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ryandjacobs's review against another edition
4.0
I read this book more than a decade ago, but it has stuck with me all this time. A powerful, moving, engaging story.
kajsaschubeler's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
tbr_the_unconquered's review against another edition
2.0
I would like you to imagine a beautifully carved vessel. By a vessel, I do not mean the seafaring kind but one that can hold something in it. Your vessel is an object of craftsmanship. When you glance at it, you see the evidence of all that is great about hand carved elegance. Walking around the vessel you come across the world's finest carvings built into it. Examples abound ranging from Victorian to Chinese, Indian to Italian. You can't take your eyes off it but still something nags at the back of your mind about this whole object. You keep looking but it is flawless at first look. Then you look at the most important part of the vessel : inside. What has been troubling you all this while hits you then for the vessel doesn't have a bottom. It is just a shell and serves no other purpose ! This is the closest I can approximate to how this book made me feel.
It talks of a love story between Michael and Julia, both of them musicians whose affair begins in Vienna. The story then goes through the pangs of love and loss and how broken hearts are mended. The descriptions of London, Venice and Vienna are breathtaking and quite brilliantly etched. But when it comes to storytelling, this book fails big time. Within the first half of the book, I quite realised that this tale will be a waste of time. After a point, whenever the narrative of the tale came up I felt like I was reading someone's grocery list ! The love story lacks life, coherence and a soul. It is a damp squib.
Read it if you want a poetic description of a few major cities of Europe. Beyond it, it's just lifeless words in here. To sum up, it wouldn't hurt much to give this one a miss.
It talks of a love story between Michael and Julia, both of them musicians whose affair begins in Vienna. The story then goes through the pangs of love and loss and how broken hearts are mended. The descriptions of London, Venice and Vienna are breathtaking and quite brilliantly etched. But when it comes to storytelling, this book fails big time. Within the first half of the book, I quite realised that this tale will be a waste of time. After a point, whenever the narrative of the tale came up I felt like I was reading someone's grocery list ! The love story lacks life, coherence and a soul. It is a damp squib.
Read it if you want a poetic description of a few major cities of Europe. Beyond it, it's just lifeless words in here. To sum up, it wouldn't hurt much to give this one a miss.
jangleresse's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
marystevens's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful evocation of the joys of classical music, but I didn't like the hero. Too sensitive. The voice of the narrator (the hero) changes as he goes through his experiences. That was well done.
varshav's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
tabularasablog's review
2.0
This book promised SO much and delivered so little.
The ending was perfect. It made me gasp and then simultaneously smile and almost sob a little. It was simple, heartrending and beautiful - everything that the rest of the book tried to but couldn't be.
The love story, if it could even be called that, was so shallow. We never really did find out what it was that made Michael fall so deeply in love with Julia, we were never shown how they once were together, what made them "fit" together; we were told about their parting in little more than a page, we saw all the mental, emotional anguish, but never really found out just what caused it and worst of all, we were never quite shown Julia's perspective. Whatever we were given was so repetitive, that it seemed to me like an easy way out of writing a more complex story! So much drama with so few justifications! There have been greater stories of affairs, which deal with the emotions involved, which are a lot more intense and reasoned - in fact, I've read three in only the past few months.
The music was all that was good about this book. I kept thinking, the author wanted to write a book about musicians, their passionate love of music and art and just added the love story, because he needed a plot! If it had just been about the quartet, I would have liked this book a lot more than I did. Of course, if the rest of the book were as sensibly beautiful as the ending, I would have certainly truly loved it.
P.S. The two stars are because I thought the book was okay! I would have given it three stars on Amazon, because there that is 'okay'. This whole star-rating-business is kind of silly.
The ending was perfect. It made me gasp and then simultaneously smile and almost sob a little. It was simple, heartrending and beautiful - everything that the rest of the book tried to but couldn't be.
The love story, if it could even be called that, was so shallow. We never really did find out what it was that made Michael fall so deeply in love with Julia, we were never shown how they once were together, what made them "fit" together; we were told about their parting in little more than a page, we saw all the mental, emotional anguish, but never really found out just what caused it and worst of all, we were never quite shown Julia's perspective. Whatever we were given was so repetitive, that it seemed to me like an easy way out of writing a more complex story! So much drama with so few justifications! There have been greater stories of affairs, which deal with the emotions involved, which are a lot more intense and reasoned - in fact, I've read three in only the past few months.
The music was all that was good about this book. I kept thinking, the author wanted to write a book about musicians, their passionate love of music and art and just added the love story, because he needed a plot! If it had just been about the quartet, I would have liked this book a lot more than I did. Of course, if the rest of the book were as sensibly beautiful as the ending, I would have certainly truly loved it.
