“August Blue” was a very frustrating book to read. It follows Elsa M. Anderson, supposedly one of the most famous virtuoso pianists in the world of classical music, on a confusing journey through several European countries to find herself after giving a bad performance, spurred on by encountering an exact double of herself in Athens.

My main issue with this book: Elsa is a concert pianist, and while the book isn't necessarily about piano and her relationship to it, piano and the music world are relevant enough to its concerns that I'm extremely confused by the strange, naive portrayal here. The writing suggests a little research was done into classical piano and what the life of a pianist looks like, but not much more than that; at one point, Elsa assigns a student (whose ability is never really gauged anyway) a Brahms sonata that doesn't exist:

"By the way, I want you to practise Brahms's Piano Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 49." Even for an exceptionally gifted student like Marcus this was an impossible task.

At first I thought Elsa (or Levy) was being funny, the joke being that the task is literally impossible because that piece doesn't exist as described (Brahms does have a first piano sonata in C major, op. 1), but it never comes up again. This was pretty much my breaking point with the book; it seems like all it would have taken was a google search to double check the information here.

It seems Levy has no idea what actually happens in a piano lesson, either; in some of Elsa's lessons she takes over and plays entire pieces for the student, while in another she just asks the student to play through a full piece at a slow tempo while she just sits there. This is the same lesson where she tells a student who wants to play Satie's first Gymnopédie that instead she should be working on Chopin's Étude op. 25 no. 6, which is sort of like telling someone reading "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" that they should instead read "Ulysses."

One of the catalyzing events of the novel is Elsa’s “messing up” while performing Rachmaninoff’s second piano concerto in Vienna; supposedly, her fingers refuse to do what they’re supposed to do and instead she plays something entirely different (while, we later learn, the conductor apparently turns around and mocks her to the audience). Even this is bizarre: memory slips are a real phenomenon, as are all sorts of other mistakes that could ruin a concert experience, but usually what happens is we forget what we’re playing and blank out completely, or miss lots of notes; playing something else randomly is sort of absurd. It’s even more absurd to me when, later, it’s implied by another character that Elsa’s playing random music during that concert (which I guess we’re meant to understand is an improvisation or composition by her) is somehow an artistic achievement, that by not playing the Rachmaninoff and instead playing her own music she was breaking free of convention (or something). I think even that idea could be played off convincingly somehow (I think most things can), but it isn’t here; it feels like a weird afterthought.

I understand that as someone who went to music school and studied piano, my tolerance for these inaccuracies is lower than many other potential readers'. But I think it raises a point about the attention we (as writers) owe our subject matter. I wouldn't anticipate that Levy would write a completely perfect book that reflects every pianist's experience to the level, and I don't think that's necessary or even desirable. When we take an interest in a way of life (or anything unfamiliar to us) as a writer, it seems crucial to approach that way of life with care; I mean to care about the fidelity with which we portray that thing. The entire time I felt as if Levy had no interest in actually speaking to anyone who plays the piano, because that’s how the book reads.

All of this is beside the fact that I found the prose confusing and muddled. The dialogue and relationships between characters are stilted, and most of the characters don’t end up feeling important or even relevant: they’re all there to prop up Elsa and to get us closer to understanding how special she is (or something). Elsa herself is very childish; I think this is in part supposed to be because her childhood was in some ways nonexistent due to her relentless pursuit of piano, but her interactions with other people are weird, and the book almost feels like a preteen’s hallucination of what her life might be like as a concert pianist. When reading about Levy’s other work (this is my first encounter with her writing) I often see descriptions of it as resembling a dream or even a hallucination. There are many books that I love that have this atmosphere, but I think in order to achieve it there’s a necessary balance between coherence and incoherence, and that’s not a balance I find here; “August Blue” is all over the place (technical term). Elsa supposedly encounters a double of herself at a marketplace in Athens, where the doppelganger buys a pair of mechanical, battery-operated toy horses that Elsa herself wants; Elsa then steals her hat in revenge, an act that supposedly binds them together forever and begins the weird series of encounters that continue throughout the book. Simultaneously, Elsa seems to be communicating constantly with the doppelganger in her head. When they meet up bizarre things happen like the doppelganger dropping a lit cigar into her drink. I was confused if I was supposed to understand this as some kind of allegory; I think that might be the intent, but I have no idea.

