Imprisoned in his cabin, he recalls his early years as a scientist, inventing the theremin and other electric marvels, and the Kremlin's dream that these inventions could be used to infiltrate capitalism itself. On a ship steaming its way from Manhattan back to Leningrad, Lev Termen writes a letter to his ?one true love?, Clara Rockmore, telling her the story of his life. Us Conductors takes us from the glamour of Jazz Age New York to the gulags and science prisons of the Soviet Union. Synopsis: Winner of the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize A BEAUTIFUL, HAUNTING NOVEL INSPIRED BY THE TRUE LIFE AND LOVES OF THE FAMED RUSSIAN SCIENTIST, INVENTOR AND SPY LEV TERMEN CREATOR OF THE THEREMIN.
Muy merecido el Premio Scotiabank Giller.Hardcover. "There are twelve notes on the chromatic scale. La explotación por pequeños criminales, pequeños espías, amores no correspondidos, y al final, una vida que pudo ser luminosa, termina siendo gris.Įl amor por la música de Sean Michaels se expresa hermosamente en este libro: Otros descubrimientos que nunca pudo desarrollar. Un instrumento que pretendía revolucionar la música, facilitar que cualquier pudiese tocar un instrumento musical. La vida de un genio desperdiciada, despilfarrada. La abundancia (y frivolidad) contra el hambre, el frío y la violencia. Un fabuloso libro sobre la música y el absurdo de la política de la guerra fría.Įl contraste entre la vida de Léon Theremin en USA, rodeado de grandes artistas, que le reconocen su genialidad, su tonto y poco influyente rol como espía (según Sean Michaels), y su duro período en las cárceles para "traidores" a la Madre Patria Rusia y su nuevo rol como espía, igualmente menor y de poco impacto. Us Conductors is steeped in beauty, wonder, and looping heartbreak, a sublime debut that inhabits the idea of invention on every level.
Throughout all this, his love for Clara remains constant and unflagging, traveling through the ether much like a theremin’s notes. In the second half, the novel builds to a crescendo as Termen returns to Russia, where he is imprisoned in a Siberian gulag and later brought to Moscow, tasked with eavesdropping on Stalin himself.
In the United States he makes a name for himself teaching the theremin to eager music students and marketing his inventions to American companies. In the first half of the book, we learn of Termen’s early days as a scientist in Leningrad during the Bolshevik Revolution, the acclaim he receives as the inventor of the theremin, and his arrival in 1930s New York under the aegis of the Russian state. In a finely woven series of flashbacks and correspondence, Lev Termen, the Russian scientist, inventor, and spy, tells the story of his life to his “one true love,” Clara Rockmore, the finest theremin player in the world. Winner of the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
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