P.S. The two stars are because I thought the book was okay! I would have given it three stars on Amazon, because there that is 'okay'. This whole star-rating-business is kind of silly.
adunten's review against another edition
5.0
Me describing this book to my boss: "It's set in London! With excursions to Vienna and Venice! It's about a violinist and a pianist and a string quartet and has tons of music in it! It's about a long-lost and suddenly rediscovered love! And a devastating secret!"
I finally did it. I re-read my official favorite book, a book that has been gathering dust on my shelf for a good decade – first because I was afraid to re-read it for fear I might not love it as much the second time around (the same way I felt about my favorite movie, A Tale of Two Cities, for quite a long time as well), and later because reading print books had become difficult for me due to chronic eyestrain problems. I searched in vain for an audio narration, which doesn't seem to exist. I recently gave up on the idea of finding an audio narration, put on my reading glasses, and started in.
I'm happy to report it's still a delightful book, even though I'm much more aware now that our narrator-protagonist, Michael Holme, is sort of a selfish jerk. You might remember, in [b:A Tale of Two Cities|1953|A Tale of Two Cities|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344922523l/1953._SY75_.jpg|2956372], how our hero Sydney Carton (my all-time favorite literary hero) does that incredibly noble and unselfish thing so that the woman he loves can be happy and secure with another man. Yeah, Michael Holme is not that guy. He's kind of the opposite of that. And he does some typical dudebro things that make me want to smack him around. But as with Amir, the deeply flawed protagonist of [b:The Kite Runner|77203|The Kite Runner|Khaled Hosseini|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579036753l/77203._SY75_.jpg|3295919], you don't have to endorse all of his decisions, or even remotely respect them, for it to be an incredible book.
An Equal Music is a deeply sensual story, and I don't mean that in a smutty way, but rather in the sense that it is rich with descriptions of light, color, sound, and most noticeably to me, the flowers that are blooming in any given scene. It is lush. And it has a lovely sort of symmetry throughout that unfurls like a sonata. It's curious that ten years after first reading it, I remember so much of the story so vividly, but had completely forgotten how it ends, so reaching the end was really like reading it for the first time all over again.
I honestly don't know what else to say about it because it's hard for me to explain why I love it so much. I just wish you would read it, and if you hate it, for heaven's sake keep quiet about it.
I finally did it. I re-read my official favorite book, a book that has been gathering dust on my shelf for a good decade – first because I was afraid to re-read it for fear I might not love it as much the second time around (the same way I felt about my favorite movie, A Tale of Two Cities, for quite a long time as well), and later because reading print books had become difficult for me due to chronic eyestrain problems. I searched in vain for an audio narration, which doesn't seem to exist. I recently gave up on the idea of finding an audio narration, put on my reading glasses, and started in.
I'm happy to report it's still a delightful book, even though I'm much more aware now that our narrator-protagonist, Michael Holme, is sort of a selfish jerk. You might remember, in [b:A Tale of Two Cities|1953|A Tale of Two Cities|Charles Dickens|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1344922523l/1953._SY75_.jpg|2956372], how our hero Sydney Carton (my all-time favorite literary hero) does that incredibly noble and unselfish thing so that the woman he loves can be happy and secure with another man. Yeah, Michael Holme is not that guy. He's kind of the opposite of that. And he does some typical dudebro things that make me want to smack him around. But as with Amir, the deeply flawed protagonist of [b:The Kite Runner|77203|The Kite Runner|Khaled Hosseini|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1579036753l/77203._SY75_.jpg|3295919], you don't have to endorse all of his decisions, or even remotely respect them, for it to be an incredible book.
An Equal Music is a deeply sensual story, and I don't mean that in a smutty way, but rather in the sense that it is rich with descriptions of light, color, sound, and most noticeably to me, the flowers that are blooming in any given scene. It is lush. And it has a lovely sort of symmetry throughout that unfurls like a sonata. It's curious that ten years after first reading it, I remember so much of the story so vividly, but had completely forgotten how it ends, so reaching the end was really like reading it for the first time all over again.
I honestly don't know what else to say about it because it's hard for me to explain why I love it so much. I just wish you would read it, and if you hate it, for heaven's sake keep quiet about it.
libmeh's review against another edition
5.0
An Equal Music one of those rare books I read many years ago and it still makes me want to weep when I think of it. It is so sad, painful and engrossing, and beautifully written, completely different than Seth's better known, mammoth A Suitable Boy. I rather wish I weren't thinking about it right now. I'm not surprised at all to learn from Wikipedia that Seth especially likes to sing Schubert Lieder.