Without going into it, I’ll end by pointing to another example of art made by a non-musician about classical music that I found beautifully representative in a lot of ways: the film Tár by Todd Field. To quote Zachary Woolfe, the New York Times classical critic (who doesn’t even seem to like the film, for what it’s worth!):

“If that fantasy is persuasive, it’s because, for all its noirish, even horror-movie trappings, “Tár” is a largely realistic depiction of its subject matter. (Far more so than “Black Swan” in relation to ballet, or “Whiplash” to jazz.) Blanchett gestures on the podium like a real conductor; a few references to the symphony she is preparing as “the Five” — rather than “the Fifth” or “Mahler Five” — are almost the only slips of tone.”

Throughout Tár (a two-and-a-half hour film that uses classical music EXTENSIVELY as a backdrop!) I found myself stunned by the level of detail in so many places. It was funny to see that film very shortly after finishing this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and FSG for the e-ARC! August Blue is Deborah Levy’s latest work following a pianist’s life after a faulty performance as her mentor is ill. I have some conflicting feelings about this one because while Levy’s writing is deeply descriptive and vivid, the plot felt a bit too disjointed for my personal enjoyment. Although the vibes carried this more than the plot for me, I did like getting to go through Elsa’s internal monologue as she navigates grief and coming to terms with her identity. I can definitely see myself picking up more of her work in the future.

Stream of consciousness carries this novel to be worldly yet intimate. I knew the character then not at all. There is a keen eye on society, its pitfalls and illusions, as the main character tells the story. The novel is the right length. If it were any longer, I would have lost interest.

Music and traveling compliments the story. The story is set during the pandemic yet is subtly written throughout as an observation and reminder. The character's relationships serve a purpose. It reveals a lot about the character's values and personality.

I think about How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful by Florence and The Machine and The Eddy on Netflix as cultural relations to the story.

Gosh I just love Deborah Levy. Her writing is so dreamy and summery and trancelike. I didn’t love the more modern references to FaceTime and covid, that took me out of it a bit, but overall just as magical as all her other fiction.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. After leaving a recital in Vienna after about halfway through the program, Elsa is somewhat lost. As everyone is just emerging after the pandemic, Elsa is going to give private piano lessons to a nervous boy, with a rich and constantly angry father, in Athens and then on to Paris for more lessons to a day dreaming young woman. In between, Elsa meets old friends who encourage her to get back on the stage, she meets an overeager potential lover and learns that her teacher, a man who taught her all she knows about music and adopted her when she was a musical protege at six, is in seriously declining health. And with all this, in every city she travels to, she sees a woman who looks like she could be her double. Coincidence or hallucination? This slim book is packed with more ideas than most books twice its length.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the digital advanced review copy.

'My dear, he said, we will meet under its fruit-laden boughs when the pandemics is over.'

In Deborah Levy's most recent novel, what could be considered to be one of her most experimental and daring works, we meet Elsa, a disgraced pianist who is still suffering the effects of her public humiliation at a Rachmaninoff recital. While she is in Greece, Elsa meets a women whom she is convinced is her double, a fateful meeting which leads Elsa on a journey towards coming to terms with her past and her future as an artist. The women's omnipresence, and Elsa's internalised dialogues with this other self, are elements which create tension, leading to a climactic faceoff at the end of the novel. Similarly to Levy's previous novels and her autobiographical trilogy, the novel deals with themes of family and loss and the compromises and dilemmas that come with being a female artist. The maternal relation (from the Cost of Living/Hot Milk) and the notion of real estate (Real Estate) are core concepts which are also important in this novel. The importance of chosen family is expressed through the relationship between Elsa and Arthur Goldstein, who also has to come to terms with has share in Elsa's past. As she travels from place to place teaching various students (who end up teaching her valuable lessons), Elsa learns about the cost of living, loving and losing, and realises that you can deviate away from life's fixed compositions and compose your own handmade destiny. August Blue is also one of the first novels I've read which captures the reality of living in the pandemic, capturing the fragility of life and the bonds between individuals.

