SITE RATING: 3/10
SITE
REVIEW: An interesting,
but failed attempt to dramatize the dual
stories of Handel and The Foundling Hospital's
founder Captain Coram, and their intersection,
Handel and
the Messiah Story has the basic
elements of a dramatic story, but the
disparate parts never gel. Author Hertha
Pauli, an Austrian emigrant who came to
America to help anti-Nazi Germans who had fled
the war, has the germ of a good idea here, but
her prose is so stilted and cardboard that the
characters fail to come to life. She
begins the dual stories from each character's
childhood, and, interspersing actual events
with made-up situations and dialogue,
gradually brings their two lives together with
the beginnings of Handel's charity
performances for the hospital.
Interspersed throughout the book are
black and white drawings and photographs
depicting scenes or items which appear in the
story, but these factual photographs tend to
blur the line between whether the author is
attempting a purely fictional account of the
events, or a factual retelling of the story,
with dialogue. It feels more like the
latter - a dry recounting of events, with
clumsy "scenes" thrown in; and the two
competing halves never come together in a
compelling manner. I think there is a
good idea here, with pathos, drama, and a rich
denouement, but the subject needs a better
scribe than Ms. Pauli.
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