I had to DNF at 50%, I couldn't get into the characters nor care about them. I loved the premise of the story, it just wasn't for me.

I appreciate elements of the book, especially the author's writing style. There are moments that are vaguely humorous in a way that appeals to me, and some of the main character's experiences of social interactions are described in a painfully, but also amusingly, real way. However, many of these same interactions have a stiffness to them that perhaps is intentional, but nevertheless feels unrealistic and out of touch with the mundane realism of other parts of the novel. There are side characters who are graced with long monologues that make little sense, and yet the main character gives no indication that he has also registered the nonsensical tone of his drinking partner, giving the scene a befuddling overtone. My opinion is that if you want to include characters who make no sense, the main character could at least have some reaction to it.
I can see why this book might be inaccessible to some, given its deep analysis of avant-garde music, but to me it doesn't read as pretentious, but rather knowledgeably sincere. Granted, some parts are hard to understand, but for the most part I think the author does a good job of using words to describe music, which often transcends words. I also enjoyed the different takes on how to take musical performance to the next level. My favourite discussion of this was the idea of operas that are about seduction and trances, and yet we have to make sure no one actually gets seduced by the performance. What would happen if that final line was crossed? It's a very interesting question, and unfortunately it is cheapened by the 'revelation' that the avant-garde musical group Fera is actually in the business for the money, rather than the pure hedonism and transgression that we are promised.

In the City of Pigs is a debut fiction novel by Canadian Andrés Forget about avant-garde classical music, patronage of the arts under the umbrella of capitalism, housing unffordability and real estate development. Long-listed for the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize (perhaps an irony given its theme), the second section of the novel Lower Registers inspired the Music for the Hydroörganon concert that premiered in Montreal. Thanks to Dundurn Press and Netgalley for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review. All quotes in this review have been checked against the final published version.

This novel is structured like a symphony. In the first movement entitled 'The City of Pigs' in reference to Plato's Republic, we meet ex-concert pianist Alexander Otkazov who has left Montreal to move to Toronto. He is rather evasive about his reasons, wrangles a music critic job for himself and gets caught up in the mystery of an anarchist modern classical group Fera Civitatem that has pop up performances squatting at empty buildings in Toronto.

The discussion around the direction of avant-garde classical music was particularly invigorating to me:

<i> Nothing new is going to come out of a university, or a government funding body. We’ve reached the end of what we can do by playing around with mathematical formulas or new tunings or fresh vocalization styles, or cosplaying as monks, or ‘discovering’ non-Western music traditions.

The best composers of the twentieth century pushed music to its limits, deconstructed every aspect of the tradition, decamped to West Africa and Bali and Tuva to steal from other people’s traditions. They tried everything— serialism, aleatoricism, indeterminacy, jazz, overtone singing, electronics, electroacoustics, tintinnabuli, game pieces, transethnicism, noise, distortion, silence — I mean, there’s nowhere left to go. Classical music is exhausted......an honest composer will have to acknowledge that at this point, nothing is more derivative than an atonal piano piece that incorporates polyrhythms. </i>

I would love to have a discussion with these musicians because my personal opinion to theirs is au contraire, there’s so many avenues unplumbed to go. Yes, we all learned about Schoenberg, Stravinsky and John Cage in music theory, their radicalism at that time but what about overlooked female classical composers? Melding of East-West musical theories and instruments? The much decried mathematical formulas - I've attended classical concerts with modern composers basing their compositions on ocean waves and Fibonacci sequence. An unforgettable symphony performance at the UBC School of Music I heard years ago had the idea of the effect of AIDS transmutated into a slow spreading out of sound through the orchestral sections. This fall, I attended a chamber music festival with one of the programs entitled 'The Feminine Mystique' which featured classical female composers such as Clara Schumann and contemporary ones such as a new to me Cuban composer Tania León. Lastly, the number of East-West collaborations are numerous but I'll just mention Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road collection and a 2022 Japanese-Hungarian inaugural season at Budapest's House of Music which featured koto, various traditional Japanese flutes, violin, clarinet players closing with a unique adapted Hungarian Rhapsody.

The second movement entitled 'The Lower Registers' is about hydroörganonology, a particularly inventive fictional section of musicology. Otkazov travels to Halifax to do a cover story about a hydroorgan and its enigmatic player there in the Halifax harbour. The intriguing jacket art of this novel pertains to this hydroorgan. Although I don't think it exists as described in our real world, I did by serendipity happen to visit the sea organ in Zadar, Croatia this year. This sea organ, which produces sound via waves entering underwater pipes, was given a derisive mention in this novel as not being a true hydroorgan but nevertheless was fun to listen to.