While its story itself isn't too long, August Blue manages to linger with me for days after my reading experience. August Blue is clean, concise, and confident about the story it seeks to tell. An interesting feature of the story is that it does situate itself in a post-pandemic time, a nod to "returning back to the world" since covid-19's prominence since 2020. While mentioned sparingly, it does help contrast our narrator's thoughts on returning to the world since her fiasco musical performance. Levy herself doesn't even seem too preoccupied on the gibberish of maintaining one's identity through a career, making the story all the more interesting by not trying to sell readers a think piece or an inspired narrator trying to regain who she was. Perhaps its the narrator's discovery of her identity with the difference between career and curiosity that is the most endearing in the absence of these things as she spends most of her time giving music lessons and thinking of her most formative relationships she has built, being that, she opens herself up to understanding that relationships are harder to imagine the end of than any other experience. Although, maybe except about how she feels about dyeing her hair blue.

I love Deborah Levy for how intelligent and experimental her writing is--I group her with Ali Smith as writers whose books are dense with underlying meanings, connections and symbolism that rewards careful and close reading. "August Blue" is no exception. Even though the plot synopsis--Elsa M. Anderson, a renowned classical pianist, freezes during a concert in Vienna and subsequently takes time off to travel around Europe (Greece, Paris, London) where she gives piano lessons and keeps bumping into a mysterious woman who she believes is her doppelganger--seems pretty straightforward, the book is anything but. Childhood abandonment, the color blue, family and identity, mechanical horses, artistic freedom and integrity, a battered hat--Levy weaves all these things and more into this slim novel, one that I'm pretty sure I won't fully understand even after multiple readings. Which is exactly what I'm looking for in a Deborah Levy novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for providing me with a ARC of this title in return for my honest review.

Elsa is an orphan, adopted at a young age by a piano teacher who saw her great talent. She grew up with nannies and piano lessons, and became one of the world's most famous musician. In "August Blue", we get to see a slice of her life, after she "lost it" during a concert in Vienna. She then travels from Greece to her home in London, from London to Paris and Italy, teaching young rich piano students. She keeps seeing a woman, much like her, whom she feels attracted and linked to. Elsa is a fascinating character. She is quite ambiguous, I never knew what to expect from her, and once I got that there were many "grey areas" in this novel, after about a third of the novel, I enjoyed it even more. Interesting reflexions on family, success, talent and identity. It might be a good choice for a book club!

Deborah Levy is inimitable. There are so many writers I love and admire, whose voices are so strong—and yet they could be copied, even if poorly. Even if we can tell that it's just an imitation. But how can you ever replicate Deborah Levy's distinctive writing voice? I could know it everywhere and never be able to explain it.

I don't know what to say about "August Blue." It is a strange book, like all of Levy's novels. Likewise, it has a preoccupation with mothers and daughters, with Greece, and hot weather, and the sea, and desire. You can't pin it down, can't explain what about it you loved so much in any form that would matter, that would make someone else understand it.

Stanley Cavell says that love is about your words having meaning only for the right person. Or you saying the right thing only to the right person. This is precisely what this book is about to me, or rather it's perhaps why this book made sense to me.

Well I liked it, but I'm also confused by it. Which made it challenging to choose a star rating. Maybe it's the kind of book you need to read more than once to fully grasp. Or maybe it's meant to be mysterious. The writing is great and I found the story line interesting. It was thought provoking in that it made me question the ways we see ourselves and judge ourselves for the mistakes we make. I also found it weird to read about the pandemic we just lived through. It's a shorter book so definitely worth giving it a try. Thank you NetGalley and Hamish Hamilton for an ARC of August Blue by Deborah Levy.

