Books in Brief: The Boy Who Loved Music

The Boy Who Loved Music, by David Lasker, illustrated by Joe Lasker (V iking, 48 pp.. $8.95); Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall, pictures by Barbara Cooney (Viking, 40 pp., $8.95); Stonewall, by Jean Fritz, drawings by Stephen Gammel (Putnam, 152 pp., $7.95).

For those who love music —or beautiful paintings of life in an idealized eighteenth century Austria—the Laskers’ book, with minimal text, is just right. It tells the story of Haydn’s composition of the “Farewell” Symphony in 1772 as a cunning device for getting his musicians out of the stuffy atmosphere of Prince Esterhazy’s castle and back to the Vienna they loved. The second of these books for children at Christmas—a more astringent tale, and astringently illustrated with paintings of the spare New England landscape—is poet Donald Hall’s account of a New Hampshire farmer who takes his worldly goods, ox and cart included, to be sold in Portsmouth Market and returns on foot to start the cycle over again. For older readers, Jean Fritz’s Stonewall is a mixed blessing. It is probably the most detailed and accurate account we have of the career of the remarkable Confederate general, but the “hero” that emerges is too inflexibly righteous to have much appeal. For the first 35 of his 39 years Jackson seems to have been a humorless religious fanatic punishing himself through the most bizarre of self-imposed physical and mental disciplines. How all this paid off through Chancellorsville, when recklessness, ruthlessness, and sheer will power were pitted against Union incompetence and timidity, is well conveyed. But Jackson’s military genius, which must have been nurtured by watching Robert E. Lee and Winfield Scott perform in Mexico, is never hinted at. And the skillful, misty drawings are as reticent as the somber text.

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Selden Rodman

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The Boy Who Loved Music, by David Lasker, illustrated by Joe Lasker (V iking, 48 pp.. $8.95); Ox-Cart Man, by Donald Hall, pictures by Barbara Cooney (Viking, 40 pp., $8.95); Stonewall, by Jean Fritz, drawings by Stephen Gammel (Putnam, 152 pp., $7.95).

For those who love music —or beautiful paintings of life in an idealized eighteenth century Austria—the Laskers’ book, with minimal text, is just right. It tells the story of Haydn’s composition of the “Farewell” Symphony in 1772 as a cunning device for getting his musicians out of the stuffy atmosphere of Prince Esterhazy’s castle and back to the Vienna they loved. The second of these books for children at Christmas—a more astringent tale, and astringently illustrated with paintings of the spare New England landscape—is poet Donald Hall’s account of a New Hampshire farmer who takes his worldly goods, ox and cart included, to be sold in Portsmouth Market and returns on foot to start the cycle over again. For older readers, Jean Fritz’s Stonewall is a mixed blessing. It is probably the most detailed and accurate account we have of the career of the remarkable Confederate general, but the “hero” that emerges is too inflexibly righteous to have much appeal. For the first 35 of his 39 years Jackson seems to have been a humorless religious fanatic punishing himself through the most bizarre of self-imposed physical and mental disciplines. How all this paid off through Chancellorsville, when recklessness, ruthlessness, and sheer will power were pitted against Union incompetence and timidity, is well conveyed. But Jackson’s military genius, which must have been nurtured by watching Robert E. Lee and Winfield Scott perform in Mexico, is never hinted at. And the skillful, misty drawings are as reticent as the somber text.