Movements III and IV, The Laugh of Mephistopheles and The Queen Of The Night respectively, are short like II. Otkazov gets inducted into the world of real estate developers and musical performance art. I was personally rather disappointed that the mysterious group turned out to be after hedonistic pleasures despite their high-sounding theory. Similarly, Otkazov gets embroiled in a sordid affair and only toward the end, remembers to do The Right Thing. I don't like how the burning of a downtown Chinese grocery store was downplayed and our erstwhile 'hero' only remembered it when it came time to Take A Stand against evil property developers. The thorny complicated issue of housing affordability in the GTA was simplified, in my humble opinion. For example, condominiums are condemned as uniformly bad but what is the alternative? Suburban houses for all? There's none of the perpetual light rail vs subway discussion that dominates Toronto city planning discussions nor any of the proposed city housing bills such as vacancy taxes or allotment of percentage of new condo builds as affordable units.

Despite that, where In the City of Pigs shines is in its description of classical music pieces and theory as well as the white-washing of corporations through arts patronage. There are embedded motifs and themes like Goethe's Faustus that would benefit from repeated readings. Purportedly also a love letter to Toronto, I enjoyed re-visiting some Toronto neighbourhoods and streets. Recommend for those who like digressions on classical music, classical literature and Canadian literature readers.

Quotes:
<i> "...to really take pleasure in music, I needed to give up on making a life out of it. The endless struggle to find meaning, to create meaning, to communicate can be so destructive. Everything becomes an idea, or a struggle between ideas. Don’t you find it exhausting , Alexander ? As a critic? The need to weigh music down with so much ideological significance, when it should provide a very pure kind of joy?”

Someone who put up with the hysterics, and the virtue theatre, and the slogans that didn’t rhyme properly, and the near certainty of failure because the alternative was worse: lassitude, passivity, all good instincts stunted and warped by the effort of not living in alignment with one’s perception of reality. Walking this path, one had to make sure that certain things were never seen or never comprehended, neurotically repeating a story about why things were the way they were and could not ever be otherwise. Ghassan, on a basic level, was too emotionally healthy not to be a socialist.

If music was more than pretty sounds, if it meant something, reducing it to aesthetic coordinates could only domesticate and diminish it, render it safe for consumption , rob it of its essential violence. I did not want to be purged by my fever, as Fera Civitatem had said in its manifesto, or to retreat into the icy calm of the ocean and of God, or to make peace with the Mephistophelean city by the lake. I wanted music to cut me open. I wanted to stay in the wound, to feel its pain every morning, to sink into the unhealing gash every night. To know and honour, as Sasha did, the cleansing rage of the Queen of the Night.</i>

This is a gorgeous debut novel, absolutely worthy of its Giller long-listed status. Forget's language is deeply evocative, portraying well both the arrogance and insight of his protagonist. In the City of Pigs tracks the progression of Alexander Otkazov, a failed musician from Montreal, who travels to Toronto to become a journalist and ends up investigating the work of an experimental music collective. The result is a deeply intriguing novel about the connections between music and art alongside the capital flows of real estate and late capitalism.

I couldn’t get on with this book at all, and admit to skipping great chunks. I struggled to the end in order to write this review for NetGalley but I really didn’t enjoy any of it. I hesitate to use the word pretentious as basically I felt that the author was sincere in exploring his themes, but there’s no doubt that it felt pretentious at times. Intellectual, original, imaginative, esoteric – all these certainly – but the long descriptions of musical performance and musical composition would almost certainly only appeal to those with a good knowledge of music theory. Performance art has to be seen in performance and rarely translates to the page. Written as a “symphony” the disparate elements didn’t seem to me to cohere in any satisfactory way, and the avant-garde and experimental artists the narrator meets didn’t interest me. Nor did failed musician Alexander Otkazov himself, the protagonist, who moves to Toronto to start a new life when his career in Montreal goes down the pan. Not for me, this one.

I really enjoyed this novel, personally I would highly recommend it. It was interesting and entertaining. It kept me wanting more throughout the entire book!

A grand love letter to the city of Toronto. At least I think it was a love letter. After a failed career in music, Alex wanders into a journalism gig and explores the underground, arty, avant-garde happenings in Toronto, the city of pigs (nickname explained in the book).

