A boy's laugh

Exactness and a near mathematical precision are but two of the qualities which set the fiction of Indian novelist Vikram Seth…

Exactness and a near mathematical precision are but two of the qualities which set the fiction of Indian novelist Vikram Seth well beyond that of many of his peers. His fictional worlds contain both order and chaos; nothing overly unique in that. It is, however, his skill in handling each extreme which gives his multi-layered work an unusual density and texture. In person, he is gracious and relaxed. The four seasons tear through a typical Irish April morning the day he visits Dublin. Seth is duly impressed by the climatic shifts the city is offering, but before the interview finally begins there is the small matter of his having cut his face shaving. He arrives downstairs in the hotel and apologises for the delay. Posing good-naturedly for the photographer, he stares, blinded by some unexpected sunlight, before collapsing into laughter. Confident and genuinely charming, he has a boy's laugh, a big smile, is very short and has beautifully instinctive good manners. Few novelists have managed to beguile both critics and readers as has Seth.

With An Equal Music, though, he has stepped somewhat away from his habit of creating likable characters. "This is true. I like to like my characters, but this time . . . " he shrugs.

Michael Holme, the narrator and central character, is a man caught between class and culture, a north-of-England lad who has, with luck in the shape of a kindly patron, entered the world of classical music. "His route is unusual," agrees Seth - "he moves from Rochdale to Manchester, to Vienna, to London." Once in London, Holme lives in a small, eyrie-like flat, high above the streets, where he obsesses about music and his lost love. "He is an odd character in that he is too selfish to be truly likable and not strong enough to be an anti-hero." The secret of Holme's and Seth's success is that the far-from-perfect narrator is very human. The authentic matters to Seth. "I think there is no point to a book if the reader is going to say `but this isn't real'." In gentle defence of Holme, Seth remarks: "Two nice people love him - Virginie and Julia."

While the central characters are involved in a classic, somewhat tragic romance thwarted by the old reliables of poor timing, the burden of responsibility and lost opportunity, the novel's real love story concerns the turbulent relationship the central character and his colleagues have with music. For all the grace and ease of Seth's engaging fictional voice, technique is an important feature.

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One of a family with two boys and a girl, Seth was born in Calcutta in 1952. He mentions his mother was a lawyer and later a judge, while his father worked as an administrator for the Bantus Shoe Company. "My parents were not rich, although I have read many times that they were. We were comfortable and they spent a lot on the education of my brother and myself, though not my sister. But I would not have gone to university in Oxford but for having won a scholarship." Regarded as brilliant, and an interesting example of a genuinely clever writer who also manages to be human, Seth announces he attended very few lectures and spent much of his time reading. He says he was never particularly academic but "I have an academic interest in many things".

In response to a comment about the accuracy with which he steers Holme through the various layers of English social class and his own awareness of the nuances, Seth, himself a product of an extremely class-dominated society, says: "In England I can speak to the queen as easily as I would a taxi driver. That's because I am an outsider. At home in India, it would be much more difficult. It would probably be easier for Michael in India." How aware is he of being an Indian writer? "I don't feel I belong to a particular tradition. I am very aware of being Indian, but not so much of being an Indian writer."

Music has always been a passion. "I was trained as a classical Indian musician and I sing Schubert leider." The love story, with its highs and lows, certainly engages, even if Seth leaves the reader feeling not so much sorry for Holme as struck by his frustration and helplessness, which is brilliantly conveyed. But the test of this book is the technical accuracy and emotion Seth brings to the many descriptions of music. "I love Schubert above all: if I had to name my favourite composers they would be Bach, Mozart and Schubert; there is no preachiness, it is driven by the melodic line. There is great naivity as well as sophistication and complexity."

He speaks of the "mercurial, wonderfully intimate" Schubert's rare ability to move from C Major to C Minor in three flats. Praising the composer's emotional range, he describes The Trout as "the embodiment of joy" and he refers to a song which achieves, he says sadly, "the distillation of sorrow".

Just as in the novel, Seth consistently evokes the tension and beauty of music and the struggle for musicians to deal with the emotional and technical demands made in the pursuit of perfection: his observations about music are technically astute as well as enthusiastic. Aware he has done a major public relations job for the viola, an instrument frequently dismissed as a second-class violin, he smiles happily, praises its tone and comments, "its voice is often too big for it". But, ever practical, Seth is equally aware of the realities of the life of the professional musician. Not every musician is a globe trotting virtuoso. Holme is obviously a talented violinist but he merely scrapes an income together. Seth comments on the genuine hardship of a life devoted to music. Was he worried about the risk of featuring Julia, a deaf pianist, as heroine? Acknowledging the obvious echoes of Beethoven, Seth refers to the several world-class musicians who are deaf.

At every twist the revived romance of Julia and Holme is caught by reality. But where did the novel come from?

Agreeing it took him some time to recover from what he saw as "the unexpected success" of A Suitable Boy, Seth recalls "the publicity went on for a year" adding that this new novel had an interestingly enigmatic beginning. "I was walking by the Serpentine," where he swims regularly, as does Holme, "and I imagined in my mind's eye a man standing by the river wearing dark clothes. It was a suitably murky day and I said to my friend, Philippe" - a musician to whom the book is dedicated - "that this character would be in my next book, but that I didn't know what he did." Philippe suggested the imagined stranger be a musician, an idea Seth at first rejected.

Detail has always been vital for Seth; his fiction is vividly, physically described. "I remember people complaining there was too much about work in A Suitable Boy, but I said to them, `this is what life is about, work and love'." Surprised and then amused at the idea of readers not really liking Holme, but fully understanding his exasperations, Seth decides: "I suppose what I want is for people to believe in him as a real person."