Victor has been raised in the gentle and loving home of his foster mother and now that he has come of age, he will travel far from home to take a post as a civil servant. Stifter spends the first half of the book describing the tender relationship between foster mother and child and the arduous journey that Victor takes through scenic mountains and valleys. The author’s language is fittingly simple for the sentimental departure scenes he describes between Victor and his family.
Victor’s first stop on his journey is to an island where his uncle, his father’s brother, has lived in solitude for many years. The uncle’s life has been the antithesis of Victor’s; he does not trust anyone and keeps his house and his island locked down like a fortress. At first the two exchange very few words, but as these bachelors get used to one another’s company they slowly begin to talk. Victor’s uncle has some very important and surprising advice for him: “The greatest and most important thing you have to do now is this: you must marry.”
Victor’s uncle goes on to explain his advice:
When an ancient old man stands on top of a hill made up of a whole welter of his life’s deeds, what good is that to him? I have done many and various things and have nothing to show for them. Everything falls apart in a moment if you haven’t created a life that lasts beyond the grave. That man around whom, in his old age, sons, grandsons and great-grandsons stand will often live to be a thousand. There is a diversity of life there but of the same stamp and when he is gone, then that same life continues—indeed you don’t even notice that a small part of that life has stepped to one side and is no longer there. At my death everything that I have been, that I am, will perish….which is why you must marry, Victor, marry very young.
Stifter’s thoughts on marriage and leaving a legacy reminded me of the Greek concept of kleos that is a central theme of the Iliad. The heroes go to Troy and fight bravely so that they will be remembered well after they are gone from this earth. The uncle’s advice, to surround oneself with a wife, children and a loving family, seems more practical to be remembered for those of us not living in the Bronze Age.
Monsieur de Sainte Colombe, a virtuoso viol player and teacher in seventeenth-century France, is a man of extremes: he practices his instrument for extensive, solitary hours, he rejects any attention or spotlight for his talents, and he still feels a deep, passionate love for his long-deceased wife. When the novella begins, Colombe’s wife has died but his feelings for her have not faded in the least: “Three years after her death, her image was still before him. After five years, her voice was still whispering in his ears.” He becomes a recluse and music becomes the center of his life: “Sainte Colombe henceforward kept to his house and dedicated his life to music. Year after year he labored at the viol and became an acknowledged master. In the two years following his wife’s death he worked up to fifteen hours a day.”
Even in reading this brief interview with literary critic, scholar and polyglot George Steiner one is impressed with the scope of his erudition. Born in Paris in 1929, his Jewish parents had fled Vienna because his father sensed the impending danger posed by the Nazis. Steiner’s father moved the family, once again, to America just as the Germans were invading Paris. The details of his upbringing and early years as a scholar that he discusses with his interviewer Laure Adler in this book are fascinating.
The Book Binder's Daughter 