The prose is detailed and rich, the scenes dark and stormy. A very gothic feel, even though it takes place in current times. Featuring all things music: from experimental performances and instruments, to trendy settings and influencers, musical prodigies and uber rich backers.

Humorous, out of left field observations like this: "The violinist and the rest of the string section launched into a lush and raunchy cabaret tune as the woman began doing acrobatic tricks and singing in a husky contralto about what a downer accountants can be."

Everything in comparison to a theory or movement in music, with conversations quite high brow. And then throw in some, um, (cringey, awkward, the word pomegranate is used, not ironically) sex scenes and you have In the City of Pigs.

My thanks to NetGalley and Dundurn Press for the ARC.

Meh. This book was so full of itself that I expected an implosion. I’m afraid that from the start the plot was predictable and even the large words used in the text couldn’t save the book. Speaking of words, some form of libidinal shows up often in this book. I’m feeling bad for those related libidos.

I usually tend to love fiction set in Toronto but this work left me annoyed.

An interesting debut, with some truly beautiful descriptions of being alone in a new city. However, the subject matter is very niche, and is quite difficult to understand if you don't have a deep knowledge of classical music.

i was wondering if someone might be able to help me. i seem to have misplaced my copy of this ARC. could some one please send it back out to me as a kindle version. kindle address is nickwoods157_ipad@kindle.com

many thanks

nick

For starters, In The City of Pigs is a book that is likely to appeal to the niche category of classical music lovers. This alone sets it apart from others. I had glanced through some reviews before starting this book, and while I am in agreement with their conclusion that some chunks were best skimmed (for the non-musical layman) I did enjoy the story in its entirety.

Alex, a failed musician, moves to Toronto and takes up a job with a musical magazine. The book is about him navigating a new place, while discovering the art and music industry in this new city.

I enjoyed the writing and loved reading about Toronto and her changing seasons. I was a little confused on how different elements will come together, but they did by the end of it.

dark reflective slow-paced
Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75

Though the premise is right off my alley, there was the vast difference between my understanding and knowledge of the music scene and that of the author. This book is catered to an audience that I am not part of, and while I did catch a few references here and there, because of the sheer amount of information in every page it really felt like getting invited into a party and not knowing what everyone is talking about.

I tried to get through it through vibe alone and it was difficult. The conversations, especially in the first part, were very one-sided: long monologues that both the reader and Alex were stuck in. I find this a very good method of keeping the pace and mood for the scene, but repeating it in almost every other conversation gets tiring very quickly.

<i><b>Big thanks to the publisher for providing me this ARC via NetGalley. This does not in any shape or form influence my review on this book. </i><b>

I was expecting more from the book, while the writing style was surely impressive, the number of musical references was making the book a tad bit boring for me. This book seemed like it was written for a niche that certainly doesn't include me.

I'm really sorry but I had to DNF. The book is well written but there are so many musical references I simply didn't understand. Further, the protagonist would comment how boring an individual was, yet the entire dialogue would be shared. Great effort but unfortunately I imagine the book is aimed at a very niche reader pool.

This is OK. I had to be patient with the writing style. I can see what she trying to do (effectively in many places). As the author's first novel, it doesn't have the polish of a more experienced writer, although I can certainly see the talent. Musicians might like this more than others.

Thanks very much for the free ARC for review!!

I'm so sorry to say that I DNF this book because it was quite confusing for me, being a person that my native language is not English. I think this is a tiny niche that I'm sadly not part of.

A little blur of too much details that wasn’t for me. I believe you have to like musicology at least a little to like this book!

The book starts off with Alexander Otkazov leaving Montreal on a train, making his way to Toronto. He settles in fairly easily, making friends and all that and that’s when the true story begins: him trying to live in this new city and finding out secrets about it while forming bonds with the people he encounters, even when some might be dangerous for him.

The first 10% of the book was my favourite, it captured well the feeling of leaving and starting over, and he had a poetic outlook that I really appreciated, but that ended pretty fast.
I tried writing a summary of this book but it just wouldn’t do, there’s so much going on and I think that was one of the problems with it. In the first 30% we figure the book is going to be about the band "Fera Civiatem" but it’s not mentioned past the 40% mark until the very end, so it felt like the description had been misleading because he never does seem that invested in the anarchic band anymore.

Another thing that put me off was the long “music” talks, music lovers might enjoy the debates they kept having about music but to a commoner it just droned on and on and I had to skim so much (seriously, there was a whole page on tuning instruments and a whole 8% of the book talking about the history of hydroorangology.)

