Simple Scale, A

Disgrifiad Cymraeg / Welsh Description

Man cychwyn y stori, sy'n symud o Rwsia i Hollywood ac i Efrog Newydd wedi cyflafan Medi 11, wrth i gyfrinachau bywydau dau gyfansoddwr hoyw gael eu datgelu, yw darn o gerddoriaeth. Mae David Llewellyn yn archwilio mannau lle mae'r personol a'r gwleidyddol yn cyfarfod, wrth i stori am gariad, marwolaeth, twyll, y CIA, bomiau atomig a cherddoriaeth glasurol ddatblygu.

Disgrifiad Saesneg / English Description

A piece of music starts a story which will range across Soviet Russia, McCarthyite Hollywood and post 9/11 New York, as the mystery of the lives of two gay composers is uncovered. David Llewellyn explores the points at which the personal and the political meet as narratives of love, death, deceit, the CIA, atomic bombs and classical music unfold.

Dosbarthu

Byddwn yn dosbarthu eitemau sydd mewn stoc o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith, fel arfer drwy Royal Mail Tracked 48. Ar gyfer archebion o flaen llaw, byddwn yn dosbarthu’r eitem o fewn 3 diwrnod gwaith ar ôl ei derbyn gan ein cyflenwr.

Dispatch

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Bywgraffiad yr Awdur / Author Biography

David Llewellyn is the author of three novels published by Seren. He has also written novelisations of the Torchwood and Dr Who series, scripts for the BBC and has had short stories published in a variety of outlets. He was born in Pontypridd and is a graduate of Darlington College of Arts. A freelance writer, he lives in Cardiff.

Adolygiad y Cyhoeddwr / Publisher Review

The epigraph from Pushkin which gives this novel its title states that there is no justice either on earth or in heaven. Certainly the novel is about the unjust use of power by states, corporations and individuals, but the consequence of this is betrayal. That is the theme which recurs like a subject in a symphony – turned and returned throughout the piece. The book’s three settings – 1930s-40s Soviet Russia, 1950s Hollywood, and New York just post-9/11 – are all societies suffering from paranoia. The New York story is told fairly straightforwardly as it unfolds, through the experience of Natalie (P.A. of the now aged and confused composer Sol Conrad) and her meeting with Pavel (grandson of composer Sergey Grekov). Sergey’s story of the horrors of the Gulag and the brittle glory of the Kirov is told always in the present tense. Conrad’s story of life as a Hollywood hack, caught up in the McCarthy trials, is also told in the present tense but in the second person. This device helps the reader to identify the different voices, but the unusual use of ‘you’ for Sol suggests that he remains (if only in his own mind) perpetually accused and interrogated. Somewhat like Pinter’s play, Betrayal , the stories of the two men are told mostly in reverse, receding to a point of convergence in the late 1930s. While the political systems under which they suffer are superficially different, both men and those they love are personally vulnerable because they are gay. At a crucial point of his life, Sergey realises that, ‘The revolution will never be over, and that no one, least of all Sergey, will ever be safe again.’ That faces him with a terrible choice. Sol reaches ‘a fork in the road’ at the Washington hearing which threatens his future career. Natalie faces the choice between ‘familiarity, routine’ and ‘a change she couldn’t control’ at a time when she and her city were feeling threatened. The bleak message, certainly on one level, is that whether a person maintains their integrity or sacrifices it, they will be destroyed. There may be another reading – that the spirit, or love, is in the music and that the music, in some form, survives. David Llewellyn’s novel takes an epic sweep through time, using a complex, symphonic form and sometimes unusual style of narration, but the stories are compelling and the characters’ experience so vividly recreated that it has the drive of a thriller and the momentum of a classical tragedy.