| Author: |
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Vikram Seth
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| Title: |
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An Equal Music: A Novel (Vintage International) |
| Moochable copies: |
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No copies available |
| Amazon suggests: |
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| Recommended: |
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| Topics: |
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| Published in: |
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English |
| Binding: |
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Paperback |
| Pages: |
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400 |
| Date: |
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2000-05-02 |
| ISBN: |
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037570924X |
| Publisher: |
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Vintage |
| Weight: |
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0.65 pounds |
| Size: |
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0.9 x 5.2 x 8.0 inches |
| Edition: |
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English Language |
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| Description: |
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Product Description
The author of the international bestseller A Suitable Boy returns with a powerful and deeply romantic tale of two gifted musicians. Michael Holme is a violinist, a member of the successful Maggiore Quartet. He has long been haunted, though, by memories of the pianist he loved and left ten years earlier, Julia McNicholl. Now Julia, married and the mother of a small child, unexpectedly reenters his life and the romance flares up once more.
Against the magical backdrop of Venice and Vienna, the two lovers confront the truth about themselves and their love, about the music that both unites and divides them, and about a devastating secret that Julia must finally reveal. With poetic, evocative writing and a brilliant portrait of the international music scene, An Equal Music confirms Vikram Seth as one of the world's finest and most enticing writers.
Amazon.com Review
The violinist hero of Vikram Seth's third novel would very much like to be hearing secret harmonies. Instead, living in London 10 years after a key disaster, Michael Holme is easily irritated by his beautiful young (and even French!) girlfriend and by his colleagues in the Maggiore Quartet. In short, he's fed up with playing second fiddle in life and art. Yet a chance encounter with Julia, the pianist he had loved and lost in Vienna, brings Michael sudden bliss. Her situation, however--and the secret that may end her career--threatens to undo the lovers.
An Equal Music is a fraction of the size of Seth's A Suitable Boy, but is still deliciously expansive. In under 400 pages, the author offers up exquisite complexities, personal and lyrical, while deftly fielding any fears that he's composed a Harlequin for highbrows. During one emotional crescendo, Michael tells Julia, "I don't know how I've lived without you all these years," only to realize, "how feeble and trite my words sound to me, as if they have been plucked out of some housewife fantasy." In addition to the pitch of its love story, one of the book's joys lies in Seth's creation of musical extremes. As the Maggiore rehearses, moving from sniping and impatience to perfection, the author expertly notates the joys of collaboration, trust, and creation. "It's the weirdest thing, a quartet," one member remarks. "I don't know what to compare it to. A marriage? a firm? a platoon under fire? a self-regarding, self-destructive priesthood? It has so many different tensions mixed in with its pleasures." An Equal Music is a novel in which the length of Schubert's Trout Quintet matters deeply, the discovery of a little-known Beethoven opus is a miracle, and each instrument has its own being. Just as Michael can't hope to possess Julia, he cannot even dream of owning his beloved Tononi, the violin he has long had only on loan. And it goes without saying that Vikram Seth knows how to tell a tale, keeping us guessing about everything from what the Quartet's four-minute encore will be to what really occasioned Julia's departure from Michael's life. (Or was it in fact Michael who abandoned Julia?) As this love story ranges from London to Michael's birthplace in the north of England to Vienna to Venice, few readers will remain deaf to its appeals. --Kerry Fried
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| Reviews: |
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rdent (USA: MD) (2008/08/11):
One of my favorite books ever. I have read it a few times. Amazing, but very different from A Suitable Boy.
Marianne (Australia) (2013/01/06):
An Equal Music is the third novel by Indian author Vikram Seth. Michael Holme is a 37-year-old violinist who plays in the Maggiore Quartet. Ten years earlier, he left Venice and his first (and only) love, Julia McNicholl, without explanation, when he found himself unable to cope with his musical mentor’s criticism. Now living in London, he encounters Julia by chance, and tries to re-establish contact. Learning, eventually, that she is now a wife and mother in no way dampens his determination to see her again. But while Julia eventually seeks him out, she has an even more devastating revelation to make. Michael describes himself, in the last pages of the book: “I’m a selfish, self-centred bastard.” Not a truer sentence does he speak in the whole novel. I found it difficult to relate to this main character and wondered if Seth intentionally made him such an arrogant, spiteful, cruel, self-indulgent and irritating man. Michael’s great love, Julia, whilst perhaps a little easier to relate to, also fell remarkably freely into adultery. Their great love was not convincingly portrayed, but this does seem an interesting depiction of the anatomy of adultery from the point of view of a very selfish man. Billy, Helen, Erica and even Piers were much more likeable characters. There is much information about chamber music, quartets, performances, deafness and music auctions contained in this novel, and I believe that a knowledge and love of music would increase the reader’s appreciation of the many descriptions of music playing and music attributes. While much of it was beautifully written, I found it slow moving, unsatisfying and not a patch on Seth’s previous work, A Suitable Boy.
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http://bookmooch.com/037570924X |
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