An Equal Music [Hardcover]

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

A powerful love story from the author of the international bestseller A SUITABLE BOY --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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 Equal 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

What the press are saying about AN EQUAL MUSIC:
"IS THERE ANYTHING VIKRAM SETH CANNOT DO? Seth’s novel is a wonder-work: irresistible, tense, deeply moving. . . . It is a novel that can stand being reread and reread, but the first time round it is an emotional cliff-hanger . . . My advice is secure a copy for yourself, settle down and prepare for the unforgettable." John Carey, Sunday Times

"THE FINEST NOVEL ABOUT MUSIC EVER WRITTEN IN ENGLISH . . . Music . . . is the final catharsis, ‘a sufficient gift’, more precious than happiness, worth any sacrifice. The same might be said of An Equal Music" Daniel Johnson, Daily Telegraph

"ALL HIS BOOKS HAVE THE POWER TO LIFT YOU OUT OF YOUR OWN LIFE AND CARRY YOU INTO A WORLD OF DELIGHT. . . . It is quite unusual how happy this novel and its predecessor can make you. . . It is a novel of wonderful high spirits and vitality, a true enchantment. All those who delighted in A Suitable Boy will find delight here, too." Allan Massie, Scotsman

"IT IS NOT ONLY THE BIG MIND-WRENCHING SCENES WHICH MAKES THIS BOOK EXTRAORDINARY. An Equal Music proves that Seth can create a haunting world that resonates in the mind long after the final page has been read." Gerald Kaufman, Sunday Telegragh

"SETH GIVES THE FULLEST ACCOUNT I HAVE EVER READ IN FICTION OF A MUSICIAN’S RELATIONSHIP TO HIS MUSIC . . . a brilliant novel" Maggie Gee, Daily Telegragh "WHERE AN EQUAL MUSIC PLEASES MOST IS IN THE RAVISHING REFINEMENT OF TECHNIQUE, its sure placement of scenes, and the unerring truth of its portrayal of a small, enclosed social world . . . Will still be read with pleasure and absorption decades from now" Philip Hensher, Spectator

"A MASTERPIECE . . . as clear, lovely and civilised as a Schubert quartet" Georgina Metcalfe, Daily Mail

"VIKRAM SETH’S WONDERFULLY CLEVER, SENSUOUS AND POIGNANT NOVEL, in which making new is a ‘magical translation’, conducted with decorum, tact, lucidity and a stirring sense of history" Shirley Chew, TLS

Vikram Seth was born in 1952. He trained as an economist and has lived for several years each in England, California, China and India. He is the author of A Suitable Boy, which was an international number one bestseller, An Equal Music and several other novels. He has also written five volumes of poetry including Beastly Tales.