An Equal Music: A Novel

I read this novel many years ago and loved it. It has been one of my favorites ever since, although I recognize that it might be a difficult read for someone not seriously interested in music.I picked it up this afternoon, really just killing time, to read again the last two pages, especially the last paragraph. I think that this is the most elegant ending of any novel I have ever read. It never fails to touch me.Walter Pater, a 19th century British critic, made a famous statement: "All art aspires to the condition of music." By this, Pater meant that music touches us emotionally more directly than any other art medium. Psychologically, one can say that we hear music and directly experience it. We do not have to think about it, analyze it -- let our rationality critique that experience before we react. Rather, music's enjoyment is immediate, emotional, and visceral. To be trite, "it speaks to us" directly through our unconscious mind without mediation of our conscious intellect. Pater, who was a literary and art critic, was saying that all other art forms aspire to this condition -- to "speak" just as directly, immediately, and to have unmediated impact upon the viewer, reader, recipient of the work of art -- to rise to this condition of music.In my view, the final paragraph of this book is the novelist's statement of the same sentiment. It is a visceral, elegant statement of music's potential unmediated impact upon the human soul. For me, it is as if the entire novel was preparation for this simple ending paragraph. The title to the book and its use in the novel's ending, reinforces my sense of this. For this lovely ending alone, I would recommend this novel to anyone who has experienced the exhilaration that music can provide. Haven't we all?

This is probably the most outstanding novel I've ever read about musicians, relationships to one another, and listening. I'm grateful to this writer for capturing the non-verbal experiences, from childish absurdity to the most profound, of being in a chamber group; of practicing, playing gigs, being a string player. The depicted relationship with one's instrument is so much the way it really is. I first read the book years ago when it was newer, and find it to be just as wonderful or better to reread. I used to automatically do the left hand gesture while playing the open cello C string that is described in this book. Mr. Seth is responsible for a little bit of cleaning up my act! He is the only writer who has either observed, been allowed to observe, or imagined so accurately - I can't tell which - what goes on in a quartet rehearsal.I wish he had written it a really long time ago so that various members of my family - departed long before - might have read it and understood my life a little more. Anyway, I bought one for my sister. If you can find the Equal Music CD, it's great to hear the pieces beingdiscussed.

I'm a decently skilled amateur who still plays in chamber ensembles occasionally. And big fan of Vikram Seth. Read this book in my 20s and LOVED it. Convinced myself that the main character reconciled himself to everything at the end, though now re-reading I'm less sure about that - it seems much more ambiguous. In my 40s it seems a much harder read, as I just want to shake the main character to let go of this stupid obsession and get on with life...But then I looked in the mirror and realized I made similar mistakes in love, although I did not act in them in ways as outrageous as those depicted here. So I should not be annoyed: Seth perfectly captures emotional dilemmas in a life stage that I have mercifully outgrown. Which is, in fact, an incredible work, to produce a novel that reads so differently to a twentysomething and a fortysomething. The book's greatest strength is its depiction of the dynamics and tensions in the quartet. Seth nails these perfectly.

Apart from allowing us an interesting glimpse into the world of professional music, this book centers around the obsession a manipulative, self-absorbed, emotionally mediocre violinist, Michael, with his long-lost “love” Julia, whom he dumped and ghosted ten years ago after he had a nervous breakdown. The good woman had enough sense to get on with life and have a family, until they meet again and our narrator pushes himself back into her life, nearly ruining her career by giving away a huge secret at the first sign of pressure (whilst expecting her to lie to her husband and son in the meantime). Needless to say, he also has a girlfriend he disposes of quickly by telling himself it was nothing more than an affair (while she clearly loves him). Somehow we are meant to believe that his longing for Julia is a sign of passion, love, and romance, when it is really unhealthy, obsessive behavior from someone who hasn’t done his emotional labor for a decade. Whilst the other characters are pleasantly depicted in their individual personalities and the musical references fun to follow up with, the fact that the story is told from the viewpoint of Michael makes it rather tedious in time.

Our Book Club found this to be one of the best for group discussion mostly because everyone had reacted so differently to the reading. This review is not really about the book, but about the music. All of us are involved in music in one way or another and were eager to listen to the pieces rehearsed and played in the book. THERE IS A COMPANION CD WHICH HAS ALL THE MUSIC!! We did not find this out until several of us looked up the individual selections on a myriad of CD's. Then one of us discovered the "An Equal Music" CD in which Vikram Seth himself has gathered all the pieces. It should be marketed with the book! It is of highest quality and has been played over and over. Both book and CD can stand alone, but together they make a dream package.

One of the most amazing reads for anyone who loves chamber music - I will definitely share this book with my special friends and will most certainly read it again and again - thank you!

