Body & Soul by Frank Conroy

[ECS <strat@home.com>]

Have any f-minors read Body & Soul? Bestseller, c. 1993; fiction about
the development of a piano prodigy. That's all I know, as I am only 100
pages in (of 500+). The reason I bring this up, besides the fact that
many of you might enjoy the book as I am, is this:

"One day, on a whim, he'd turned on the radio, tuned to a news program,
left the volume up, and sat down to sight-read an early section from
Bach's 'Art of Fugue'. Almost immediately he realized he'd made a
valuable discovery. He was able to divert much of his ear to the radio,
with enough left over to monitor the piano. With his attention thus
fragmented, it was much easier to follow Weisfeld's instructions. His
progress in sight-reading accelerated rapidly, and after another six
months he only rarely used the radio."

Sounds like the vaccuum cleaner story, eh? (See
http://www.tug.org/mail-archives/f_minor/msg02225.html and
http://www.tug.org/mail-archives/f_minor/msg01338.html)

So, has anyone read the book? I'd love to hear your thoughts...

Erich Schmidt