An Equal Music

By Vikram Seth

Categories: Literature & Fiction

An Equal Music (1999) is Vikram Seth's novel about Michael Holme, the second violinist in a London string quartet. He has never gotten over Julia, a pianist he loved and left in Vienna ten years earlier. When he sees her again, she is married with a young son, and their renewed affair plays out through rehearsals and concerts in London, Vienna and Venice. Music, especially Bach and Beethoven, runs through the book.

Recommended by 1 person

• Fareed Zakaria: “And Vikram Seth, whose most astonishing work is a novel in verse, “The Golden Gate,” written in iambic tetrameter and modeled on Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin.” As you read it, you are charmed by the story while still aware and in awe of Seth’s talent.”