I completely adore “August Blue”….
And ‘man-oh-man’, I’ve got a rush on Deborah Levy.

This is a short book, but from the very beginning to the very end, I enjoyed the entire atmosphere, the feelings, the music, the mystery, the dialogue, the intimate inner voice of our protagonist and the sweetness I felt for
*Madame Blue*and her life-experiences.

I didn’t read this with any intellectual commitment…..I just enjoyed it… fully enjoyed it !

The opening was one the best introductions into the ongoing journey we’re invited to take — as any book I’ve ever read: creative, visual, suspenseful, and fascinating.
“I first saw her in a flea market in Athens, buying two mechanical, dancing horses. The man who sold them to her was slipping a battery into the belly of the brown horse, and a super-heavy-duty-zinc AA. He showed her that to start the horse, which was the length of two large hands, she had to lift up its tail. To stop it she must pull the tail down. The brown horse had a string tied to its neck and if she held the string upwards and outward, she could direct its movements”.
“Up went to tail, and the horse began to dance, it’s for hinged legs trotting in a circle. He then showed her the white horse, with its black mane and white hooves. Did he want her to slip an AA into its belly so it too could begin to dance? Yes, she replied in English, but her accent was from somewhere else”.
“I was watching her from a stall laid out with miniature plaster statues of Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Apollo, Aphrodite. Some of these gods and goddesses have been turned into fridge magnets. Their final metamorphosis”.

Elsa A. Anderson was a thirty-four year old classical piano virtuoso.
The old masters were Elsa’s shield: Beethoven. Bach. Rachmaninov, Schumann.
“Their inner lives are valuable without measure”.

My thoughts about BLUE HAIR ….. [Elsa dyed her hair BLUE]….referring to the title of the book.
‘Blue’ has always been linked to tranquility, so it would make sense that people with blue hair are thought to be calm people.
But … it’s also a bold statement to dye one’s hair blue…. possibly suggesting it’s
‘my time’…honoring dreams…being more fully who we really are … experiencing life fuller.
So….
…..as they say, if the shoe fits…the shoe fits!

“The colourist was very tense.
“For a moment, I thought about my birth mother”.
“And then my foster-mother”.
“My new sleek, blue hair rippled down my back to just above my waist”.
“I had two mothers. One had given me up. And I had given up the woman who had replaced her. I could hear them gasping”.
“Author flung his arms in the air. My dear, he said, as I don’t have an open sleigh to be pulled by huskies across the stormy streets of London, we will share a taxi. You, Elsa M. Anderson, are now a natural blue.”
“Madame Blue”.

Markus was a thirteen year old boy with a German shepherd, a fierce dog, named Skippy.
After Elsa had made a mistake performing one night [Sergei Rachmaninoff] she walked off stage — and set-out to travel.

Marcus, was to be Elsa’s student in Greece. He played for Elsa the Saranande from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1. the first time getting together.
Their relationship was charming — walks for lemonade—their conversations— and their playful moments.
Marcus liked to dance with his dog Skippy to Prince.
Elsa liked to watch Isadora Duncan and dance along with her.
They were an endearing pair!

Elsa also started up a friendship with Tomas, who had been sick on the boat coming from Paris to Grace. They drink a lot of alcohol together after favorite bar. And went swimming at two a.m.

Elsa would see the woman who bought the horses again in Northern London.
“I’ve got your hat”, Elsa said to the woman in her head. “When you return the horses, I will give it back to you”.
“It’s not a matter of returning the horses, she replied. Just because you want them doesn’t mean you can have them”.

“I thought of my double in Athens and Paris as I played. Like my mother, she, too, was listening very attentively. What I saw were the pink flowers growing by the Acropolis. I let them enter the music. They had taken me back to another ancient history. To the table, clause and toast, and the blackberry bushes are the first six years with my foster parents, to the chickens in the garden, and the roses falling away from the wall. They had try to give me a home.

