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Sunday, July 1, 2018

Review of THE GUSTAV SONATA by Rose Tremain

4 Stars
This book has been on my to-read pile for quite a while.  It came to my attention because it kept appearing on the lists of well-known literary prizes and it also appealed because of its setting.  Other than Heidi, one of my favourite childhood books, I’ve read few books set in Switzerland.  I’m pleased that I finally got around to reading it. 

Like a sonata, the story is told in three movements.  The first part, set in the late 1940s, focuses on the childhood of Gustav Perle.  He lives an impoverished life with his emotionally distant mother Emilie but his world opens up when he befriends Anton Zweibel, a Jewish boy who is a precocious pianist.  Part II flashes back to World War II.  We learn about Emilie’s meeting with Erich and their marriage until Erich’s untimely death after he makes a decision that has devastating consequences for himself, Emilie, and Gustav.  The third part, set in the late 1990s, focuses on Gustav and Anton’s faltering relationship as Anton moves to Geneva obsessed with acquiring fame as a pianist, despite his debilitating stage fright.

The novel examines the implications and human costs of self-restraint.  When he is a child, Gustav is repeatedly told that he must master self-control.  Emilie tells him he has to be like Switzerland:  “’You have to hold yourself together and be courageous, stay separate and strong.’”  A tutor repeats this advice by describing a coconut:  “the shell is hard and fibrous, difficult to penetrate.  It protects the nourishing coconut flesh and milk inside.  And that is how Switzerland is . . . We protect ourselves . . . with hard and determined yet rational behaviour – our neutrality.’”  Gustav does achieve emotional self-mastery but he becomes an anxious individual; he describes himself as being “obsessive in his quest for superficial order and control” and with “an intolerable pain in his heart.” 

The novel also shows what life was like in neutral Switzerland during the war.  Switzerland was committed to remaining neutral but was terrified of antagonizing Hitler lest he turn his attention to the country:  “Fear of a German invasion is a daily agony for the country, seldom talked about, yet always felt.”  As one person points out, “’fear of that extreme kind affects how people behave.’”  Because of fear of an over-concentration of Jews, what was known as Überjudung, the Swiss government passed a law stopping the flow of Jewish refugees.  The police were expected to enforce the law, but Erich, a policeman, says “’But people forget that policemen have human feelings and sympathies’” and “’We strive for indifference.  As members of the police we are taught to feel it.  But is not indifference a moral crime?’”  It becomes obvious that many Swiss chose to turn a blind eye to the war; certainly, Emilie is guilty of willful ignorance because “she has no wish to think about things that are happening outside Switzerland.”  Even her husband calls her ignorant and blind, and there’s an apt description of her as a “terrified creature – a bat clinging to the wall of its cave.”  Switzerland remained neutral but there was a human cost and not just for the Jews who were turned away.

Characterization is certainly a strong element.  Emilie emerges as the least sympathetic character.  Though her life with her mother and events in her marriage explain her behaviour, it is still difficult to forgive her treatment of her son; she is cold, severe, and neglectful.  She is self-centred and self-pitying and not deserving of her son’s love which seems boundless:  “He knew that, in spite of everything, he still loved her.  In some part of himself, he’d always believed that his mother couldn’t die before she’d learned to love him.”

Gustav, of course, is the most sympathetic.  He is a gentle soul, always compassionate and kind-hearted.  He seems driven to look after other people.  His most outstanding trait is his ability to love others who do not always love him in return.  Besides Emilie, there is Anton who is sometimes so self-absorbed and disloyal.  It is difficult to see Gustav so unhappy especially when he describes himself as a “loser sent away to hunger and solitude.”  The reader wishes that Gustav were less staid and decorous.   His steadfastness may be rewarded but that reward is a lifetime in coming. 

The style of the book can be described as understated.  The diction is clean and precise with no excessive emotion, like the neutrality of Switzerland and the self-restraint of Gustav, yet somehow it highlights the underlying strong emotions felt by the characters. 

I am so impressed with this author that I’m amazed at my ignorance of her work.  I will definitely be checking out her other novels.

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