Buy New

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
Buy Used
Used - Very Good See details
Price: £1.63

or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
   
More Buying Choices
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available for
Colour:
Image not available

 
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don't have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here, or download a FREE Kindle Reading App.

An Equal Music [Paperback]

Vikram Seth
3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
RRP: £8.99
Price: £7.19 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £1.80 (20%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Only 7 left in stock (more on the way).
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon. Gift-wrap available.
Want delivery by Thursday, 23 May? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
Hardcover --  
Paperback £7.19  
Audio, Cassette, Abridged, Audiobook --  
Audio Download, Abridged £9.97 or Free with Audible.co.uk 30-day free trial
Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Learn more.

Book Description

7 Oct 2004

A chance sighting on a bus; a letter which should never have been read; a pianist with a secret that touches the heart of her music . . . AN EQUALl MUSIC is a book about love, about the love of a woman lost and found and lost again; it is a book about music and how the love of music can run like a passionate fugue through a life. It is the story of Michael, of Julia, and of the love that binds them.

¿A novel that can stand being reread and reread, but the first time round is an emotional cliffhanger ... secure a copy for yourself, settle down, and prepare for the unforgettable¿ Sunday Times


Frequently Bought Together

An Equal Music + An Equal Music / Verwandte Stimmen - Music From the Novel + Two Lives
Price For All Three: £29.65

Buy the selected items together


Product details

  • Paperback: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Phoenix; New Ed edition (7 Oct 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0753807734
  • ISBN-13: 978-0753807736
  • Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 3.3 x 19.8 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (105 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 12,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, and more.

Product Description

Amazon Review

Michael plays second violin in an up-and-coming Maggiore Quartet, lives on the north side of Hyde Park, takes early morning dips in the Serpentine, has a French girlfriend named Virginie. But his mind is constantly drawn to his first and only love, Julia, whom he knew in Vienna many years earlier. When he catches sight of Julia on a London bus, he cannot help but pursue her. Vikram Seth's new novel is a gently-paced, multi-layered work, proceeding in short sections which flit from Michael's ongoing search for Julia back to his childhood as a Rochdale butcher's son, his early training and breakdown in Vienna under the tyrannical Carl Kall, and the emotional history of his quartet; while Michael's discovery of a Beethoven trio rewritten as a string quintet acts as a motif for Michael's pursuit of the lost Julia: can Michael recapture the magic of the past, like Beethoven, who deafly transfigured what he so many years earlier had hearingly composed? Seth is quite brilliant at conveying the intense and complex interplay of chamber musicians, in rehearsal and performance (an odd, obsessed, introspective, separatist breed), and manages the near-impossible--to write in 1999 about Art and Love without embarrassment. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Book Description

A powerful love story from the author of the international bestseller A SUITABLE BOY

Inside This Book (Learn More)
Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Search inside this book:

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more

What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?


Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Vikram Seth strikes a chord with this reader 2 Oct 2001
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I found this book to be utterly engrossing, the central Love story which winds from Rochdale to Vienna and Venice via London, is beautifully accompanied by the music of the Maggiorre Quartet of which the protagonist is a member. This might not sound like it is to everyone's taste, (my girlfriend questionned my sanity after I recommended it to her), yet I am totally ignorant of classical music, have never visited the geographic settings and I found the story deeply involving. Without wanting to give too much away the story revolves around a passionate relationship which ended 10 years previously in Vienna, and recommences again fitfully in London with dramatic repercussions to both people's lives. My enjoyment of this book, and my girlfriend's dislike of it centres around the central character, and whether you will allow a grown man such a lapse into love and obsession after an affair he left behind so long ago. I was convinced, and thus found it spellbinding, more so than Seth's more celebrated work; 'A Suitable Boy'
Was this review helpful to you?
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Moving and fast moving 22 July 2008
Format:Paperback
An easy book to read as the plot flies along, the characters are very well drawn, the dialogue is good and the sense of yearning from the main protagonist is well drawn.

A love affair that ended abruptly without as the Americans say 'closure'. Both parties remain hurt, still in love with each other but dealing with the extenuating circumstances that crash into everyone's lives and pull them off in different directions. For the main protagonist the book relates the story of a crisis year in his life both in his professional life as a muscian and his love life.