Yummy descriptions of salad with watermelon with feta cheese was mouthwatering…..
And when Elsa heard the midnight resonance of the woman who had bought the horses…..I felt lonely along with Elsa ….
and her thoughts about Isadora Duncan…..
who believed in freedom of expression — had inspired Elsa, was moving to me, too.
Isabel Duncan used to inspire me when I was growing up as well— I loved my modern dance classes.

There is much more I could share about this slim novel — more introspective/cerebral details ….Elsa’s powerful music teacher, Author, who was like a father to her - etc.
and other characters Bella and Max, but most ….
I simply enjoyed the entire feeling of being in Deborah Levy-land.

Loved it!

“august blue” is one of those novels with a protagonist that makes you say “she’s literally me!” elsa is a piano player who gives teenagers lessons. on a trip to greece, she sees a woman who is incredibly similar to her in terms of looks, and an obsession starts.

when i thought this was going to be sapphic in nature, it sure wasn’t. elsa sleeps with a lot men, which is totally fine, but i was led to believe this was a sapphic novel.

the prose is gorgeous and puts you right in the center of greece, on the sea, and in a london apartment. it was truly a wonderful experience reading this, though the ending let me down. i still found it incredibly beautiful, and it provided an almost mini-vacation for me.

“maybe i am”

thank you netgalley and the publisher for an arc in exchange for an honest review!

Levy has established her own patch and it’s an intriguing one. This novel is more allusive than some, but also surprisingly tight in what initially seems a loose structure. Doppelgängers, European scenarios, creative women wash around tantalizingly until the author knits them together with a smile and a bow. Her fans will not be disappointed.

I fear I’m neither smart nor patient enough to fully enjoy a book of this type. I kept wanting the story to cohere in a more traditional, yes, Hollywood-network sitcom way. And why are there interspersions of an unseen voice saying “Maybe I am”? Oh, wait, I think that’s our heroine talking to herself.
However, even I couldn’t dodge the talent behind the elliptical story. In between readings, the sound of Levy’s writing stayed with me, narrating my own world with her authority and intelligence.
Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to challenge myself a little with this unusual novel.

With time slips, doppelgängers, doublings, and identity crises, there’s an air of unsettled reality to Deborah Levy’s August Blue; and being set in the post-lockdown Covid days of first vaccines and voluntary mask use, there’s certainly something relatable about this questioning of who we are; questioning how we live. With a stream of artists evoked — from Rachmaninoff and Isadora Duncan to Proust and French film director Agnès Varda — who are presented as having used art to explore their own realities, Levy seems to be asking the reader to search for meaning beyond the printed page (and with some [widely noted in other reviews] odd parallels to the movie Frozen and what appear to be mistakes in the timeline, I really don’t think the author wants us to take her at her literal words here). As straightforward storytelling, this is an odd little tale of a young woman trying to figure out who she is (and why she is and why she continues to be), but as an artistic rendering of our (more or less) collective post-Covid experience, Levy captures something very true about the unreality of the time; it feels essential that artists like Levy try to capture what, beyond the base details, most of us have trouble putting into words about the pandemic experience — even if the reader needs to peek behind the words to see it. I loved this.

I'm a Levy fan and August Blue is an intriguing novel. In part about the aftermath, how Elsa, a world-class pianist who walked off a stage when she lost, or her hands refused, the Rachmaninoff she was to be playing, it's also about origin stories, how necessary they are, to know who we are, where we come from, who are parents are, our lineage and our blood. Potential doubling, identity, sexual politics, to a degree, set in Greece and London and Paris and Sardinia, deep in the pandemic, it's a story, like other of Levy's works, that will remain in the mind, wondering the new turns Elsa's life might be taking. Thanks for the opportunity to read it in advance of its US publication

Deborah Levy’s <i>August Blue</i> reminds me of the classic corny joke about the old guy complaining about his senior dinner to a waiter: <i>”I didn’t like my chicken dinner, and my portion was too small.”</i>

Deborah Levy included bits and pieces of at least three novels in <i>August Blue</i>: Elsa Anderson’s origin story joined with Arthur’s decline and death; Elsa’s abandoned concert of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto 2; and Elsa’s double. Two of these felt near complete, one felt less relevant and almost an unwelcome diversion from the other two.

