Jean-Christophe Krafft, born, like Beethoven, to an alcoholic, exploitative father and a doting, chambermaid mother, is an exquisitely talented musician growing up in the German-occupied Rhineland. Splendidly capturing the development of Jean-Christophe's personality and his musical talent alike, Rolland progressively follows his hero through the states of his life: his innocent but ultimately disillusioned boyhood; his escape from his provincial home; his travels to pre-World War I Paris; his friends, lovers, and pupils, as they enter, leave, and reappear in his life through the years; and his passionate search for his spiritual role as an artist, while censuring the decadent European civilization around him. The novel's form - and Jean-Christophe's life - flows like a river, with vast shapelessness on the surface but an immense momentum towards its goal. Through a vivid portrait of his hero's creative life, Rolland's work is a deeply personal examination of art's power to express moral truth and to combat disintegrating values.
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