This ability to let questions, and indeed information, emerge slowly until they develop greater insistence is one of Ms. As the novel progresses, questions about who controls what, and whether control is used for good or ill float around, at first like small balloons, but gradually inflating and soliciting attention. People control others by loving them or failing to love, by choosing to keep or share secrets. Arslan controls Joan when he picks her to help him defect, and again when he abandons her for Ludmilla. Joan controls Jacob by whisking him to marriage when he’s only 24. Joan, Elaine, Arslan and Ludmilla take control of their own lives, and they control other lives, too. K of Joan’s company and eventually Elaine and Arslan, rigorously control their students’ work and habits - but there are other sorts of control. Control is the key to everything.” This dictum resonates through “Astonish Me.” Ballet requires extreme physical and psychological control, and ballet teachers such as Mr. “The key, she has said to Joan, is control. She smokes and takes drugs - but not in excess. Here the author’s knowledge of ballet and the iron laws of anatomy, training, drive and devotion that determine success, confirms that one of the pleasures of reading fiction is learning about milieus other than our own.Īnother pleasure is watching the facts of a story morph into metaphors, for while ballet makes huge and unforgiving demands, is that not true of much in life, or at least much in the characters of certain people? Joan’s roommate, Elaine, is a soloist and destined to become ballet mistress. Harry, in particular, is hugely talented, and as he matures he sometimes takes over from his mother as center of readers’ attention. A lot of narrative energy is generated by this plot motor.
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