For this reader, Elsa’s origin story joined with Arthur’s decline and death was the most fulfilled story. The gaps in Elsa’s origin story felt real and convincing, as did her refusal to learn about her birth parents and her foster parents despite Arthur’s repeated offers. <i>”For a moment I thought about my birth mother. And then my foster-mother. . . I had two mothers. One had given me up. And I had given up the woman who had replaced her.”</i>

Elsa’s abandoned concert was also affecting, despite the somewhat obvious choice of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto 2 with its famous back story of the composer’s recovery from his breakdown and the <i>”I don’t know where you are, but I’m in Carnegie Hall”</i> response to Fritz Kreisler. I especially liked Elsa’s interchange with her friend Julia: <i>”There was clearly something happening to our virtuoso, Julia said, frowning now. The man with the baton heard your detour, he could have calmed the orchestra, he could have created silence. You are not a beginner, after all. We could have heard Elsa M. Anderson’s first concerto and not Rach’s second.”</i>

Elsa’s mysterious doppelganger struck me as insufficiently integrated, with the toy <i>”horses that were a portal to another world.”</i> Deborah Levy’s namesake,

<i>August Blue</i> is the fourth Deborah Levy novel that I’ve read, her most compelling, and my favorite. Before <i>August Blue</i>, I had come to think of Levy’s novels like ice cream cones, delicious when I’m eating them, but melting rapidly. Other than a few scenes, Levy’s earlier novels have never stuck with me. I suspect that <i>August Blue</i> will have a high stickiness quotient and prominent parts will remain with me to think about and puzzle over.

I would like to thank Farrar, Straus and Giroux as well as NetGalley for generously providing me a review copy of <I>August Blue</I>.

3.5, rounded down. I enjoyed this slightly more than The Man Who Saw Everything, and much less than Hot Milk. But all three Levy novels are built according to the same blueprint: the novelistic equivalent of an elliptical European art film from the 70s (Agnès Varda? Chantal Akerman?).

Our first-person narrator Elsa M. Anderson is a blue-haired (yes, I agree with my GR friends that the Disney princess allusion was deliberate) concert pianist who has fled her high-flying career after freezing up during Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, and flits from one European capital to another giving music lessons to teenagers. From time to time, she runs into (or narrowly misses) a woman whom she perceives as her Doppelgänger, whose trilby hat she wears throughout the novel as a talisman.

We never experience the world outside her head, and her subjective experience of time and other humans appears to be severely warped. More important, her own sense of identity seems unformed, deformed, even dissociative, now that her virtuoso performance days are over. She is strangely incurious about the circumstances of her adoption and the identity of her parents. She has difficulty forming relationships with others, and has a highly dysfunctional and neglectful relationship with her foster father Arthur, the piano teacher who raised her and groomed her for a career as a virtuoso, willfully blind to the fact that he has been in a long-term relationship with a man. And since the novel takes place in Covidian times, masking is also an on-the-nose metaphor for the masks we wear as we perform our sense of selfhood...

The puzzle didn't cohere for me this time, and Levy is making her readers work harder than ever to piece their way through the fragments. I didn't expect a neat resolution, and tried not to make too much sense of what I was reading. But as I'm distilling my experiences a few days later, it wasn't especially engaging or memorable, compared to other novels in her impressive career.

]Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for providing me with an ARC (months early) in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

Deborah Levy has written another lyrical absorbing novel.I was immediately drawn in totally involved in her writing her story the characters..A book that had me read slowly enjoying from beginning to end.#netgalley #fsg