Books: Out of Tune

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A few years ago, the mischievous British media tried to fan the flames of a feud between Indian authors Salman Rushdie and Vikram Seth by reporting that Rushdie had dismissed Seth's epic 1993 best seller, A Suitable Boy, as nothing but a "soap opera." Seth denied that Rushdie had been snide, but it is a measure of Seth's extraordinary skill and versatility--his first novel, The Golden Gate, was a tale of San Francisco written entirely in elegant verse; A Suitable Boy was the opposite, a marvelous, sprawling, and gripping tale of Indian family life--that one wonders if his latest book, An Equal Music (Broadway Books; 381 pages; $25), is simply his little joke. Perhaps he is saying to the Rushdies of the world, You want to see soap opera? I'll show you soap opera.

For An Equal Music is almost unbearably sudsy, a huge disappointment for the legions of A Suitable Boy fans waiting to see what magic Seth could possibly spin next. Crammed with intriguing detail about the world of classical music, it is the story of Michael, a violinist in a string quartet, who is reunited with his long-lost love, Julia. But the writing is more than a little groan inducing: "She kisses me. I hold her in that soundless room, far from daylight and the traffic of Bayswater and all the webs of the world. She holds me as if she could never bear to let me desert her again." Excuse me? In addition to doing fastidious research among violin makers and chamber players, has Seth also undergone immersion therapy in the complete works of Judith Krantz?

True to any soap opera worthy of the name, the reader does race ahead, eager to see how it will all come out. But this time around, Seth appears to have hit a flat note.

--By Elizabeth Gleick