Summary:
In the 1950s, Oscar Hammerstein is asked to write the lyrics to a musical based on the life of a woman named Maria von Trapp. He’s intrigued to learn that she was once a novice who hoped to live quietly as an Austrian nun before her abbey sent her away to teach a widowed baron’s sickly child. What should have been a ten-month assignment, however, unexpectedly turned into a marriage proposal. And when the family was forced to flee their home to escape the Nazis, it was Maria who instructed them on how to survive using nothing but the power of their voices.
It’s an inspirational story, to be sure, and as half of the famous Rodgers & Hammerstein duo, Hammerstein knows it has big Broadway potential. Yet much of Maria’s life will have to be reinvented for the stage, and with the horrors of war still fresh in people’s minds, Hammerstein can’t let audiences see just how close the von Trapps came to losing their lives.
But when Maria sees the script supposedly based on her life, she becomes so incensed that she sets off to confront Hammerstein in person. Told that he’s busy, she is asked to express her concerns to his secretary, Fran, instead. The pair strike up an unlikely friendship as Maria tells Fran about her life, contradicting much of what will eventually appear in The Sound of Music.
Review:
When I was a kid, the yearly holiday viewing of The Sound of Music was something that I always looked forward to. As I got older, it occurred to me to wonder how accurate the movie was to real life, although I never went out and hunted for any books on the subject. When I first saw this book, I thought it might be a fictionalization of the story found in the movie, but I was delighted to be mistaken in that notion. The author has not only given readers Maria’s actual story, but has also highlighted Maria’s feelings about the musical and the film.
Prepare yourself for some major differences in the characters that you know from the screen. It turns out that Georg (played in the movie by Christopher Plummer) was never the cold, aloof man who kept his children at arm’s length, but a loving and caring father. Maria was mostly concerned about the children when she accepted Georg’s proposal. There are other revelations, but I’ll leave you to discover them in the novel.
It was the portrayal of Georg that apparently incited Maria the most. I wasn’t aware of this before reading the book, but she voiced complaints about the script for the musical during the production process, and while none of her suggestions were taken, it’s a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a woman whom we’re so used to seeing portrayed as sweet and loving to the point of being saccharine. She wanted it known that her husband was a much better person than what Rogers and Hammerstein were creating for the stage. As for herself?… given that had a self-professed “temper”, her character was probably more palatable.
I really enjoyed the framing of the novel. Having a neutral character sit and listen to Maria’s story, and having that story juxtaposed with the final weeks of prep before the Broadway opening, is a wonderful way to not only dole out Maria’s recollections, but to make sure the focus never gets too far from the “present” of the novel. As a bonus, that “present” has a lot to do with Oscar Hammerstein, who appears in the story as well. He was dealing with his own challenges as the show’s premiere drew closer, and it’s a hidden bit of Broadway history that I was deeply drawn into as the book progressed.
I was captivated by this novel as it re-framed a story that I have known about for almost all of my life, and did so in a way that neither hid it’s title character’s flaws nor shied away from her triumphs. As with everything in life, the truth is a mix of both and much more complicated than you likely ever imagined. Maria is a stunning novel about the power of stories and what we choose to highlight within them.
