Equal Music – Vikram Seth

Equal Music – Vikram Seth

This is a fantastic read!!

It’s been years since violinist Michael Holme broke up with pianist Julia McNicholl, but a chance encounter in a London traffic jam sparks their emotionally destructive relationship into life again. How long will it be before bliss veers into catastrophe, and will it take their musical careers and their relationships with their families with it?

“Family” takes on a flexible meaning in this story. Though Michael and Julia are still very much the children of their aging parents, Vikram Seth equates Julia’s American husband and her young son with Michael’s surrogate family, his bickering but devoted fellow members of the Maggiore String Quartet — three wonderfully drawn characters whose company I began to miss whenever the action shifted to one of Michael and Julia’s tainted erotic interludes.

The story is told through Michael’s voice, and while he’s too selfish and oversensitive to be a likeable character, Seth’s artistry lies in making him a sympathetic character, one who resembles many of us a little too closely for comfort. If you’ve ever acted against your own best interests while chasing your heart’s desire, if you’ve ever done anything to screw up the lives of the people you love, you’ll understand why Michael makes the mess of his life that he does. As a child, Michael escapes having his life’s dream crushed only by grasping the slimmest lifeline of hope; the novel’s ambiguous ending leaves us wondering if he can, or will, do so again.

Seth’s descriptions of the process of music making are the glory of this book.

If you’re a player, they’ll seem drawn from life, and if you’re not, they’ll make you wish you were

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