A number of books have music and musicians as their subjects, and some are structured like musical compositions. Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus (1947), for example, is the life of Adrian Leverkuhn, a fictional German composer of the twentieth century. His compositions are described in great detail. The novel also deals in length with philosophy and politics, especially those of the Nazi era. Marcel Proust's Swan's Way (1913), also deals extensively with music. It begins with an "Overture" rather than an introduction. One of its characters is Monsieur Venteuil, a church organist and composer, and Proust uses the theme from his "Little Sonata" in one of the climactic scenes. The problem with these novels might be their sheer complexity, which makes them more difficult to read than The Stars Shine Down. Readers may, however, want to see, for the sake of comparison, how other writers have used music in...