Readers Write In #856: Reflections on An Equal Music by Vikram Seth

By WiseAss Fool

After reading a couple of bleak non-fiction about the world we inhabit, I decided to read only fiction until the end of the year. I picked up An Equal Music by Vikram Seth and Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I will try to write another RWI for Everything Is Illuminated, but below is my read/review on An Equal Music.

Trunk – Michael and Julia

The main trunk of the narrative is Michael Holme’s relationship with his ex-lover Julia McNicholl, or the lack thereof and his attempts to rekindle this once burning flame of love. We are dropped cold in London and begin to see everything through his lens. We slowly learn that he is currently a second violinist with a quartet called Maggiore, he has a girlfriend who he does not really care for and is at least 10 years too young for him, about 10 years ago a suffocating Whiplash-esque (think J.K. Simmons) teacher caused a nervous breakdown making him abruptly flee Vienna, thus also abandoning his then lover Julia. Michael clearly has not moved on, and he harbors a visceral hatred (or cold indifference) for his teacher, and by extension anything related to Vienna where he went to Musikschule along with Julia. After 10 years of leaving Vienna, he begins to realize that he longs for one thing and one thing only in his life. Getting back with Julia. Michael leaves no stone unturned trying to get back in touch with Julia, but he soon learns that she has since left Austria and the trail runs cold.

After several short chapters where Michael roams the Hyde Park brooding by himself, and chewing on his lost love for Julia, the story takes off when he actually encounters Julia in London. To his surprise, he was told by Julia that she has not moved on from their relationship either. But, the kicker is that she is married, with a kid and an even bigger kicker is that she is slowly becoming deaf because of an auto-immune disease. The rest of the story deals with Michael’s affair with Julia, his subsequent return to Vienna with Julia as lovers and also as members of a quartet turned chance quintet. Michael faces Vienna and performs successfully (though with a healthy dose of not-so-healthy nervous breakdown) in front of a packed arena, and he also gets to perform with Julia which is a cherry on the cake. Michael, at this point, truly thinks, even though Julia is not rightfully or morally or legally his, their relationship is very unique because they truly understand each other both emotionally and musically. Did Michael succeed in fine-tuning his relationship with Julia figuratively, eliminating all dissonances?

Branch – Michael and Tononi

There are many branches that stem from this trunk of a narrative, and all these branches have our troubled, lovelorn Michael at the epicenter. For example: his relationship with Miss Formby who is vital in instilling the love for music during his childhood, his emotional baggage from his estranged liaison with his music teacher at Vienna’s Musikschule, his relationship with his colleagues from the musical quartet that he is a part of, his passive relationship with his new girlfriend, his relationship with his dead mother, his dad, his dad’s cat Zsa Zsa, his apartment super, etc. We see the first few chapters where Michael navigates all this by trying to fine tune these relationships figuratively, but there is one other relationship that runs parallel to his affair with Michael which needs to be fine tuned literally. This is his relationship with his prized Tononi violin that was lent to him graciously by Mrs. Formby. Michael, despite all his flaws, when he is with his Tononi, truly shines as a musician.

This Tononi has been with Michael all over the world, has seen the insides of countless venues and has filled them with its beautiful music played by its not the rightful, moral, or legal owner, Michael. Although, one could argue that morally, Michael is the owner of the Tononi. Just like his relationship with Julia, Michael in his heart of hearts believes that this violin is an extension of himself, and can be played to its fullest potential only by him and no one else. The cause for anxiety on Michael’s part in this relationship is because Mrs. Formby’s nephew wants the Tononi to be bequeathed to him, so he can sell it to pay for his daughters’ college education. Michael’s bond with Tononi is so deep that he feels a stranger could never truly understand the intricacies of this 200+ year old instrument, nor properly play it. The remainder of this branch of the story explores whether Michael gets to keep the Tononi.

Notes on Style

Vikram Seth brilliantly captures the mind of a brooding, anti-social man, but infuses him with just enough charm and redeeming qualities (musicianship, rare acts of generosity with his quartet mates), so we keep rooting for him, even when he enters into an affair with a married woman. The prose is very accessible when there is an extra character in the page with Michael, engaging him with dialogue but it can also get very musical, poetic and abstract when we enter the mind of this suffering artist archetype. When Michael takes a trip to his hometown called Rochdale in Northern England, I felt strangely nostalgic for a place that I have never visited in my life. This is a true testament to the evocative and emotional style of Seth’s.

I have not even mentioned how beautifully this story is set in the milieu of classical instrumentalists who passionately play classical compositions that have been composed well over 200 years. I consider myself a music fan, but I’m a complete newbie to classical music. I have made a list of all the classical composers, and their pieces that were namedropped throughout this beautiful book, and I’m planning to actively (listening and only listening) listen to them. There is this one musical composition that Michael goes looking for. It is Beethoven’s String Trio in C Minor, op. 1, no. 3. This is a piece that he had performed with Julia when they were students in Vienna. Before meeting Julia after their estrangement since his flee from Vienna, Michael discovers that Beethoven has also composed the same piece but for a quintet. Michael, to make up for the fact that Julia is no longer in his life, tries to at least get hold of the performance of this composition as a quintet. I also found it on YouTube, and gave it a listen, and it is a very moving piece.

Another beautiful composition that I would like to share is The Lark Ascending composed by Vaughan Williams. Below is a solo performance of this composition by Hilary Hahn.

Final Notes

Michael does not get the girl at the end. After discovering a loving message Julia sent to her husband from Vienna, Michael lets his jealousy get the better of him leading to a bitter separation. However, he is left with his Tononi after Mrs. Formby’s demise. A bittersweet ending where Michael may have lost Julia, but in a sense, he has finally “tuned” his life, finding peace in his relationship with music alone. Just as a violin must be tuned to avoid dissonance, Michael spends the novel trying and often failing, to tune himself to the people around him. In the end, he finds harmony only with his Tononi, suggesting that perhaps music is the love of his life.