Book #19: An Equal Music

Title: An Equal Music


Author: Vikram Seth


When you're feeling premenstrual and slightly depressed, reading a seriously depressing book can have at least two effects: you can either identify with the characters and feel even more morose, or you can realize that your life isn't nearly as terrible as the characters' and snap out of the blues.


I experienced both feelings while reading An Equal Music. I had read Vikram Seth's A Suitable Boy shortly after I found out I was pregnant with Annie. I loved that book, had seriously intense cravings for Indian food while reading it, and look back at that time of my life very, very fondly. It's one of the few times when I can associate a single book I was reading with a happy period of my life. I think I picked up An Equal Music subconsciously hoping for similar happy emotions. Once again, Seth's writing didn't disappoint, unfortunately, my body did.


It should have been obvious just from reading the book jacket that this was not going to be a happy book. It's the story of Michael, the second-violinist in a prestigious London string quartet. Ten years prior to the book's opening he had been training in Vienna and fell hard for a fellow musician. After a happy, intense love affair, he experienced a career setback and fled, spending the next ten years pining for Julia. When they see each other on passing buses, they are reunited. But it's more complicated when they're in their thirties and have other obligations.


Knowing Vikram Seth's other works, I knew he was an author with too much integrity to put a Hollywood ending on the book. And he definitely doesn't. Which means that the reader aches with Michael and Julia as they try to figure out how they can be true to their love for each other and be true to the other commitments they have made. It made my life, by contrast, seem blissfully uncomplicated.


I know, this doesn't seem like an enthusiastic recommendation, but I learned so much about reading the book. I think I've mentioned before my initial disgust with the state of public radio in our city (a huge metropolis with only 5 hours of NPR programming a day). But in the last year I've started to enjoy classical music. It doesn't take the place of Diane Rheem or Talk of the Nation, but it does give us a change of pace from Laurie Berkner in the car or the kitchen while I make dinner. My five year old came home from school the other day and asked me to download The Magic Flute from iTunes. So, maybe my thirties will be the decade when I'll learn to appeciate music other than 80s rock and alternative (there are only so many times you can listen to "Love Shack").  An Equal Music, in addition to an engrossing (if sad) story, also provides a great education into the life of a classical musician.


--originally published 3/31/06