As I walked into the kitchen, Petroc Trelawney, my favourite Radio 3 presenter was talking about a book called An Equal Music, by Vikram Seth. However, he didn’t say Seth as I had been pronouncing it i.e. the Biblical Hebrew way. Instead he said Sate, as I said, rhyming with plate. In India this is how it would be said. Maybe in Hindi?
I was immediately interested in this book and went online to investigate. There it was. Should I buy new or second hand? And then before I pressed the button, something made me go and look on my book shelves. There was Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy and lo and behold beside it : An Equal Music. I had no memory of buying or reading it but it then consumed me for the next few days.
I had loved A Suitable Boy, all 1,500 pages of it concerned with life, class, religion and middle class aspirations in an Indian family. An Equal Music is a London based love story, also visiting Vienna and Venice, and it is set within the framework of a string quartet. Presumably this is why it was being talked about on Radio 3. I loved it. There is plenty of loss in this story, some of it quite heart rending. The loss of love, very nearly the loss of a beloved violin and the loss of motivation to move on with life. I enjoyed the workings of a professional string quartet, the need to be super conscious of each other in order to achieve the best possible performance. This is a beautifully written book. Maybe it would work for you.