A list of characters opens Sanford Friedman's book Conversations with Beethoven. Nothing earth-shaking there, but what's this second column? Headed "Form of Address," it lists what each character calls the man at the center. Uncle, Maestro, Honored Guest.

The ways in which this group of relatives, doctors, officials, and eccentrics communicate with Ludwig van Beethoven comprise a portrait of the great composer in the form of a novel about the last year of his life. He was almost completely deaf by then, so people who wanted to talk to LVB had to write everything down. Occasionally in these pages, Beethoven pipes up himself -- usually saying something ornery or accusatory -- but the picture that emerges is made up almost entirely by the voices of others.

Form of address becomes particularly important in regard to Beethoven's nephew Karl. Something of a ne'er-do-well, Karl opens the book with a letter to his uncle, and the young man sounds a little confused, writing "you became father, I mean my guardian." Beethoven called Karl his son, but as we see on that helpful page at the front, Karl usually addressed his adoptive dad as "Uncle." Based on what follows, Beethoven worried a lot about Karl, and didn't think he was grateful for all he'd done for him. But as with almost every subject in the book, readers will benefit from multiple perspectives on just how grateful Karl should be, if at all.

When I was a little younger than Karl, I was trying to read some Jean-Paul Sartre essays because I thought it would make me look cool. My first attempt at finding some tidbit I could try to understand and bring up for discussion was a morsel that I understood to mean, "Whatever people say about you makes up who you are. If people say you're funny, you're funny. If people say you're conceited, well, there you go." Like most teens, I was trying to reinvent myself and escape the perception of parents and classmates. The last thing I wanted to hear was that their ideas about me held more weight than my own attempts at metamorphosis.

It's a bit chilling to realize that your personality is defined not by your voice, but that of others. Put another way, you're outnumbered, and Conversations with Beethoven makes it clear that the perceptions of others can add up to something thorny and difficult, not to mention out of the subject's control. Friedman pastes together a complex, but eventually cohesive collage of scraps that describe a man. It's an unflattering way to depict someone, and probably -- shiver -- the most accurate.