Cliffnotes: Using brief, recollective episodes, Barnes constructs the fictional biography of Dmitri Shostakovich, a Soviet-era Russian composer and his steady manipulation by the ‘Power’. His opera Lady Macbeth Of The Mtsensk District is flagged unfit for consumption after Stalin walks out in disgust, and a review titled ‘Muddle Instead Of Music’ in the Communist publication Pravda costs him… Continue reading Book of the week: The Noise Of Time by Julian Barnes
