from Orpheus Lost

Janette Turner Hospital's new novel, Orpheus Lost, is quite stunning. Her global view of the public and private intersection, which she flirted with in Due Preparations for the Plague, is even more in focus here.

Plus, she just writes with such grace and strength and gravity. In this scene, Mishka Bartok, a musician and scholar of the oud, a middle eastern instrument commonly thought as the precursor to the lute, is being interrogated as a suspected terrorist:

"...And now there was Cerberus and the smashed oud. He could feel the splinters, he could feel the broken neck of the oud in spite of his hood, or perhaps it was his own neck, and he watched himself sobbing, curled up like an infant on the floor, naked, with a sack on his head.

Then the oud miraculously reassembled itself, and rose up like a Being of Light and spoke to him, and its wings were like the wings of a great seabird and were as white and blinding as the sun. I am the messenger of the Lord of Music, proclaimed the Radiant Oud. Cerberus has lain meek at my feet and has licked my ankles. I have parted the Red Sea and led captivity captive and my power is so great that none can resist me and I cannot, I cannot be destroyed. Do not weep by the rivers of Babylon, but seize my power.

Then Mishka seized hold of the radint being and wrestled with him and music arose from their struggle and Mishka said I will not let thee go except thou bless me and the oud touched the hollow of Mishka's thigh and Mishka was in very great pain and then he was in the absolute radiant embrace of the sun and the music of the spheres was all around him and he felt no pain at all."