Please talk to me about An Equal Music

[tillyfernackerpants]

I have a confession, its my book club tonight & I haven't read the book

So if you've read An Equal Music by Vikram Seth, please talk to me about it. What it's about, whether you liked it or not etc!

tia

ugh didn't like it but then am musician. didn't read until end as it was so stupefying.

that said i haven't enjoyed any of his books so i'll shut up now.

thanks warthog.

anyone else?

fraid I hated it too found it really dull. In opposition to bis other book I read.

I really liked it but sadly read it years ago so have no recollection why! I loved the golden gate even more (same author, right?) but have utterly failed with a suitable boy.

i didn't like it at all but interestingly warthog I thought I found it dull because I am not a musician...my 2 friends loved it and they are both musicians...wierd!

ah, the thing is, as a musician you should have appreciated the whole point of the book, which was, er, that it's a jolly clever thing - the writing style/ form echoes that of the writing style of a fugue. apparently a fugue has a particularly distinctive form, which the text echoes. (no idea if i'm making sense)

so essentially - each bit of the book is written the way it is because that way the book itself is a fugue in written form.

i had no idea about this until our book club did it. none of us liked it very much, excpet the music teacher/ composer, who was able to explain rpoperly (unlike me) why it was so clever.

so, i have a new found admiration for the book, and fully intend to read it again once i work out what characterisitics make a piece of work a fugue.

i think it's the 'question and answer' thing. so mathematically each note/ bar (whatever they are called) has a response, which is somehow mathematically the 'proper' response to the 'question' note/ bar.

does anyone know what i'm on about? it all sounded very plausible after a bottle glass of vino...

ultimately, i think vikram seth is a bit up himself, but usually i like that in an author. so i liked the book a whole lot more when i realised there was a whole subtext which i had totally missed.

oh I love Vikram Seth, esp A Suitable Boy and an Equal Music. But had no idea about the structure madwoman talks about - that went completely over my head!

I'm a musician as well, and have a lot to do with string quartets, and I hated it.

To me it's written in the reverential way that non-musicians think musicans must be. Actually musicians are possibly the most down-to-earth arts types, and not prone to getting all arty farty angsty in the manner of the ones in this book.