{"id":1911,"date":"2026-10-05T17:08:24","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T17:08:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/05\/partita-by-barbara-kingsolver-the-touching-story-of-a-musician-striving-to-bring-the-movements-of-her-life-together\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T17:08:24","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T17:08:24","slug":"partita-by-barbara-kingsolver-the-touching-story-of-a-musician-striving-to-bring-the-movements-of-her-life-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/10\/05\/partita-by-barbara-kingsolver-the-touching-story-of-a-musician-striving-to-bring-the-movements-of-her-life-together\/","title":{"rendered":"Partita by Barbara Kingsolver: the touching story of a musician striving to bring the movements of her life together"},"content":{"rendered":"
Woman Playing the Piano by Winifred Nicholson. <\/span> Trustees of Winifred Nicholson\/ The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art<\/a>, CC BY-NC<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A partita is a musical composition, often for a soloist. As Livia, the protagonist of Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s new book<\/a>, explains to Sigurd, as they begin an all-consuming romance, it\u2019s \u201cmade up of a lot of parts with different paces and moods. [\u2026] The parts are all different, and the artist\u2019s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.\u201d <\/p>\n

Livia is just 20 at Indiana University, far from home, on a prestigious music<\/a> scholarship. Distracted by the pursuit of excellence and the perfect love, she does not yet know that her life will be a partita, one she must make whole. <\/p>\n

The contrasting parts of Livia\u2019s life include three romantic relationships, an extraordinary piano talent, two bodily traumas, a fraught relationship with a violent, unloving mother, several losses, unspoken truths, loyal friends, and her brother\u2019s suicide. The grief of losing her brother stifles Livia for decades. She focuses on piano virtuosity that takes her ever further from understanding herself \u2013 that is, until she is forced home.<\/p>\n

Named for elements of musical compositions, the chapters of Partita<\/a> alternate between formative events from Livia\u2019s adolescence and early adulthood, and the narrative present when Livia is in her mid-40s, clearing her hoarder mother\u2019s house after her death. Here, she talks with sister-in-law Mickie, an English literature teacher, about the purpose of art.<\/p>\n

For Mickie, art\u2019s function is \u201cto help you like your life better\u201d. However, for Livia it\u2019s different. Livia had recently forbidden one of her piano pupils, a wilful teenage girl, from playing the country music hit Go Rest High on that Mountain<\/a> by Vince Gill at a formal recital, though the girl wanted to play the song in her late father\u2019s memory. Livia argues there is inherent value in reading or playing classics, making the effort to understand complex works. Art, for Livia, enables the individual to learn and grow. It enriches their life, rather than simply reflecting it. <\/p>\n

The conversation contrasts with an early episode. Livia has to work harder than her peers at university to gain her instructors\u2019 respect, suppressing her rural Tennessee accent and hiding gaps in her education. Livia soon distinguishes herself with her talent and drive to play pieces such as the notoriously difficult Gaspard de la Nuit<\/a>, which even composer Maurice Ravel<\/a> couldn\u2019t play.<\/p>\n

She becomes acutely aware of the stark class divergences, exacerbated when she meets Sigurd, a campus union organiser. The novel conveys the complexity of socioeconomics of pursuing higher education for many: describing university scholarships, seasonal labour, healthcare and insurance, rent and financial instability.<\/p>\n

Conversations with Sigurd lead to a crisis \u2013 why undergo the anxiety of mastering such complex music, Livia asks herself, when only \u201ca handful of peers in our society of the ridiculous\u201d would understand her achievement?<\/p>\n

This crisis occurs in the novel\u2019s sarabande<\/a> section, the third section. A sarabande is calm, reflective, or emotionally intense. This reflection on art sits next to her conversation with Mickie, which occurs in Prelude IV, the central prelude in the text. Brought together, they indicate that art \u2013 Livia\u2019s piano playing \u2013 will be what she needs to combine the elements of her partita into a coherent whole.<\/p>\n

Until her partita can be understood, Livia is seeking something. The \u201coverture\u201d chapter, a form of prologue, implies this is understanding her brother\u2019s suicide, a formative event when she was 11 years old and he 18. However, completeness is only achieved at the end of the text in the \u201cal fine<\/em>\u201d chapter. This chapter is named for the common italian music instruction that comes at the end of a piece, which has the musical function of instructing the performer to play a section again and stop when they reach the word \u201cfine\u201d. In this sense, in the \u201cal fine<\/em>\u201d chapter Livia needs to revisit past events and play through them, rather than repressing them.<\/p>\n

\n<\/figure>\n

She needs to rearrange the bitter hurt, regret, anger at untold secrets, withheld affection, physical pain and grief. With music at the heart of the text, Livia is guided to a completeness that feels satisfying and true.<\/p>\n

Multi-bestseller and award-winning author Barbara Kingsolver<\/a> is also a pianist, as she notes in the novel\u2019s acknowledgement note. Kingsolver describes attending piano lessons and then the DePauw University School of Music, noting: \u201cIn rural, working-class places like the one where I grew up, classical music and fine arts are mostly out of reach.\u201d<\/p>\n

The novel is an acknowledgement of the piano teachers in those communities, who \u2013 like Livia \u2013 have complex emotional histories, remarkable talent, and elaborate socioeconomic and family circumstances. The inclusion of a listening list of classical pieces referred to in the novel and the pages they are mentioned is a gesture, a way of sharing that music with the reader, including them in a world that may feel out of reach.<\/p>\n

Partita has received rave reviews, and these are well deserved. It has been called<\/a> \u201ca virtuoso storytelling achievement that\u2019s packed with musical insights accessible to those with little musical knowledge\u201d. But it is also a fascinating character study of women\u2019s lives and relationships, and of changing American generations and traditions. It is sharp, compelling and rich, and its narrative of healing is subtle and convincing.<\/p>\n

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something, The Conversation UK may earn a commission.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Jenni Ramone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woman Playing the Piano by Winifred Nicholson. Trustees of Winifred Nicholson\/ The Ingram Collection of Modern British and Contemporary Art, CC BY-NC A partita is a musical composition, often for a soloist. As Livia, the protagonist of Barbara Kingsolver\u2019s new book, explains to Sigurd, as they begin an all-consuming romance, it\u2019s \u201cmade up of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1911\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redzine.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}