Tuesday, October 23, 2012
A Small Price to Pay for a Birdsong
I really enjoyed reading this story, and felt like it had a lot of good lessons to teach. I loved that once the main character (what was his name again?) let go of his fear of failure and not earning enough money, he got his "wings." Wings refer to his ability to be able to compose beautiful music that captured all music is supposed to be about. I think that is a good life lesson anyone can take to heart. Once you stop stressing out over being perfect, everything comes a lot easier and you can even be great at what you do. I loved the twist at the end where Subtilius is imprisoned because the main character finds out it is actually him who killed his nephew. The only question I have about the end is why does he keep him locked up? Is it so Subtilius feels the way he did once about not having wings? Or is it simply to punish him for what he did to his nephew he didn't even know or love?
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I thought the main character had him imprisoned as pay back and also because he was obsessed with music. He couldn't understand how someone with such talent would stop writing, so he forced him to continue.
ReplyDeleteIt seemed to me like he was having him imprisoned "for his own good". He knew that Subtilius was a killer and should be locked up, but also that he was never going to write music again if given the choice. The main character seemed to care a lot about justice, and thought it would be best for Subtilius to be away from the public where he could harm someone, and also caged up writing music which he was "meant" to do.
ReplyDeleteI thought the main character had Subtilius because he wanted to punish him for mocking his lack of creativity throughout the years. He wanted Subtilius to experience the detrimental effects that imprisonment (literally, in Subtilius's case, while imprisonment to money, in the main character's case) can have on creativity first hand, so that he would understand the main character had faced in trying to create new music while facing the threat of poverty.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the main character considers it a small price to pay for the creation of Subtilius' music, but he realizes that the music Subtilius produces in prison will never have the same "soaring" quality that his previous works had. I don't think his imprisonment had much to do with the murder of the nephew.
ReplyDeleteI think he was mainly motivated by revenge. Not so much for his nephew that was killed but more for the fact that Subtilius 'stole his soul' and I think the main character wanted him to experience life where making music was a chore and what it was like to compose without the 'wings.'
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