Rating: Summary: A JOY TO READ Review: An irresistible novel about music and love, this is the story of Michael, of Julia and of the love that binds them. Moreover, it is a story about how the love of music can run like a passionate "fuga" through life. Seth's language of music can convey natural sound and can create sound which is pleasurable purely as sound: he is an evoker of emotion. It is not only the impetuous, mind-wrenching scenes that make this book extraordinary, but also the creation of a haunting world that resonates in one's heart long after the final page has been read.
Rating: Summary: I can't break away..... Review: I'm only halfway through this book and I'm just blown away. I don't know much about classical music, but I can feel the music through Michael. I could feel Michael's pain when he thought of Julia and the mistakes he made. I found myself hoping that he would find Julia again so that he could have another chance. I can't wait to see what happens.
Rating: Summary: A heart-felt read! Review: Although it took until page 27 to lock into this story, once I did, I couldn't put it down. Seth is so eloquent and sensitive to love, life and music, and such a versatile writer! The protagonist, Michael, is a violinist that fled from an intensely critical music master in Vienna, where he was studying. In so doing, he fled from Julia, a music student of the same teacher and the love of his life. On reuniting in London years later, they find their love alive, but, alas, Julia is married with a child. At the same time, the musical drama persists, with detailed descriptions of compositions and situations amongst his colleagues, the Maggiore Quartet. What Michael comes to know, as they carry on an affair, is that Julia, a concert pianist, is going deaf, but includes her in one of the quartet's performances. In spite it's success, this is the beginning of the end of the quartet as we know it. Michael's decision to leave the quartet was also induced by a number of panic attacks and the fact that he crumbles under the strain of an illicit affair, and the knowledge that Julia won't leave her husband. All this, plus the fact that his cherished violin, on loan from his childhood music teacher and too expensive for him to ever buy for himself, is to be bequeathed to a relative instead of to him. This makes for suspense, as the two things he loves with great passion, Julia and his violin, are threatening to leave him. Does he get the woman of his dreams? Does he keep the violin? I don't want to spoil the ending, so read it for yourself. My only criticism is that Julia is too perfect. I'm not sure I'd take a liking to her if she were real, while Michael with all his weaknesses, is still a sympathetic likeable character. Also, I'm not sure that Seth doesn't over do his descriptive literature, especially when he and Julia are in Venice. There's a fine line between great prose and burdening the reader with too much description not always relevant to the story. I would say Seth comes close to that line, but doesn't quite cross over it, though my mind wandered and I had to reread some paragraphs of descriptive prose. On the whole, I loved this story, as I did a "Suitable Boy" and am inspired to read everything he will ever write!
Rating: Summary: The Passionate Life Review: Like many of the readers of this book I was attracted by reviews that emphasized its beautiful and poetic treatment of the meaning of classical music, even though most found the plot and the characters lacking. It is true that on first glance Michael is hard to take--self-centered, cruel, immature. But then you stop to think--he is only 32. At 22 he had the great passion of his life, which was reciprocated, but through a series of mistakes on both sides fell apart. Not knowing what has happened to her, he cannot let her go. They meet again, and the passion is revived on both sides, until finally Julie chooses her son over her lover. And the conclusion of the novel let's us know that he has matured. What has happened to us if we are no longer sympathetic to great, passionate love stories involving, especially, young people? But, there are many passions at play in this novel--men for women (and, off stage, men for men); musicians for their music and for one another; music lovers for music; fans for their idols (the sticky fan); A&R people for the music and artists; musicians for their instruments; and patrons for the young and talented. What unites them all and saves them all is the transcendence of great music. Michael and Julie will always love one another, but that love will be expressed in their performance and love of Art of the Fugue. An elderly women's love for music saves Michael, and the joy of playing with Billy, Helen and Piers will bring him back to his quartet. Oddly enough, the novel may work best as a story of passion than as an explanation of the power of music. I was often reminded of Joe Jackson's fine memoir, A Cure for Gravity, in reading this novel. Like the fictional Michael, he comes from a lower middle family, is not a Londoner, could not have gone on to study classical music without an educational system which supported talented young people from poor backgrounds. And both lament, indeed curse, Thatcher and her succesor governments for gutting music education in the schools and treating music as a frill. But Jackson conveys the awe he feels in the presence of great music, and its almost miraculous existence, better than Seth does. Still, it is a fine and touching novel which reminds us that there are other passions than for making money.
