Rose Tremain—wow! This is the first time I’m reading her, but it won’t be the last. I can’t remember who recommended this novel to me, but it was buried in my list on The StoryGraph, and while I was searching Hoopla for my next audiobook and coming up short (it seemed all of the books I wanted were either missing or on long hold times), I finally came across this one. The first third of The Gustav Sonata tells a rich but quiet story about a boy named Gustav growing up in post-war Switzerland with his mother in reduced circumstances after the death of his father. The novel appears to be about a lifelong friendship because the first section focuses on Gustav, who is Christian, and a Jewish boy named Anton, whom Gustav befriends in kindergarten. We’re told they know each other as adults, so I was expecting the story to move forward from the 1950s. Even though there wasn’t really any mystery and the tensions were subtle, I was tucked in to enjoy that tale. But a sonata consists of—as Merriam-Webster has it—“three or four movements in contrasting forms and keys”—so the title of this novel should have given me a clue that I wasn’t reading a straightforward narrative. A third of the way through, The Gustav Sonata instead took a turn back. As it begins to fill in the back story merely alluded to in the first part, new questions and conflicts arise that can’t quite be reconciled. Now Tremain, whose craft had already completely won my attention, has me locked in. I can’t wait to read more.
What are you reading this week? Let us know in the comment section below!
I'm reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking.
This week I am reading To 2040 by Jorie Graham. I liked her poem Death, which appeared last month in The New Yorker. That poem isn't in this collection, but it is representative of many in terms of style and content as the collection grapples with death, cancer, and climate change. My favorite poems are Are We and In Reality.