I loved some of the characters in this, namely Sasha, Ted, Theresa and Margaret and they all seemed like reflective souls, especially the last two and their conversations with Alexander intrigued me most of the time, so that was fun to read.

I also hated some of the characters so hard that they made me consider DNFing this book 11% in, this isn't even an exaggeration. When Sev was introduced, he reminded me of the “my-opinions-are-the-only-ones-that-matter” kinda guy but for music and had a snobbish attitude that was so off-putting I felt like banging my head on the wall every time he’d speak. Some of the characters like Sean and Lionel got on my nerves too but I understood why the author chose to make them like that because they actually had a role to play with their characters, but Sev was just plain terrible.

When it stopped being about him investigating this band(which stopped at 40%) it became about him finding new stories to write about (like the hydro organ thing and interviewing another musicians) and then it switched to him entering a new relationship I hate the “cheating” trope so much and I was so disappointed in him when he entered into an affair when he should have known better, but anyway, it is what it is.

Overall I’d rate this a 3 star because the writing was alright, it felt conversational at times, reflector-y on others and most of the conversations were enjoyable (except when they were talking about music because those were plain boring for me). The story line was chaotic, jumping from one thing to another and not knowing where it was going, but It was still okay.


Would I recommend this? I’d only recommend it to people who are into music because the first 50%is conc with music references that would otherwise bore a reader.

Happy reading :)

What a great title for the book because it's based on music And opera and classical music. The sky Alexander ne Leaves Montreal and goes to Toronto. He doesn't work at 1st but meets up with this Girl named Sarah and And moving to her apartment with her friend named Todd.. Sarah also gets an enjoyable restaurant to hold him over. Then you find out how different music and different kinds are in Toronto. And the chapters are designed like an opera. You meant by name Sean Who owns an opera company. This person wants Sarah's Ex boyfriend. Sarah Todd's Alex and bout him he was actually freaking money for different things You can talk about health money really do not help music industry. They do what I'm doing around musical review here and it was all about the drugs and everything was quite wild. You also meets up with another woman who's into the Oregon music..

In an introductory note, the author explains

”The novel is structured like a symphony: an expansive opening movement followed by three shorter movements, each with its own mood, tone and subject. Interwoven through all these movements are a series of reappearing emotional motifs and harmonic resonances.”

This sounds like a fascinating structure for a book, but, in practice, at least in this book, it seems to lead more to a disjointed collection of episodes where the connections are clearly there but the noise around them proves, at least for this reader, to be a distraction rather than adding to the experience.

In the “expansive opening movement”, Alexander Otkazov leaves Montreal (and a failed musical career) and heads to Toronto. Here, he uses his musical knowledge to get a job as a classical music journalist and he stumbles across an avant-garde, anarchic music group (Fera Civitatem) on which his first piece of journalism is based. Fera Civitatem hold one-off, non-recorded concerts that push the boundaries both of music and legality.

You need an interest in musicology if you are going to head into this book. For me, this was OK because I’ve done quite a lot of music theory through my life and I have recently joined my local choral society, so music continues to be part of my life. However, if you are not au fait with music theory and/or classical music, there are large sections of this book that might not interest you at all.

Take, for example, the first of the three shorter movements. This, according to the author, is the piece from which the whole of the rest of the novel flows and it was originally a separately commissioned piece called “The Lower Registers” (you can listen to the audiobook here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q9WopULTXQ&t=4s). You can also read about turning this writing in a piece of performance art here: https://www.earthworldcollaborative.com/en/music-for-the-hydroorganon. This section of the book looks at hydroörganonology, or, to you and me, underwater organs. Yes, underwater organs. I’m still trying to work out how it even fits with the rest of the book let alone how it forms the basis for the entire novel. Perhaps if someone explains this to me the whole book will show itself in a different light.

There’s a lot of music in this book. And it’s set in Canada and it watches events south of the border as Donald Trump is elected president. This is relevant because the book refers to Trump as “the infamous real-estate developer” and one of the key subplots in the book is concerned with the evils of real-estate development in Toronto (as well as a working knowledge of musicology, experience of Toronto would, I think, enhance this book quite a bit and that is one thing I am lacking - the closest I have ever got to Toronto is staying at home while my wife visited the city).

In the end, for me, what story there is here (from the blurb: A failed musician obsessed with avant-garde art enters a shadowy world where bohemian excess meets the avaricious interests of a real estate cabal) is masked by all the other details that lead the book away from that story. This is a shame because I really liked the sound of the author’s description of the book. I wish it had worked better for me.