Rating: Summary: High Praise Review: The woman across the aisle on the train from London to Penzance breezed through half the book during a five hour train ride; I figured it must be engaging. It is an engaging, suspenseful, wistful novel. Upon my arrival at home, in San Francisco, I could not wait to share the book with friends.
Rating: Summary: A Musical Love ! Review: It has an altogether a different taste. Well a love lost, found and lost again. How extraordinarily Seth has managed to portray the self of a lover in all these phases through Michael is worth admiring. When he faces the husband of his former or perhaps present and forever lover & the way it's situation was chosen and presented is amazing. Before that, Michael thinks that none of them whom she loves needs to be hurt. This is perhaps the state of a supreme and divine lover. Besides, many a ups and many a downs, perhaps that's what love and life is all about. By completing the book, one could have a better way of looking the world. " ...I learned from her what I was never taught" perhaps this is what love gives to lovers. It is simply learning from each other. And again ".....She loved me for the dangers I have passed .." reflect that love is beyond the so called esteem of oneself. That is true too. Any way this book again establishes the fact that music has something to do with the lovers in love or more generally for the artists. Julia's artistic attachment to music, even though she's unable to taste what she is dying for is really admirable. Was she a Mozart ? Thank you Seth. You have showed it again. But, Seth, where have you left Virginie ? Give her to me Seth.. Puhleeze.... Love, Rupesh
Rating: Summary: Elegant and Elegiac -- lots of brilliant writing Review: Yes, this book is very good, despite all the questionable reviews that it got in the Western journals. Seth is one of my favorite writers and someone whom I can relate to surprisingly well, maybe because I was born in India and was exported out of there at 17. (I did my high school in Mussoorie only an hours drive up the hills from Seth's high school -- Doon School in Dehra Dun). Like Seth, I also speak Chinese and read some Chinese literature. In fact, there are lots of sentences which reads like as if they are conceived first as Chinese poems in the way they describe the external world and then translated into English. Consider Seth's opening line: "The branches are bare, the sky tonight a milky violet. It is not queit here, but it is peaceful. The wind ruffles the black water towards me. There is noone about. ...I stand until I have lost my thoughts. I look at the water of the Serpentine. " Besides, the book really defies categorization in that it so beautifully potrays the world of music-- which is not a small achievement in itself, given the tremendous research that has gone into it. While the book has no mention of Asia or India in it -- not even a curry lunch -- I can sense that there are many occasions in the book that only an Asian with a passion for Chinese poetry would have dealt it. Therefore, the book is highly accessible to those of us who have little knowledge of the rarefied world of Western world of music -- the world of London, Venice and Vienna. I recommended it to several of my Chinese friends and they loved it!
Rating: Summary: Lyrical Love Story Review: I enjoyed this book immensely. Borrowing the words of another famous book title, both the Agony and the Ecstasy of a reclaimed first love relationship are set forth in this often poetic, beautifully drawn story. The passages describing the personal interactions of the Maggiore quartet, and the beauty of the concert tour settings in Vienna and Venice greatly enhance the story. I loved reading this book. The closing paragraph, alone, is woth the price.
Rating: Summary: enticing and elegiac Review: this book by seth envoked emotions in me tht only a musician can feel. the sense of grief and pain micheal feels is poetically described by seth. he has built a beautifull imagery of london, vienna and italy and surrounded it with sound.
Rating: Summary: music is the food of luv:) Review: Vikram Seth has written a wonderful book and managed to convey the gentle pace of classical music in the story. I like it, though I would hesitate to put it among my fifty favourite books. Seth has managed to get into the skin of the characters he has written about. Though there is a bit of Hindi film style sentimental romance in the story, it is done without too many cliches. So if u like music and love luv, buy the book. But read it gently. It may bore u in places. But it will make u sentimental too. Truely memorable!
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