Rating: 
Summary: Very well constructed, but the romance was not compelling
Review: Extremely well constructed as usual. Very readable, unputdownable and all that. Somewhere, however, the romance lost it's momentum, especially towards the end.. and could not weave everything together. Like it did in The Suitable Boy. I smelt something a trifling uninvolved, which I suspect all who have been through personal situations of unrequited love would relate to immediately.. and hunt subliminally for parallels. Alas, Seth's novel leaves me a little lost on this count.
Rating: 
Summary: Unusual, hard to put down, does not disappoint
Review: I loved "A suitable boy" and was not disappointed in the least by Vikram Seth's new book. I could not put it down and was quickly drawn into the world of his characters, so vastly different from mine, but so immediately imaginable. Travelling through London, Venice and Vienna through his eyes, i can hardly wait until i see these places for myself.
Rating: 
Summary: Superb!
Review: I finished reading "An Equal Music" by Vikram Seth last evening. These are some very hastily put together thoughts on why I liked the book: 1. A tinge of Indian-ness in a story with a very Western/very European ambience. It is very slight, not at all obvious, may even go unnoticed and comes across very subtly in the way the characters say something, just once in a while. You read what they say and you think only an Indian will construct a sentence such as this. This is very endearing, makes the world and its people truly universal. This could have backfired in a serious way. The characters could have appeared artificial, schizophrenic, two dimensional, or all of the above or worse they could have come across as speaking someone else's lines or language. That none of it hasppened, speaks highly of Seth's craftsmanship. 2. The protagonists' romance with music never becomes ordinary, never stale, never mundane. It is also not overdone. The passion which drives each of them is very understated, very matter of fact and yet it is there. Also, music is explained or analysed or technicalised at a bare minimum. The technical aspect of their music and their training comes through only in their practice sessions and only when necessary. Knowledge is secondary even if important in its own way. 3. The utter honesty of the characters. No mincing words, no compromises, no mollycoddling senseless sensitivites. That is brought out very nicely in the narrator's ambivalent relationship with his mentor. The mentor's death is imminent and not wanting to widen the already humongous rift, Michael, the chief protagonist and the narrator, writes an all is water under the bridge kind of letter, to which the dying musician replies that the past cannot be undone and that he understands and accepts this. That, to say it any other way is unkind even if for the sake of putting the past to rest. There is a Woody Allen movie, my favorite, "Crimes and Misdemeanor" which is as stark in honesty. 4. Vienna/Austria, Venice, Rochdale come to us via sound instead of the overused sight. The lark that sings from the hollows of the Rochdale moors, the Vienna of Schubert and Haydn, the Venice of Vivaldi where the couple sneak in and play Vivaldi in his church---all these are just a few of many such audio delights painted vividly in words. If you love Vienna/Austria, this book is for you. If you love music this book is for you. If you love both, go out and get it ASAP. Abha Varma
Rating:
Summary: truly,moistly,drippily
Review: Seth's new novel is far,far easier than his previous opus magnum A Suitable Boy. A very cosy tale of love and yearning, this felt to me to be Truly, Madly, Deeply transposed with the Booker Prize in mind. For such standard and soppy fare (for those of you/us who never grew out of Sweet Valley High) this is a frighteningly engaging book which must be some kind of tribute to Seth's brilliant wordcraft. Most of the finer nuances of musical theory were lost on me but, again to the author's credit, this never obstructed the narrative. His prose is terrifically measured and precise - like listening to The Smiths compared to the music-based offerings of other current Anglo-Indian authors. I'd certainly tip it to win the Booker if only for the cosiness of its plot.