It is extremely well written and very moving at the end as you feel for poor Michael who struggles to withstand the neverending pounding that just being alive can give you. Also if you love classical music the extra dimension this brings is a joy. Not quite great literature but in that territory.
Comment | 
Was this review helpful to you?
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, tender, tale of love. Exquisite 12 Jan 2003
Format:Paperback
The basic plot of this novel by Vikram Seth is simple: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy finds girl again but with this simple story the author has constructed (perhaps composed would be a more apt word in this case!;-)) a most exquisite and beautiful novel. Mr. Seth obviously loves language and here he uses it to express himself and the emotions of his characters in a poetic and intelligent, meaningful and alluring manner. The images he builds are very powerful and moving and I found myself quickly drawn into this book so much so that I suspended my daily routine just to be able to finish this book! I found myself reading through the night to finish it. The characters Mr. Seth has created are very realistic, vivid and interesting people and ones which you empathise with. The main lead character Michael is beautifully developed as the novel progresses so that one feels his excitement when he meets Julia and his pain when things dont go his way. Julia too is an interesting character, beautiful, talented yet devastatingly handicapped and unsure as well. The secondary characters in this book also add considerably to the novel's depth.

As in his work, A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth is at his best when describing scenes and here again his vivid and colourful images of Vienna, London, and Venice are superbly crafted masterpieces of descriptive writing. Of course music plays a major role in this book both in its plot and its aestethic appeal and the book is full choc-a-bloc of descriptions of various pieces of classical music especially the Trout Quintent of Bach and also The Art of Fugue and of the perils and joys of playing the violin and the viola. I am immusical (though I do enjoy listening to music) and therefore will failed to have appreciated this aspect of the book properly but it is a measure of how well Mr. Seth writes and his mastery of language that not once was I bored by the technical musical passages. Indeed the book made me interested in learning more about this aspect of music. Better even than his previous book!

A joy to read. Tender and exquisite.

Was this review helpful to you?
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?   Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars An Equal Music
Book arrived on time and in excellent condition. Wonderful, readable book. I thought the relationships within the Quartet were very interesting and totally believable. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Helen Whitehead
5.0 out of 5 stars An absorbing story
A powerful love story set against a background of London, Vienna and Venice which was beautifully evoked. Also an interesting insight into music and the life of musicians
Published 1 month ago by Judith
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting read
I bought this for someone as a book club read.They enjoyed it. It arrived on time as expected so overall pleased.
Published 1 month ago by Aimestar
2.0 out of 5 stars Not my cup of tea
This book is rather pretentious- reveling in passages of music of which you completely unaware unless you have the score handy. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Su
2.0 out of 5 stars Unlikely to turn readers on to chamber music!
What is the matter with me? I love Vikram Seth's The Golden Gate, I love classical music, I find the minutiae of musical rehearsal and performance fascinating, as a rule - but I... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Caroline Galwey
3.0 out of 5 stars slow
An Equal Music is the third novel by Indian author Vikram Seth. Michael Holme is a 37-year-old violinist who plays in the Maggiore Quartet. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Cloggie Downunder
5.0 out of 5 stars Inside music
The book gives the dynamics of a quartet, how the personalities affect the approach to the music. It discusses how you can love a person, a piece of music and an instrument... Read more
Published 4 months ago by ilestbiencourt
2.0 out of 5 stars Assai lente ma non giocoso
On first sight this should be a winner with a nineteenth century melodrama in the vein of Anna Karenina mixed with Brief Encounter and given the modern literary baroque treatment (... Read more
Published 5 months ago by John Coffey
5.0 out of 5 stars To love through music is to feel the most true of emotions
So easy to fall in love with the words and feel the story as one would a symphony as it pulses through your heart.
Published 5 months ago by citygirl
1.0 out of 5 stars Pretentious wet rubbish
I read this when I was a very young teenager and found it interesting at the time so was keen to re-read it. Oh what a disappointment. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Laoangel
Search Customer Reviews
Only search this product's reviews

Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Discussion Replies Latest Post
how much can you trust an editor? 6 3 minutes ago
What are you reading now? 8053 30 minutes ago
Great Authors who are ignored probably because they haven't been on a reality show 50 34 minutes ago
Books that publicly embarrassed you 243 44 minutes ago
Come on - why don't we write our own book right here in the fiction forum ? I'll do the first sentence, and then jump in....hold on, here we go... 7125 45 minutes ago
sexual obsession 48 2 hours ago
Best and Worst SP books you've ever read! (not counting your own) 17 2 hours ago
The non author mosty harmless book club. 1601 5 hours ago
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   
Related forums


Listmania!


Look for similar items by category


Feedback


Amazon.co.uk Privacy Statement Amazon.co.uk Delivery Information Amazon.co.uk Returns & Exchanges