The Gustav Sonata: A Novel

Gustav and Anton meet on the first day of kindergarten. It's 1948 in a small town in Switzerland and Gustav responds to Anton's fearful crying by playing with him and distracting him. Gustav's mother, a depressed widow who works in a cheese factory, is not thrilled about her young son's friendship

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with a boy from a wealthy Jewish family, but Anton and Gustav become best friends nonetheless. Not only are their stations in life vastly different but their apparent prospects are, too. Anton is a gifted pianist, a prodigy. All expectations are that he will become a famous concert pianist, a dream that Gustav struggles to support although it evokes a bewildering sense of betrayal and abandonment in him.

We follow the boys' relationship, but the narration also takes us back in time, to 1939 when Gustav's parents met, fell in love, and married, and had their happy life brutally disrupted by the specter of WWII and the fear of a German invasion. Gustav is told by his mother that his father was a hero in those early days of the war and that he sacrificed his life to save the Jews. Ah, but there is so much more to that story.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Tremain develops her flawed characters with compassion and a bit of cynicism. At times I felt the story veered too far into implausibility but it was compelling and satisfying nonetheless. Tremain continues to be an author worth the allocation of my precious reading time.

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I liked this very much. If every novelist, at some point in their career, needs to confront the Holocaust, then this was an original and sideways way to go about it. Broken people living broken lives and managing the best ways they can. Searching for love and occasionally finding it. No one here

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was particularly remarkable, but there was a surfeit of compassion and loyalty and a genuine emotional payoff.

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A beautifully written, albeit melancholy story about the friendship of two men who first met when they were young boys. Gustav and Anton first meet in kindergarten when Anton arrives crying pitifully. The teacher asks Gustav to take Anton under his care, which he does, offering the same advice his

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mother gives him and that is to "master himself."

This is the first book I have read set in Switzerland and when the backstory of Gustav's father is presented, during the war. Switzerland and its stance on neutrality will eventually turn away many Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. Gustav's father will pay heavily for an act his conscience forces him to commit and will cause his mother to have a lifelong hatred of Jews. Gustav and Anton both will spend much of their lives trying for the unattainable, Gustav, his Mother's love, Anton, a piano prodigy, his full musical potential. Yet, their friendship will be the saving grace for each of them.

An amazing book with strong emotion undercurrents though told in an undramatic fashion. Characters and a story that is impossible to forget. A book that points out the past is never past but we must learn to move forward regardless. Happiness is possible, hope is ever present.

ARC from Netgalley.

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Set in the fictional Swiss town of Matzlingen, The Gustav Sonata is a quiet story that traces the relationship between Gustav and his Jewish friend Anton from their childhood in post-WWII Switzerland to modern day. It’s a “small” novel in the very best way, reminiscent of Bruce Chatwin’s

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“On the Black Hill”, exploring the intimate workings of the characters and the who and why they are and how they came to be.

Both the characters missed out on the drama of the war though they must live through the consequences. Gustav is the focus of the story, though paradoxically (since he’s not Jewish) the most impacted by this. Gustav lives an ordinary life while Anton fights against the mundane existence in parochial Matzlingen, his artistic ambitions ultimately driving them apart. The novel is touching and well-handled, and no one is more delighted than the reader when in their middle years the two friends get their true happy ending.

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This is only the second Rose Tremain novel that I have read, and I find her writing very evocative and lacking in the self-indulgence that many successful novelists tend to develop. It tells a story that I found quite absorbing and compelling, but that in the end failed to deliver on the ending

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that I had anticipated; which of course may be as much my problem as the author’s. The setting is a fictional provincial Swiss town, and the story is told through various episodes ranging backwards and forwards in time from the 1930’s to the 1990’s. Two themes drive this account of the life of Gustav, the title character; the circumstances surrounding the early demise of his father – a former deputy police chief of the town - and his close friendship with Anton, the son of a Jewish family. Doesn’t that mix suggest a poignant mystery to be revealed? The period of the second world war, when Switzerland was – until it shut its doors - the only refuge for Jews escaping Hitler’s Europe, seems to be the crux around which both previous and subsequent events in the story revolve; but it turns out not to be.

The apparent authenticity of the descriptions of provincial Swiss life and of the Swiss mindset, that occur earlier in the novel, is soon sacrificed for the needs of the plot, of which many of the devices seem rather artificial or clichéd; like the discovery of a cash hoard that changes a person’s life, or a beautiful but inaccessible woman who - out of nowhere - seduces an admirer. But all would be forgiven if the plot delivered on its promise, of saying something important about the nature of neutrality; whether the actions – or lack of such – by a so-called neutral party can ever really favor neither side in a conflict. But, in the end, it turns out to be nothing more than a love story.

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Masterfully written story of two men who meet as boys in neutral post-war Switzerland, both misfits in their small town - one a musical prodigy in a well-heeled family and the other the only child of a psychologically damaging mother. They save each other but eventually grow apart, in part due to

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Gustav's mother's dislike of Jews. During the war Gustav's father helped Jewish refugees enter Switzerland and paid a heavy price, which in her damaged logic leads her to blame the victims. I don't want to give away the plot, but I can say the reading this plot thread on the day that Trump banned 'certain' refugees from entering the U.S. was very chilling.

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This book did not convince me at all. I think it is simplistic, cliché, predictable and I have some doubts about the historical correctness as well. As it happens I just read a novel that has some remarkable similarities to this one but is much more convincing in its psychology: School of

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Velocity, by Eric Beck Rubin.

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Rose Tremain on top form in this heartwarming story of Gustav and Anton. The story tracks their relationship from kindergarten to senior years and shows how the lives of two unlikely families - like chalk and cheese- come to be intertwined by WW11. A delight.

