The Gustav Sonata - Part One 1947-1952, Some Spoilers Allowed (May 2017)

[Hugh]

This topic covers the first section of the book, on Gustav and Anton's childhood. Spoilers are permitted as long as they do not refer to events in parts Two and Three.

A few starter questions:
How much did you sympathise with the various characters? How much did you know about Swizerland? Were you familiar with Hoffman and Struwwelpeter? Have you read The Magic Mountain, and if so did that affect the way you perceived the chapter on Davos? Did you feel that the characters succeeded in avoiding stereotypes? Did you have any sympathy for Emilie?

Feel free to add or answer any questions of your own.

[Anita]

This is my first Temain book and I will definitely read more. I found the book engrossing and enjoyed her character development. I had no sympathy for Emilie, which, imho, makes an writer good. I like an author being okay with showing the dark side of people. While I would like to believe there is good and bad in all of us, sometimes, I think there are people who are all one thing. To me Emilie showed no positive qualities. I do struggle with how such people raise children who grow up fairly normal.

In that vein, I do question how Gustav is so okay???

I do not remember The Magic Mountain and am not familiar with Hoffman and Struwwelpeter so will look forward to hearing their impact on the story from others.

[LindaJ^]

Hugh wrote: "This topic covers the first section of the book, on Gustav and Anton's childhood. Spoilers are permitted as long as they do not refer to events in parts Two and Three. A few starter questions:
How much did you sympathise with the various characters?
I'll pass on answering this question since I've finished the book and my opinion cannot be limited to Part One!
How much did you know about Swizerland?
I know a little about Switzerland and its "neutrality" in WWII and a bit more about how zealously it banks protect their customers, or did.
Were you familiar with Hoffman and Struwwelpeter?
No
Have you read The Magic Mountain, and if so did that affect the way you perceived the chapter on Davos? No
Did you feel that the characters succeeded in avoiding stereotypes? Yes - the characters never felt like stereotypes to me.
Did you have any sympathy for Emilie?" Yes, in Part One I did for sure. She was a single mom working very hard to feed herself and her son. While she was never very demonstrative with Gustav, I thought she loved him.

[Kathleen]

Hugh, thank you for these thoughtful questions, and the great links in the general thread!

I have a bad tendency to sympathize with all characters, but agree with Anita that I love it when an author shows us the negative side of a character, without trying to balance them out. Emilie was like this, and that made her much more interesting--made me subconsciously searching for empathy for her.

I knew a little about Switzerland, but found the way Gustav was schooled in the philosophy of neutrality really fascinating.

I haven't read and haven't been interested in reading The Magic Mountain, but reading this has made me reconsider.

[Beverly]

How did you sympathize with the various characters?
In this part I was trying to understand the characters and figure out the what the issues would be in the book. While I do not know a lot about music I was trying to see how this first part would compare to the first part of a sonata. It seemed to me at this point that there was more to Emilie that meets the eye. I know that it was very difficult for a single woman to be on her own and more so one with her child. At this point it seems that she was trying to provide Gustav with life lessons that would serve him well later in life.

How much do you know about Switzerland?
I know some basic things about Switzerland and the period I know the most about is the WWII period. I know very little about their current situation, I guess because it is not on my radar.

Are you familiar with Hoffman & Struwwelpeter?
No

Have you read The Magic Mountain?
No

Do you feel that the characters succeeded in avoiding stereotypes?
I am not quite sure as I do not know if they were stereotypes.
I do feel a "coldness" towards Emilie that I had noticed in the attitude of the characters in another book that was set in Switzerland.

Did you have any sympathy for Emilie?
Not sure if it was sympathy but understood the situation she was in and how it did not seem to improve despite the efforts she puts forth.

[Joy D]

I have read only through part one.

Q. How much did you sympathise with the various characters?
A. I sympathized with Gustav to a great degree. His innocence and love for his mother were touching. I sympathized with Anton's nervousness regarding his piano performances, having been in a similar situation in my youth.

Q. How much did you know about Switzerland?
A. I knew a good bit about policies in Switzerland during WWII as I do lots of reading about that era. I am familiar with several other aspects as well.

Q. Were you familiar with Hoffman and Struwwelpeter?
A. No. From the short excerpts provided, I am sure Stuwwelpeter would have given me nightmares as a child (and possibly now too!)

