Music to my heart... Review on An Equal Music - Vikram Seth

There are few novels written by an author

of Indian origin that brilliantly creates a

world into which the reader is transported

and elucidated with the sleight of fine

words. Vikram Seth achieves more than that

with his unique book known simply as 'An

Equal Music'. He has often been labeled the

best writer of his generation. With this novel

it is reinforced the fact that he is a writer

like no other than himself.

However one should not mistake it for a

sequel of sorts to his previous book 'A

Suitable Boy' which happened to be a

romantic saga. 'An Equal Music' is merely a

love story that in serious tones is a tale of a

young man Michael Holme and his

inseparable passion for music and a special

woman, Julia. Holme, the sensitive but

heartless narrator is actually a butcher's son

from Rochdale with a bright career as a

classical musician ahead of him. Despite

parental contention, but with the solacing of

a wealthy widow, he goes to Vienna to

study the violin under the distinguished

teacher, Professor Carl Mall.

In that city of romance he meets and falls in

love with Julia McNicholl, a golden-haired girl

with ambitions to be a concert pianist. The

rest of the story undergoes the ups and

downs that any cliched love story does. But

there is a difference in its treatment of the

ever-tired theme of love. It is a story, which

reveals the strange, precarious, obsessive,

joyous and difficult life led by a professional

musician: in this case, Michael. Seth is very

well versed in the ways of traditional and

classical music. His empathy for the fine

craft gives the narrative a refreshing tone

that invigorates the reader at every stance.

''I play the line of the song, I play the leaps

and plunges of the right hand of the piano, I

am the trout, the angler, the brook , the

observer.''(Ch1. Pg 5) This line justifies the

above observation. A further reading of the

book reveals the use of lucid and fluent

language full of gentle life. ''The branches

are bare, the sky tonight is milky

violet…..'(Pg3. Ch 1) denotes the

juxtaposition of nature in the scheme of

events soon to follow. This happens to be

the opening line to the very first chapter of

the novel. Music especially, which dominates

the proceedings, provides a chorale for

every mood and action.

Seth explores the strange servility, and

liberty, of the individuals involved in the

Maggiore Quartet; the terrible predicament

of a musician who suffers almost total loss

of hearing; and the plight of musicians

whose contingent stipend prevents them

from ever owning the best and most

beautiful instruments and who, like Michael,

may lose a much loved but borrowed

instrument at any time. The action moves

rather softly between London, Vienna and

Venice but the real life of the novel is the

music. ''When I realised I would be writing

about it'', says Seth in his Author's Note, ''I

was gripped with anxiety''. But he has

written well, and expressed the soul of

music deftly.

It also goes without saying that Vikram Seth

knows how to tell a tale, keeping us

guessing about everything from what the

Quartet's four-minute encore will be to what

really occasioned Julia's migration from

Michael's life. Seth's previous novel, the

massive A Suitable Boy, was influenced by

such disparate spirits as Jane Austen, RK

Narayan and PG Wodehouse. The influences

here are nowhere like as lofty. Much of the

dialogue between Julia and Michael is on the

level of Erich Segal's Love Story, while

Julia's brave battle with deafness could have

been chronicled with the Bette Davis of Dark

Victory. Like for instance this following

illustration ''What is the difference between

my life and my love?'' the hero asks, and

then provides his own answer: ''One gets me

low, the other lets me go.''

Apparently Seth feels at home in any part of

the world. A rare trait in an Indian author

who resides in a world torn apart by post

colonial identity rifts full of authors

desperate trying to reclaim their lost roots.

His characters may sound European, but

their essential sensibilities take on a

universal tone in the book and the course of

its events. There is no specific nuance that

renders them as particularly English, French

or any other nationality. In fact they could

be Indian characters in an Indian sub

context but still would create the same

magic they've created as the characters

they've been written out as.

Even the underlying music theme that

dominates the workings of the plot. It could

have been Indian classical and the

instruments in question could have been the

'sitar' or a 'tabla' the spirit of the narrative

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