One of the main characters in my novel is violently brilliant, but thwarted dancer. And since I'm one of the world's klutziest people, even my vocabulary with the physicality of dance is somewhat lacking. Thus, Jake recommended I read a book I'd been meaning to get around to for ages: Colum McCann's Dancer.
SO many things. The Russia. The Margot Fonteyn. The story of the beautiful, if slightly (okay, lotsly) cruel man. McCann's novelized biography of precision-master Rudolf Nureyev has a lot going for it. And that's even before we look at its form. A novelized biography. So close to the ideas I'm looking at for my phd re: roman a clef and "non-fiction novels" a la Truman Capote's In Cold Blood.
And using one artform to discuss another. I haven't always loved the book, (I'd have liked more separation between narrators. I always do. Sigh. And actually, I enjoyed the impressionistic sections in Rudi's own voice perhaps best anyhow) but it's been well worth the read. Well worth looking at Rudik again. There's a lot to be learned from his drive. He considered almost everything that wasn't dancing a waste of time. It's always something I'm weighing. Balance vs. Greatness. Where they intersect.
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