Q. Have you read The Magic Mountain, and if so did that affect the way you perceived the chapter on Davos?
A. No, I have not read it, so it had no bearing.

Q. Did you feel that the characters succeeded in avoiding stereotypes?
A. Yes, I did not sense any stereotyping.

Q. Did you have any sympathy for Emilie?
A. Yes, I felt sympathy for her pain in dealing with the loss of her husband and loss of a lifestyle she had come to enjoy. Once she lost her husband, her existence took a turn toward poverty. I sympathized with her illness (pneumonia). I was not sympathetic to her anti-Semitism. She seemed to blame Jews for her husband's death. I am sure we will learn more about this in the next part of the book.

[Hugh]

Don't feel you have to answer all of the questions - I don't want to constrain the discussion.

I mentioned Struwwelpeter because my grandparents used to have a copy of the translation (Shock-Headed Peter), which they read to us when we were small children - the stories are very striking and I still remember elements of most of them, though I do tend to get them mixed up with Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Verses. What struck me about Tremain's references to it was that she couldn't resist quoting it in the German original, which is impossible to fully reproduce in a translation.

I mentioned The Magic Mountain (Der Zauberberg) because that book is set in a sanatorium like the ruined one that Gustav and Anton visit in Davos, and I am quite sure that this was a deliberate allusion. It is also a book that stays in the memory long after reading it.

[Robert]

This section is my fave part of the book. I like the sparse style and the simplicity of the scenes. Throughout reading this part, I kept picturing everything like some Rainer Fassbinder film.

I also read the book back in February when I was visiting Berlin AND after visiting the GDR museum, so that influenced my reading, although the setting has nothing to do with the GDR, I just kept picturing everything that way.

How much did you sympathise with the various characters?

I sympathised for Gustav but I saw him more as a helpless kitten.

How much did you know about Switzerland?
Nothing - other than the Neutrality during WWII

Were you familiar with Hoffman and Struwwelpeter?

Definitely! When I was young, my mother having emigrated from uber socialist 70's Malta exposed me to as many children's authors as she could find. The picture of Struwwelpeter frightened me but it was pivotal to my future reading as I also liked Edward Gorey, Hilaire Belloc and Roald Dahl later on in life.

Have you read The Magic Mountain, and if so did that affect the way you perceived the chapter on Davos?

Tried to read Magic Mountain but gave up 50 pages in as I wasn't in thee mood.

Did you feel that the characters succeeded in avoiding stereotypes?

I feel that there are stereotypes sometimes it bothers me, sometimes it doesn't. In this case, I was ok with it.

Did you have any sympathy for Emilie?

Wellll at this stage she appears hateable, later on this changed.

[Kathleen]

There were several scenes that put me right in Gustav's shoes and told me so much about him. The one that comes to mind is when he is trying to figure out how he will deal with the sheets. I thought that was so touching and well done.

[Amanda]

Anita wrote: "This is my first Temain book and I will definitely read more. I found the book engrossing and enjoyed her character development. I had no sympathy for Emilie, which, imho, makes an writer good. I l..."

This is also my first Tremain and I am so looking forward to reading more from her.

[Ernie]

This was also my favorite part of the novel. I found the writing simple, but extremely elegant, and the way it managed to draw me in was mesmerizing. I agree with Kathleen in that the author really took you out of your element and put you into Gustav's shoes, and it was done so seamlessly that I didn't even realize it had happened until the first part was over. Emilie was a difficult character to process. If anything, I just found myself asking more questions and hoping to find out more. I have always wanted to read Magic Mountain, so need to get my hands on a copy.

[Jan]

Like Robert, I noted the sparseness of the prose. I haven't read anything else by her, but I wondered if Tremain made the conscious choice so that the reader would focus on the characters and situations. I didn't think they were stereotypes at all. Quite a sad group but very believable. Like Ernie, I was immediately rapt by the story.

[Suzy]

I also was immediately drawn in by the story. While it is sad, it seemed so real life. What gave me hope for Gustav was his mother's telling him his father was a hero and that most important to him was "self-mastery". Was that the phrase? (I've returned my library book.) Also, I felt that even though Emilie was against his friendship with Anton, I think Anton and his family played an important role in Gustav's life. They loved him and showed him that life wasn't so bleak for everyone, things that I believed will sustain him as his mother deteriorates.

