Ron
Butlin
VIVALDI AND THE NUMBER 3
'This
collection is an extraordinary read. It is extraordinary in its concept,
extraordinary in its delivery, extraordinary in the emotions it manages
to evoke. . . wry, satirical and deeply moving . . .heart-stoppingly beautiful
. . .[Butlin] is a master.'
The New Review
‘brilliantly
conceived . . . Playing with biography (though never fast and loose) Butlin
nips seamlessly in and out of anachronisms, conflating history like a
squeezed piano accordion . . .[he] can take an idea and fly with it to
the far reaches of his imagination, developing oblique studies not only
of the composers themselves but of their music.’
The Herald
‘ .
. . jovial enough to infect the ill-informed . . . Erudite if fleeting
fun; an invigorating jig.’
The Scotsman
‘these
stories are hymns to the artistic temperament’
The Times
‘Wickedly
funny . . . witty and contemporary.’
Classic FM Magazine
‘You
can’t help but enjoy it’
Record Collector
‘Richly
surreal stories . . . an unalloyed triumph . . . light and yet learned.
Gloriously anachronistic . . .playful, funny and accessible’
Sunday Herald
‘delicious
flight of fancy’
Scottish Book Collector
‘funny,
eloquent, quirky and desperately sad . . . Everything is mingled in Butlin’s
world - past and present, dream and waking, with daring and deftness .
. . a bubble of lightness (that) somehow carries up with it a heavy stone
of sorrow.’ [Five stars!]
The Independent On Sunday
‘Butlin’s
caprices achieve a metaphorical resonance’
Guardian
‘Wit
polish, humanity and daring . . . A brilliant and surreal collection of
sketches’
Sunday Herald
‘None
of the stories in Ron Butlin’s new collection is altogether divorced from
documentary reality, but it is precisely their juxtaposition of this with
the wildest, most extravagant flourishes of “just suppose” which gives
each one its singular piquancy.’
Times Literary Supplement
‘a
deft balance between the comic and the moving . . . there’s a passionate
humanity in the stories . . . compelling . . .powerful . . . expressed
with a breathtaking clarity and precision . . . It is full of hard truth,
darkness and light.’
The Sandstone Review
‘off-the-wall
writing . . .!’
Opera News