51 pages • 1 hour read
Mitch AlbomThe Magic Strings of Frankie Presto
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Bands We Join
This idea about “the bands we join” in life is a constant theme throughout the novel. Music explains this idea: “Everyone joins a band in this life. You are born into your first one. […] As life goes on, you will join other bands, some through friendship, some through romance, some through neighborhoods, school, an army” (19). No matter what band a person joins, it’s likely that it will inevitably dissolve eventually.
Frankie joins many bands throughout his life—most revolve around music in some way, but his most notable band, the one he shares with Aurora, does not. However, Music explains their band, or relationship, in musical terms: the pace of their union moves from allegro to adagio to a minuet. By explaining their relationship in these terms, Music illustrates how the structure of every band—whether musical or not—flows like a piece of music.
The idea that everyone joins a band in life comes from Music, the narrator, whose observes that all of life has a musicality to it. While a band can be defined simply as a group of people with common interests, Music’s understanding takes this idea farther to say that every band a person joins creates a harmony or dissonance, depending on the people involved. When a complementary group of people come together, they create a musical environment; that is, a positive, melodious atmosphere. On the reverse, when certain people come together, the opposite happens.
Patterns and Repetition in History
The idea of the interconnectedness and often repetitious cycle of history is a prominent theme in the novel. The most obvious example of this idea can be seen in the parallels between Francisco Táregga and Francisco Presto—two men who were thrown into water as infants and abandoned, only to grow up and become influential guitar players. Táregga’s “Lágrima,” as hummed by Carmencita, saved Frankie’s life shortly after he was born, and it’s “Lágrima” that Frankie plays right before he dies. Just as Táregga is essentially deified for his guitar skills, so too is Frankie, and both men’s music is colored by tragedy.
Another example of repeated history is how Frankie a nun abandons Baby Frankie and he’s adopted by Baffa. Later, Frankie and Aurora find baby Kai and adopt her. This repetition in history, when Frankie adopts Kai just like Baffa adopted him, helps him to see the error of his anger towards Baffa and leads him to forgive Baffa.
Music as Fate and Salvation
Music is a consistent thread that weaves every story and timeline together in the novel. On the one hand, Music personified is the narrator, and much of the story is told from a musical perspective. Music interprets the events of Frankie’s life much in the way a person reads a piece of sheet music—everything that happens in Frankie’s life has a purpose, just like everything written into a piece of music has a purpose. On the other hand, it’s not just Music as a narrator that’s important to the story but also music as a sound, an idea, and a pursuit.
Music saves Frankie’s life when he’s first born, when his mother hums “Lágrima” to soothe him and keep him quiet while the raiders burned the church below. Music also connects him to his biological father when he unknowingly takes music lessons from him. When he plays his guitar for the deceased men in the unmarked grave, it makes Aurora fall in love with him, and playing his guitar in America leads her back to him. While these are all positive things that music has done in Frankie’s life, it’s also led to negative things as well.
When Frankie confuses the genuine pursuit of music with outside forces, bad things happen in his life. The first is when he thinks that music and money go together. When he allows Leonard to tell him not to play his guitar anymore, Aurora leaves him. When he sings the songs, Leonard wants him to sing because they’re marketable, his career eventually declines because it’s no longer about sharing his music but about making money.
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By Mitch Albom
