An Equal Music: A Novel
by Vikram Seth
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Read in January, 2006
I must confess a weakness for love stories; tragic love stories in particular.
Surely my most favorite novel falls in that category, and so does this one.
Vikram Seth weaves an intriguing story of longing, desire, the class distinction that sizzles under the surface in the Western society, and, above all, a passion for music in the novel. A courageous endeavor indeed for an outsider who has dared to write about English and European social life against the backdrop of classical western...more
Surely my most favorite novel falls in that category, and so does this one.
Vikram Seth weaves an intriguing story of longing, desire, the class distinction that sizzles under the surface in the Western society, and, above all, a passion for music in the novel. A courageous endeavor indeed for an outsider who has dared to write about English and European social life against the backdrop of classical western...more
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Read in April, 2008
The smell of rosin on a bow, the satisfaction of slow scales played with a partner, the sleepy somnolence of working a piece through in your head just before sleep - I miss these things. I forget them too. Viktor Seth lent them back to me this week.
I’ve read An Equal Music before, quickly. This read, with bed rest time to spin through, I read it page by page, at half tempo. It was delicious. Seth recreates the world of a violinist in a string quartet, bringing in the human element ...more
I’ve read An Equal Music before, quickly. This read, with bed rest time to spin through, I read it page by page, at half tempo. It was delicious. Seth recreates the world of a violinist in a string quartet, bringing in the human element ...more
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Read in July, 2006
Main character Michael Holme is a young virtuoso violinist in a renowned string quartet. Which is at times a quintet, if you want to get technical about the music, as this book does to our great fascination. This is how a musician thinks about his art. In arduous and painstaking detail.
Michael lives the lonely single life in present-day London, and fellow musician Julia McNicholl floats in an out of his professional and private lives. He's obsessed by and with her, for a variety of reasons,...more
Michael lives the lonely single life in present-day London, and fellow musician Julia McNicholl floats in an out of his professional and private lives. He's obsessed by and with her, for a variety of reasons,...more
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Read in June, 2007
recommends it for:
Anyone
I was surprised by how much i loved this book. It's blow off your travelling companions and curl up in your youth hostel until you finish it good. It's finish it and then wish you hadn't so you could read it again for the first time good. The tension in the love story is addictive. But what I loved most was the way Seth writes about music. the way he integrates music into the lives of the characters (all professional musicians) is more than convincing, it's intoxicating.
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Read in May, 2008
recommends it for:
romantics, music lovers
It's gratifying when you pick up a book, to like everything about it: author, writing, subject, and finally after it's over, are still pleased. Confession: I listened to it on a long drive. Alan Bates' reading was so skillful, the grown- up poet from Zorba, the anti-hero from King of Hearts, aging; now lifeworn, experienced, still heartful. When the last note sounded, I missed the voice and secondarily the story. Equal could have gone very badly, considering the emotional handicaps of the main c...more
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Read in May, 2008
As many of my MFA friends know, I've been looking for and reading books about music and musicians for several years now, trying to find at least one that really captures that unique experience of playing and understanding music from the performer's perspective. An Equal Music is the best I've found so far. In a way, it's about the two most important (and intertwined) relationships in a professional violinist's life: first with his violin, on loan from a benefactress who cannot guarantee that it ...more
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Read in July, 2008
Reading this book was a pure delight. I'd always assumed that being part of a string quartet would be unmatched in the closeness you'd feel to the others - at least when everyone played well - but I hadn't known in such detail all the ups and downs that occur. The rapport or lack of it is also affected by the participants other lives and in the background of almost every page of this book lie the agonies as well as the ecstacies that one of four is experiencing in an on again/off again romance...more
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Read in February, 2008
I enjoyed this book way more than I thought I would-- I thought the setting, in the world of chamber musicians, would be boring or just alien to me. It ended up being quite a page turner, though it gets a bit to "poetic" and repetitive at the end. I started not to care about the whining of the main character, and didn't find the images and dream-like sequences in the last few chapters really meaningful.
