By Vikram Seth
When words fail there is music, the universal language. This great mystery of human experience gives
us the sense of some higher power or greater intelligence at work outside of
the known world. Very few writers dare
to describe music's connection to the divine and most of those who do fall
short. Only a virtuosic writer, on a par
with the world's greatest composers, should approach this task and even then,
very carefully.
Having read and loved A Suitable Boy, I was prepared
to like An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth.
Instead, I was overwhelmed by the beauty of the writing because I could
hear the music and feel the passion so transcendently described in this novel. It is a story of love between a man and a
woman, of love for music and musicians, between parents and children, husbands
and wives, teachers and students, friends and rivals.
In a taxi in London, Michael Holme -- second violinist in
the Maggiore Quartet -- hears the ghost of his great love playing piano in
Beethoven's piece for string quintet in C minor, opus 104. He knows it is Julia on the piano but also
knows it cannot be because she has disappeared completely from, his life, the classical music scene, and the world at
large. And yet, there is something about
the touch on the keys and phrasing that is as unique as her fragrance. Michael scours music libraries and record
stores for scores and recordings of the music he has heard and finally, by
chance, obtains an obscure eastern European LP.
Coincidentally, on the bus going home with his prize Michael, heading in
one direction, locks eyes with a woman who can only be Julia heading in the
opposite direction. He jumps off the bus
and catches a taxi, following Julia's bus only to discover that she is not on
it. Worst of all, he has left his Beethoven
record in the taxi and knows he will never find another copy. And then one day, the doorman at his
apartment building hands it to him saying a strange woman has dropped it by.
Julia reenters Michael's life as abruptly as he had left
hers, but resuming the romance of ten years past is more complicated than he
understands it to be. When they parted
ways in Vienna, Michael was in the throes of a psychological breakdown at the
hands of his Svengali-like violin teacher Carl Käll who sees in Michael the
musician he could never be. By the time
Michael is well enough to face Julia again, she has disappeared and no one in
her family will help him find her. When
she suddenly reappears, following a concert given by the Maggiore Quartet,
Michael is thunderstruck as if he has been given a chance to save his soul from
eternal damnation.
Julia, however, has moved on. She is married and mother to a seven-year-old
son. Rekindling her young love for
Michael would be a betrayal of everyone and everything she holds dear. And yet, so much between them is
unresolved. Only the music of Beethoven,
Brahms, Bach, Haydn, Mozart, and Schubert comes close to expressing the depth
and richness of what they had together.
When Michael left, Julia was as devastated as he was ill but found a way
rebuild her broken heart and life. Michael,
for his part, limped along with his borrowed violin until the Maggiore Quartet
had an opening for a second violin. The
first violinist and viola player -- Piers and Helen, respectively -- are
siblings and Billy, the cellist, might as well be given their often childish
interactions. Michael, with his own
emotional baggage, fits beautifully with the Maggiore and the four become a
loving if somewhat dysfunctional pseudo family.
In an interview for Random House, Vikram Seth discusses his
use of a string quartet as the framework for Michael's life:
Basically, a quartet
is a very odd structure. There are four musicians: two violins (which adds a
bit of complexity and competition), a viola player, and a cellist. The music
they make has to be cooperative--you can't have a virtuoso sticking out. And
yet, though there's cooperation on stage, there may be bitter rivalries, dislikes,
intrigues, and conflicts among the four players. They spend more time with each
other than with their families--very often on the road and very often under
pressure on stage. It's a bit like a platoon under fire or a marriage of four
people--with all the complications that a marriage of two people entails
multiplied in more combinations than I can calculate. Using a quartet also
allowed me to introduce other characters to enrich the background of the
novel's main story, the love story between Michael and Julia.
Under pressure from Michael and after much deliberation,
Julia agrees to perform with the Maggiore in Vienna and Venice, the cities
where she and Michael had loved and lost each other ten years earlier. Their performances are a brilliant success and
the five musicians decide to tackle Bach's "Art of the Fugue", a
piece which spiritually bound Michael and Julia together as young musicians and
lovers and which pushes the quartet to the breaking point. As deeply as she still loves him Julia refuses
to leave her husband for Michael who suffers another breakdown and resigns from
the quartet. Meanwhile, the owner of the
violin Michael has played for his entire career, who was also his first music
teacher, begins hinting that her son wants to inherit the violin so he can sell
it to finance his children's education.
Michael had always known that the violin might disappear from his life
and accepts this coming loss as another devastating heartbreak. While he dearly wishes that Mrs. Formby would
simply give him the violin, he understands that family comes first and does not
hold this against her. He visits her as
often as he can and frequently corresponds with her out of appreciation for her
lifelong mentorship and genuine affection for her, his oldest friend.
An Equal Music could have gone in a very conventional
direction, but Vikram Seth is not a conventional writer. He speaks a number of languages, has lived
all over the world, and considers himself bisexual. He was born in Calcutta, India, was educated
in England, and worked as an economist until writing began taking up too much
of his working time. His
best-selling A Suitable Boy, an
epic novel of Indian family, cultural, and social life is a masterwork which
took him ten years to write. After that,
he had to take a long break before he could pick up a pen. It was a few years later, while walking and
people-watching in a park in London, that the story of a heartsick musician
took root.
Interviewers frequently ask Mr. Seth if he is a musician and
the answer is not. In order to write An
Equal Music he had to spend countless hours studying music and musicians in
order to bring Michael to life and to describe the emotional experience of
listening to the pieces played by the quartet.
Most striking is how, even without knowing the pieces, one hears music
playing throughout this beautiful story.
It reminds me of how choreographer George Balanchine famously spoke of
"seeing the music" and how composer Igor Stravinsky likewise "heard
the dancing" in their collaborations.
Only a great artist could express him or herself so perfectly.
Where composers paint pictures with music and great artists
compose music with paint brushes, great writers capture beauty and spiritual
experience with words. The title of this
lovely book comes from "Our Last Awakening", a prayer by John Donne
(1571-1631):
Bring us, O Lord God, at our last
awakening into the house and gate of heaven, to enter into that gate and dwell
in that house, where there shall be no darkness nor dazzling, but one equal
light; no noise nor silence, but one equal music; no fears nor hopes, but one
equal possession; no ends nor beginnings, but one equal eternity: in the
habitations of thy majesty and glory, world without end. Amen.
After leaving him again and forever, Julia sends Michael a
message through music that is an answer to this prayer.
Copyright 2013 Teresa Friedlander, all rights reserved