I read this book as a seasonal group read for one of my GR groups, though so far there isn’t any discussion in the thread. I suppose there could be a lot to discuss about this book.

2-1/2 stars. I thought I’d be rounding up but by the last chapter realized I wanted to round down. 2 not 3.

It’s

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too bad. I thought this would be my kind of book. The story and characters and themes are the kind that usually greatly appeal to me. Unfortunately, almost everything good I have to say I can also add something negative to say.

The book has a high average rating at GR but most of my GR friends have rated it lower than its average. I still thought I’d like it better than I did. I wouldn’t have read it otherwise. (I’m at a stage where I want to love or really like all my books, so 5 or 4 star books. Even liking, 3 stars, isn’t enough for me. 2 stars, just okay, to almost liking it in this case, was a disappointment.)

After part 1 it was nearly a 4 star book for me so I had hopes. After part 2 it was almost a 3, and I thought I’d be giving it a 3. Toward and at the very end it dropped into 2 territory again.

I did enjoy the writing style and I’m willing to try other books by this author, as long as the subject matter appeals to me.

This was too much of a soap opera for my tastes. I found much of the story bizarre and the characters exasperating.

I did feel as though the times and places were captured well and that while it wasn’t quite serious enough historical fiction for me, what was there did give me some pleasure.

I’m surprised that I had such a hard time fully understanding and feeling empathy for the characters, and by the end that pertained to virtually all of them. I think the symbolism it aimed for was more than it deserves, and it was trying to be deeper than it ever got, and the whole thing ended up feeling unbelievable to me. That’s rare for me when I read books; I’m usually just not that critical and almost always find depth, sometimes more than most see, and I almost always feel sympathy for characters when some other reviewers are critical. In fact, I often cringe when other readers are critical of characters, as I typically can rush to their defense. Not here, not enough anyway.

In a way the characters all make sense because of their backgrounds, but not really. The whole trying to show how people can be impacted by their difficult backgrounds and pass on their traumas to future generations should have resonated with me, but the characters felt like caricatures to me. Nobody changes or gets past their backgrounds in even the teeniest ways?! Really?! The central friendship, when the pair were adults at least, also didn’t ring true for me. Every time I liked someone for some reason, they then said something/behaved in some way that had me liking them less or not at all. I felt annoyed and perplexed by these people.

Because I found myself in the critical camp, an unusual place for me to be, I found the reading experience to be somewhat depressing.

So even though the writing is good and I got a good feel for places/times, and the author attempts to show why the people are as they are, it was almost impossible for me to like any of them, at least the adults.

Good issues story for reading about performance anxiety/stage fright, postpartum depression, childhoods deprived of love, poverty, loyalty and betrayal in relationships, and exploring the feelings of rage, depression, jealousy, and regret.

I did enjoy the parts about and what was said about the game of gin rummy. That was fun, and I think true too.

I did remain interested enough to want to read to the end. What I think was meant to emotionally move me did not.

Off to read some other reviews over the next days to see what I might have missed.

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Well written book showing the disgrace of neutrality. Characters very well developed.

Tremain chose to set her latest novel in Switzerland, exploring the complicity that enabled the country to remain neutral during World War Two. There is plenty of music in this book, which is a novel in sonata form. Against this backdrop she has constructed a touching story of friendship and

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love.

The first section explores the childhood of Gustav from 1947 to 1952. He is the child of a widowed mother Emilie, and lives a somewhat impoverished existence which is contrasted with that of his best friend Anton, a musical prodigy whose father is a rich Jewish banker. Emilie is cold towards Gustav and does not trust Anton's family.

In the second part we move back to 1937, where Emilie marries Erich, who has an important position in the local police. When the Bern government passes an edict forbidding the acceptance of Jews after a certain date, he agrees to falsify the entry dates for some Jewish refugees, and loses his job when this is uncovered. (view spoiler)

The third part covers a longer time-span from 1992 to 2002. Erich has become the proprietor of a small but successful hotel, which fails to impress his mother, while Anton is working as a music teacher. His piano playing is discovered by the owner of a classical record label who invites him to Geneva to record Beethoven's sonatas. The rest of the book explores the disruption this causes to Gustav's well-ordered life.

This edition comes with an author's afterword, which explains how it evolved from a short story which was just a small part of the final section. The story of the police official was taken from a real life story. It also explains how she wanted the book to be enjoyed on a number of different levels.

On the whole I found this a rewarding read full of quiet pleasures.

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Kind of predictable. Not great but OK for night 'reading'.

Great story telling - Switzerland during the war - difficult relationships with parents - Gustav and Anton finally together in their sixties.

A very melancholic story. It reminds me of something I read or heard a while ago...that one of the most difficult things to do is to be a good person living an ordinary life (is there such a thing as an ordinary life??). The novel's titular character's answer is to "master one's self". It's very

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quiet, but very intense.

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This book takes the form of a sonata in a 3-parts. I found Part 1 touching and fluidly written. In it, the author introduces the main character, Gustav, and his friend Anton. They come from very different family backgrounds, but become good friends. Gustav copes with his mother’s bitterness,

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trying his best to please her. Anton is a child prodigy from a secure home, but cannot seem to tame his nerves for his piano recitals. Part 2 goes back in time to cover the meeting of Gustav’s parents, and attempts to describe why Gustav’s mother developed such an angry attitude. I found this part less satisfying, partially due to the author switching to present tense to cover a past time and partly due to what I felt were inconsistent actions. In Part 3, we fast-forward to Gustav and Anton from age forty to sixty. For me, this was the least satisfying part due to the huge number of missing years. Also, much of the rationale for the characters’ actions was laid between the lines. If you like stories about relationships, you may enjoy this book. From my perspective, it lacked action, and the primary character was a bit dull. I added a star for the author's fluid writing style, which I enjoyed.

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