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A review by tabularasablog
An Equal Music by Vikram Seth
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.