All that lies beneath
Rose Tremain conceals vital information from the reader, which doesn’t sit all that well with David Herkt.
Best-selling writer Rose Tremain’s latest novel eventually leads a reader to recall Sherlock Holmes, and the curious incident of the dog in the night-time – where the important fact was that the dog did absolutely nothing in the night.
The Gustav Sonata is a novel where a virtual absence eventually becomes critical to the characterisation.
Tremain (Restoration, The American Lover) sets her book in Switzerland in the mid to late 20th century.
Gustav Perle is a fatherless child growing up with an adored but distant and embittered mother, the widow of a dead police officer whose ethical choice led to a downturn in the family fortunes.
They are poor but Gustav’s best friend is Anton Zwiebel, the son of a Jewish bank manager.
Gustav takes care of a sobbing Anton on his first day of school in 1948 and thus begins a relationship which will play out over a lifetime.
Tremain deftly negotiates Gustav’s childhood and his friendship with the precociously talented Anton, who wants to become a concert pianist but is crippled by a paralysing stage fright.
Gustav quickly discovers the anti-Semitism of his mother, who permits the friendship but will not speak to Anton.
This is a Switzerland without the tourist gloss. The tensions and prejudices that remain from its World War II neutrality, in the midst of warring nations and the Holocaust, are only too close at hand.
Tremain skilfully backgrounds her characters and a society where conformity is more of an admirable attribute than truthtelling, and where cuckoo clocks and pristine Alps scenery conceal unpleasant motives.
Part Two of The Gustav Sonata takes place from 1938 to 1942, and provides the background by which Tremain’s readers can begin to judge the events of Part One.
It is a neat sleight of hand in a thus far convincing story. Characters and actions are suddenly explained. The historic and social currents are seen more clearly. Swiss secrets are exposed.
However, it is in Part Three that Tremain performs her most audacious move. It is now the 1990s. Gustav operates a boutique hotel. Anton teaches music, but does not perform. Neither are married.
Suddenly, Anton is offered a recording contract by a mysterious impresario.
The reader’s reception of the subsequent events will depend on his or her willingness to accept the fact that Tremain has not been entirely frank with her readers, and the mysteries of desire are somehow beyond explication.
Human life is filled with midlife reversals, but The Gustav Sonata straddles such a narrow line between storytelling and deliberate concealment that a reader is entitled to some small feeling of manipulation.