The Gustav Sonata

There are wonderful things in this novel, and like most of Rose Tremain's work, there's always a spiky underside to everything she writes. When it opens, the friendship between Gustav and Anton seems simple and sweet, but the story quickly takes on extra layers to include the story of Gustav's parents, of the Swiss during WW2, of saving desperate Jews or not, of ignoring the terrible whole thing lurking at the border.

The relationship between the Gustav and Anton morphs and changes, as does Gustav's with Anton's mother and Gustav's father's lover. Love or friendship? The right way or self-preservation? "The Gustav Sonata" is a good novel for discussion, and not an easy one to leave behind.

I have long been a fan of Rose Tremain's work and she does not disappoint with her latest novel, The Gustav Sonata. Using the format of a sonata's typical three movements, she evokes the passions and themes worthy of the best of Beethoven's sonatas, which play a supporting role in this novel. Through Gustav's story Tremain tackles his relationships with his widowed and depressed mother, with his small-town Swiss police official father who lost his job falsifying documents that enabled refugee Jews to say in the country during the Nazi years and who died before Gustav could know him, with his father's former lover, with the guests at his hotel, with the parents of his best and only friend Anton, and most centrally with Anton, a Jewish piano prodigy whose stage fright keeps him from fulfilling his potential. Gorgeously written and infused with subtleties, the book tackles such life essential issues as empathy, love, responsibility, temperament, narcissism, and so much more. Tremain's skill allows her to leave much unsaid, but it's all there, filled with issues we're tackling today on national and international scales as well as how we deal with issues on a personal level. Good music requires multiple listenings when one hears themes and notes missed previously, and so, too, will The Gustav Sonata draw me back in for more.

A lovely, sad wonderfully written book about friendship, madness and love that will stay with me for a long time.