I did enjoy the depiction of the chamber quartet and the dynamic between the...more
I did enjoy the depiction of the chamber quartet and the dynamic between the...more
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Read in June, 2008
This book is wonderfully written, perfectly capturing the ebb of flow of everyday conversation and going deeply into the world of classical musicians. But it is let down, at it's very heart, by a weak story about an unremarkable man falling in love with an impossibly cliched version of a remarkable woman. Their love affair is doomed, the plot is slight. If you love classical music, their may well be much to enjoy in Seth's richly-imagined celebration of this genre. But, after the wonder of stor...more
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Read in May, 2000
This book changed my life. I was so inspired by it that I decided consciously that the next person I met would have to be a musician. I wanted to "make music" and then "make love" -- but I ended up "making magic" --- composing a piece for solo piano instead.... Here's my short review with a link to that short piece I wrote after this book.... http://www.analyticalq.com/boo...
Do musicians reall
Do musicians reall
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone!
I initially rejected this novel because the task of reading about a string quartet struggling with Bach seemed . . . arduous. When I finally picked it up, with a heavy heart bent on self-improvement-through-reading-about-boring-things-like-classical-music, I was surprised and delighted to find a gorgeously written, profound exploration of beauty, love lost and found, art, and those brief moments of communion with another being or another being's art that make life worth living.
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recommends it for:
people who like books about music
Quiet but moving. I liked this better than A Suitable Boy, but I wonder if that's because I am always impressed by anyone who manages to write about music (not about musicians, not about audiences, but about The Music Itself) semi-convincingly. It's so very difficult to do, and in my opinion Seth pulls it off here better than Ann Patchett in Bel Canto (which wasn't bad, but I just didn't love it as much as I thought I would).
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Read in March, 2007
A dreamlike novel about music. Chamber music, classical music mostly, with some Mozart and Bach and other non-classicals mixed in (I can never get those straight). It's also the story of a [failed] romance. It's overwhelmingly affecting at one point in particular, near the end, when our narrator (and me, the reader) threatens to be crushed by hopelessness. Significant catharsis is afforded by the ending, however.
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...there is a rhythm in the tapestry of the the language used...the story unfolds slowly...an unhurried pace...Seth is at his best...story of a musician who falls in love with a pianist...looses her...finds her and again looses her...the story of a violist who when by himself now plays only a particular theme...gifted by his love...the incomplete...unending...Art of Fugue...the rhythm in writing is remarkable...
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I hate the theme and tone of this novel. Fatalism pervades the entire novel. Towards the end of the novel the main character feels that music alone is something he could live for. I have always felt that people need to accept the consequences of their choices. At any point of time in the life of anybody, there is more than one purpose, one reason to continue living.
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This is one of my favourite books because the author has written about classical music in a way that captures the beauty of the experience. I am fascinated and impressed by this (writing) technique. I also like the mixture of graceful, poetic language and pared-down let's-get-on-with-it prose. It means that the book is a work of art without being pretentious.
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Read in February, 2008
It began rather slowly and perhaps with too much desription for my taste, and I wasn't entirely sympathetic to the protagonist, but by the second half of the book, I was completely involved with the characters and their fate. Loved the music weaved throughout the book and even more as it had a place in the heart of the story.
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Read in June, 2008
The musical atmosphere that threaded through this book made it quite unusual to read, although I did find I could engage with the book much better without outside distractions as it did require some concentration. The characters were realistic and likeable, but ultimately let down by their own flaws. An enjoyable book.
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Read in June, 2008
Seth's descriptions of music are beautiful. The first part of the book is the best. The end is rather predictable, but nonethless a good story.
The characters sometimes suffer from murky motivation, but they are nonetheless interesting and human.
The characters sometimes suffer from murky motivation, but they are nonetheless interesting and human.
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Read in December, 2007
I loved the references to playing in a string quartet and the issues they deal with--Seth had a great concept of this. I loved how halfway through, there is a suprise with Julia, the woman he loves--didn't see it coming at all. Long book, but sweet.
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