An Equal Music (Vikram Seth)- Where Music is the First Love

 An Equal Music was highly recommended by a friend and found its way in to my reading list. I was pleasantly surprised to discover its settings and the storyline - written by an Indian origin author, I expected it to be another NRI story of characters struggling between two cultures. But this one is an out and out a story about a struggling English musician and the love he finds, loses, finds and loses yet again

The story is set in the lives of people who love music, play music and are interested in little beyond music. The present tense in which the 483 pages are written, is lyrical to the eyes. There are no chapters, no headings, no separation. Just numbers that take you from one part of the book to the other and give you a small hint about another thought that you will soon be privy too, thoughts that Michael abstractedly shares with you. It is when Julia comes back to his life that you start piecing things together... but only just so. I particularly like the depth of the descriptions and the entirely random details that Michael treats us to - the design of the carpet when he meets Julia again and is trying to gather his thoughts after all these years, for example.

The story progresses at a languid pace - there is no hurry to get anywhere and for anything to be accomplished. No plot that needs to be set and play out, no hurry to tie loose ends together, no climax to be built, no secrets to be revealed at the end. Just the lives of musicians making music and a man and a woman caught in the vortex of forbidden love.

The references to music and technical terms are many and for a novice like me, confusing. Is there something i have missed because i don't understand the terms used, the description of the pieces, the complexity of the music described? Never mind, it sounded good, no matter it is Greek to me. It made all the characters come alive and their struggles real. Michael has a complex relationship not just with Julia but also the other love of his life - his violin. Both belong to him in a sense, and yet he doesn't have a claim on either. He shares an intimate, tender, physical relationship with both, yet he knows he has to give them up, when the time comes. Will he be with atleast allowed to stay with one or will both be taken away from him? He will be able to handle the loss of one maybe, but what of the other?

If you enjoy long descriptions, beautiful language, poetry, musings of a lover and a story that does not need to evolve page to page, pick this one up.