So many things contributed to Gustav having to grown up fast.

[Kay]

Oh, Struwwelpeter! That is what fairy tales are all about, not the happiness-soaked Disney versions :)

I was very sympathetic to Gustav, still am, and have mixed feelings about Emilie. I am sure we will get more of her story as the book progresses. The way Gustav was taught about the "neutrality" of Switzerland was fascinating to me - didn't know about that aspect.

Never had any inclination to read The Magic Mountain, so that had no bearing on my reading of this story.

I didn't think there was much stereotyping, because even the most obvious one - the rich Jewish family - had to move down a notch (I wonder if we will find more about why later on), but that could always change as the story continues.

The best part about the book so far for me is the sparseness of the prose - so many things are shown without the author explicitly saying them. The scene in Davos, where Anton says "Gustav is always hungry" comes immediately to mind.

[Maureen]

I just finished the first part, and this novel is the first of Tremain's books I have read. I feel I have been left hanging at this point because the sparse prose which so many of you enjoy is keeping me at a distance from the characters and their actions.

The only exception to that is Gustav. His character is very well drawn and one I with whom I can easily identify, I can imagine being a young child faced with the confusion of a mother's serious illness and unsure about his present as well as his future. I can imagine his uncertainty about what to do with her sheets, I feel him trying to find his place in the world, and his terror of Ludwig is definitely understandable.

I do wonder if the children deciding to cremate their invented tb victims is going to analogous to the Nazi crematoriums since racial tension is an underlying motif in the novel, which makes sense fir this time period.

Thank you, Hugh, for the links provided in the intro thread. I won't pursue these until I am finished reading or coming close to that.

[Caroline]

I'm always so happy to be back in another Rose Tremain book, and this is the first of hers I've read in quite some time. I read another one of hers, The Way I Found Her many years ago, which also featured a young boy's perspective and a complicated relationship with a mother (or motherly figure? it's been a while!). I'm impressed with how well Tremain is able to capture these characters' perspectives.

I love Gustav's observations of the world, especially as he grows older. He seems so innocent (especially when he asks Anton, "What is fucking?" in Davos), but his point of view conveys that something dark (and perhaps bad?) is taking shape in his home. In Davos he tells Anton he doesn't want to go home because something dark happens there and we learn that his mom is likely an alcoholic.

It is difficult to empathize with Emilie, at least in the way she's presented in this section. Clearly, Gustav loves (or fears) her and wants to protect her in any way he can. When other characters imply that his mother is anti-Semitic, he doesn't follow up or address the issue. When his mother comes home from the hospital, he feels bad that he doesn't have any flowers to set on her tray. Her reaction is not to feel bad that her son was left all alone to fend for himself but to choose to believe that he really was okay and to accept the food he prepares for her (despite noticing how thin he's become). She also seems selfish when she initially doesn't want him going to Anton's house or to Davos. However, she tells Gustav that one reason she doesn't want him going to their house is because they don't live the way that Anton and his family live and she doesn't want him to get used to that. It's only once Gustav goes to their house and spends more time with his family that he realizes she was right. Upon reflection, Emilie's life must have been very difficult and it was probably easier for her to act proud and assume Gustav would be okay than to make promises to Gustav about their future she was not prepared to keep.

It's been a long time since I read the Magic Mountain but I believe the allusion to the book was very much deliberate. The Gustav Sonata is far easier to read - though I did enjoy the experience of reading TMM. Here's some info from the Wikipedia entry on TMM: the main character's name is Hans (like Anton's dying tambourine carrying character), the sanatorium is in Davos, everyone there suffers from TB (which Gustav seems fascinated by once he learns about it), religion - I recall there being intense debates in the book discussing themes of Christianity, humanism, and Judaism, music (piano playing), time, love and temptation, Dionysus, and duty. All this has me wonder what will become of Gustav in the end.

I highly enjoyed this section and am excited to keep going!

[Hugh]

Thanks Caroline - look forward to your thoughts on the rest of the book. And thanks to everyone else - this has become a very lively and intriguing discussion.