Rating:
Summary: A word of praise for the "Equal Music" audiobook
Review: Readers who love the characters but aren't familiar with the music at the heart of this romantic novel, might enjoy the superb 6.5 hour, 4-cassette audio version. English actor Alan Bates brings his special touch to the book; a master interpreter as well as music lover, he finds the voice of each character, reading with wit, passion, charm. The unexpected gift of the audiobook is the addition of music; the Bach, Mozart and Schubert works referred to in the text join the narration at key points, illustrating with sound what Seth is describing in words. The novel is abridged for the audio version, and one who has read the book might miss some of the details necessarily omitted. In every other way, however, the combination of author, narrator and music is deeply satisfying and highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Love his work but he's over-reached himself this time.
Review: I place "The Golden Gate" and "A Suitable Boy" amongst my ten favourite novels but I was disappointed by "An Equal Music". Seth has over-reached himself. Being a music-lover (even such a passionate one as Seth) does not overcome the essential problem of conveying the effect of music in words. The reader simply becomes tired of all this gushing. Then there's the setting - Michael is supposed to be English but his London is a foreigner's London (he hangs around Hyde Park and Oxford Street) and he never uses even the most basic Londoner's slang. These aren't meant as factual quibbles: in a book which attempts to be realistic (as opposed to Rushdie's magic realism, for example) these things weaken an already boring character and fail to spark the reader's interest in him. NOW, a factual quibble: how the heck does a struggling musician pay the annual service charges of a portered flat (with lift) in Bayswater?
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, passionate work - Warm and surprising at once
Review: This is a stunning novel, from an always wonderful writer - This book actually sings - The prose dances across the page - And although, it's not a thriller, plan to have enough time to read it in one or two sittings - And please, there are so many surprises, big and small, don't read any reviews - It's been a long time since I've finished a book only to read it again immediately, but I am re-reading AN EQUAL MUSIC now
Rating:
Summary: Unbelievably brilliant and haunting
Review: An Equal Music is one of my favorite novels. It's a love story, but it's not just about romantic love - it's about the love of a parent for a child, love for a beautiful object that can't love you back, love for the timeless work of brilliant artists, and most of all, the love you have for someone who doesn't really exist anymore, either because they have died or because they've changed. The romantic relationship in the book is intricately woven with the other details of the protagonist's life in such a way that it's not just his relationship with the fellow musician that is a romance, but his relationship with the world and with his art as well. As a whole the novel is both incredibly uplifting and heartbreakingly sad. This book is not a 'fun read,' a fast book or a romance in any conventional sense, but will stay with you long after you've put it back on the shelf. Seth is truly a masterful writer and the way he crafts this story is incredibly intelligent and inspiring.
Rating:
Summary: Unequivocally Brilliant
Review: At one level, this is a book about the emotional and artistic travails of a failed musician. However, the protagonist's emotional turbulence comes across as a bit of a feeble and self-indulgent counterpoint to a latent but more powerful theme that the narrative explores - the agony of an accomplished musician who gradually loses her most treasured faculty - the sense of hearing.
The book also successfully captures the author's self-proclaimed love for music. The numerous adulatory passages on sundry pieces of music might be tedious for some but strike a chord with anyone who is passionate about music. Seth's portraiture of the classical music scene in London is as evocative as Victor Hugo's homage to Parisian Architecture in the Hunchback of Notre Dame.
One helluva Musical!!
Rating:
Summary: Overwhelming
Review: This is the story of Michael and Julia. He is violinist in a string quartet. She is a gifted pianist. At one level it is the story of their love - lost and re-discovered. There is however far more than that to Vikram Seth's brilliant novel. His characters are so well described that I began to feel their emotions. And it is the emotional intensity that makes this book so remarkable. I have rarely read anything as powerful. I felt a mixture of annoyance with and sympathy for both characters at different times.
This is set against a back-cloth of London, Vienna and Venice. But most of all there is the music. This is central to the novel. There is barely a page in which you cannot hear Schubert, Bach or Beethoven in the background. This is not a comfortable book. But it is unmissable nonetheless.
I recently read Seth's A Suitable Boy. These are probably the two best reads of 2004 - and amongst the best ever.
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