In Diagnosing Genius, Ottawa psychiatrist and amateur pianist François Martin Mai proposes to examine the relationship between the creative genius of Ludwig van Beethoven and the various health problems – most notably deafness and depression, but not, as is popularly but erroneously suggested, syphilis – that plagued the great composer for much of his life.

Mai is only partially successful in this exploration. Despite his stated intentions, he spends the entire first half of the book on subjects that have been covered elsewhere at great length: the social and political climate of Europe during Beethoven’s lifetime in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and the biographical details of the composer’s life. As Mai does not have anything original to contribute to either Enlightenment-era European history or the field of Beethoven biography, the book’s first 100 pages read like a compilation of secondary scholarship, as evidenced by the 300 footnotes in the two opening chapters.

If only Mai had covered this background material in a few short pages and gotten straight to the material in which he really shines – his analysis of Beethoven’s health problems. Mai – who writes in a clear, easy-to-read style that does not bog down in medical jargon or concepts understood only by experts – has a lot of source material to work with here. Beethoven was a prodigious letter-writer, and much of the surviving correspondence is chock-full of complaints about his health. As well, physician reports (including Beethoven’s autopsy) and a modern-day toxicological analysis of his hair provide background for Mai’s ultimate goal of drawing parallels between the composer’s maladies and his musical genius.

But many readers will be left with a too-little, too-late feeling, as Mai simply does not give enough space to the real aim of his book – using Beethoven as a test-case for the big question of the relationship between illness and creativity. Clearly, the author is up to the task of addressing this big question for the non-medical audience. It’s just a shame he doesn’t get to it sooner.