resolution of Malcolm, Lyra, and Pan’s journeys. More than that, I adored His Dark Materials as a kid, and I adore The Book of Dust series now as an adult.
And with that, I kick off sharing my 2023 reading with you! Enjoy, and happy reading!