An Equal Music
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
bought Jan 2006 from Mount TBR
Rating - 10/10
From amazon.co.uk:
Michael plays second violin in an up-and-coming Maggiore Quartet, lives on the north side of Hyde Park, takes early morning dips in the Serpentine, has a French girlfriend named Virginie. But his mind is constantly drawn to his first and only love, Julia, whom he knew in Vienna many years earlier. When he catches sight of Julia on a London bus, he cannot help but pursue her. Vikram Seth's novel is a gently-paced, multi-layered work, proceeding in short sections which flit from Michael's ongoing search for Julia back to his childhood as a Rochdale butcher's son, his early training and breakdown in Vienna under the tyrannical Carl Kall, and the emotional history of his quartet; while Michael's discovery of a Beethoven trio rewritten as a string quintet acts as a motif for Michael's pursuit of the lost Julia: can Michael recapture the magic of the past, like Beethoven, who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed? Seth is quite brilliant at conveying the intense and complex interplay of chamber musicians, in rehearsal and performance (an odd, obsessed, introspective, separatist breed), and manages the near-impossible--to write in 1999 about Art and Love without embarrassment.
This is the 3rd of Vikram Seth's books I've read this year, the others being Two Lives (a memoir about Shanti Uncle & Aunt Henny) & A Suitable Boy. I have fallen in love with the way he writes.
This is beautifully written, lyrical in its prose at times. A story of love lost, found & lost once more. Of Michael & Julia & their love for each other & music. I enjoyed the details about chamber music & the life of a string quartet.
bought Jan 2006 from Mount TBR
Rating - 10/10
From amazon.co.uk:
Michael plays second violin in an up-and-coming Maggiore Quartet, lives on the north side of Hyde Park, takes early morning dips in the Serpentine, has a French girlfriend named Virginie. But his mind is constantly drawn to his first and only love, Julia, whom he knew in Vienna many years earlier. When he catches sight of Julia on a London bus, he cannot help but pursue her. Vikram Seth's novel is a gently-paced, multi-layered work, proceeding in short sections which flit from Michael's ongoing search for Julia back to his childhood as a Rochdale butcher's son, his early training and breakdown in Vienna under the tyrannical Carl Kall, and the emotional history of his quartet; while Michael's discovery of a Beethoven trio rewritten as a string quintet acts as a motif for Michael's pursuit of the lost Julia: can Michael recapture the magic of the past, like Beethoven, who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed? Seth is quite brilliant at conveying the intense and complex interplay of chamber musicians, in rehearsal and performance (an odd, obsessed, introspective, separatist breed), and manages the near-impossible--to write in 1999 about Art and Love without embarrassment.
This is the 3rd of Vikram Seth's books I've read this year, the others being Two Lives (a memoir about Shanti Uncle & Aunt Henny) & A Suitable Boy. I have fallen in love with the way he writes.
This is beautifully written, lyrical in its prose at times. A story of love lost, found & lost once more. Of Michael & Julia & their love for each other & music. I enjoyed the details about chamber music & the life of a string quartet.