One of my all-time favourite novels is Vikram Seth’s The Suitable Boy. Vast, colourful and deep, it evokes a place and time, but more importantly it is a book about people and relationships. Its biggest similarity to An Equal Music is Seth's skilful way of connecting the reader and characters.An Equal Music is the book that Seth wanted to write. Coming six years after acclaimed and highly successful A Suitable Boy, it has the feel of a project that the editors had little sway over. It is a personal pilgrimage into the world of classical music told as a love story. No attempt has been made to make the writing more accessible to those not familiar with classical music. It is self-indulgent. It is a niche book.I came to the book because of A Suitable Boy and the fact that I am an orchestral musician. Even as someone familiar with the world the main characters inhabit, I couldn’t help feeling that in the hands of a ruthless editor the book would have been so much more accessible, and better. Seth’s prose is exquisite. He develops colour in people and places (in this case London, Rochdale, Vienna and Venice) with ease. Towards the end, as the two main characters are in emotional disintegration, there are rambling paragraphs that even read at the slowest speed make no sense. Here, a commercially savvy editor would have attempted to unravel them and rein in the author. But, this is Seth’s book. It is who he is. This was not written with the aim of NY Times lists. I enjoyed this book, but understand why it would not resonate with some readers.

An Equal Music by Vikram Seth casts as many shadows as it shines lights.Authority-hating, swottish, and self-centred Michael Holme from Rochdale plays violin for London-based-but-often-Euro-touring Maggiore Quartet. His pupil and lover Virginie draws his attention to a Beethoven quintet he has not heard of and he obsessively tracks down both sheet music and vinyl disc. He leaves the disc in the back of a taxi in which he is attempting to pursue a bus, upon which he is convinced is travelling his love he lost ten years previously, fellow musician Julia. It’s a frenzied act of frustration ending in Michael’s tears. It also marks the beginning of a series of episodes of loss, always elegantly counterpointed - as one might expect from a musician.It was indeed Julia he saw on the bus, and she eventually turns up as mysteriously as Michael left her ten years previously. But something is very wrong. Their conversations seem oddly artificial. The dialogue seems awkward, jokes unfunny, pointless anecdotes about spinach. She’s married – has an eight-year old boy, a blow to Michael…what does he expect? Bizarrely they resume their relationship so there’s a mild degree of threat in the form of husband James, but he’s no bogeyman. Virginie callously disposed of, Michael tries to reconnect with Julia but reader realizes there’s something else very wrong with her and on page 100 we find out.Even after Julia’s plight is revealed, there’s still an air of artificiality about everything. Conversations seem to take longer than they need to drive the narrative, a piece of dialogue about shelving in the Manchester Watson Music library is painfully drawn out in order to display no more than a slick metaphor about sandpaper. What is Seth doing? And why has he chosen the present tense? – though in first person plural Michael says ‘…Nothing too surprising springs out at us for most of the rehearsal…’ it’s almost reads like the diary of a child who daren’t leave anything out, always using six words when four would be more than adequate...and this from an award-winning poet, so what’s going on? Then, it hits you like a bolt from the blue, the clue is John Donne who as an astute metaphysician could speed or slow time with his writing. Sometimes with Seth, when dialogue starts, narrative stops altogether, and there’s a stark five-line chapter when Michael imagines he’s going bonkers ‘cause he hasn’t seen Julia; ‘I am in all the hours we ever spent, I am in all the rooms which we have ever been in…’Nevertheless, I found Julia more interesting off the page, than on it, so why has Seth endowed her with the personality of a hole in the air? Most of the folk I know with her difficulty are larger than life! Is Julia experiencing Michael's frustration about her plight vicariously? Character-wise the saving grace is the twitchy whisky-sniftering Trout Quintet-loving Maggiore’s 1st violinist Piers, and there are scenes of menace when Piers gets wind of ‘something’ and almost hypnotizes Michael into spilling the beans.If the reader is becoming weary of the time-stretching descriptions of rooms which sometimes read like little more than inventories, then hold on tight! Because when the action moves from Vienna to Venice, the prose turns into some of the richest, most poetic I’ve ever read, with descriptions of Palazzos redolent in mood of Henry James’s The Aspern Papers, or Lampedusa’s The Leopard. In this environment, even Julia seems to take on a third dimension!One small niggle; there’s quite a bit of telling rather than showing going on in the narrative. What is a ‘powerful Mancunian accent’ to someone who’s never heard one? What is a ‘Bohemian Viennese presence’? and what is a ‘housewife fantasy’? I told you it was just a niggle!As the story develops, Michael is revealed as also having some kind of affliction of his own – not made clear. He becomes histrionic enough to self-harm to make a point - rather than acting out of frustration. He’s petulant, jealous, even cruel. But he has a mystical guardian in the form of Mrs Formby whose Tononi violin he is safe-keeping and dependent upon. When Mrs Formby dies all seems to be lost for Michael, but rather like EM Forster’s Mrs Moore, Mrs Formby seems to be a power for good beyond the grave.

This books is an enjoyable read until near the end. It offers a clear insight into the life of a chamber music group. At the end, however, the main character falls from grace by making use of a prostitute, making one re-evaluate the entire book. He had previously seemed a sympathetic character. For me, it detracted from the story. However, I would still recommend it.

I have read and re-read this wonderful book, wishing it could go on and on.All the characters come alive and for music lovers and particularly those who play an instrument,the details and emotions are laid truly bare. One's heart goes out to the players and their fate.I consider it a MUST read - but do allow a quiet time in which to enjoy its subtleties.

It’s a fine book, and as a professional musician I can assure you that he has a lot of it right!My only criticism is that I found the characters rather bland and insubstantial, but it’s a charming love-story for all that.