Relentlessly Grim

I have read everything rose remain has written but I had to give up on this novel. It was a relentlessly grim tale of a boy and his mother with not one chink of light or hope in the story. I accept some people's lives are grim but surely they have moments of happiness. Every time gustav has a happy moment he is knocked over by a tide of miserable events. Miserable reading.

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11 people found this helpful

Loved this

This was fab. Firstly the performance was brilliant- characters had distinct voices, there was real emotion and it was really clear who was meant to be speaking. I don't think I've ever heard a man play an 80 year old woman so effectively!!

The story was lovely - I'm a massive fan of rose tremain but this had it all, drama and romance and music. Would highly recommend and sat in the pouring rain outside Tesco unwilling to go home until I had heard the last ten minutes.

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So moving

I loved this angle on a story of wartime, it is now a favourite. The relationships of parents, friends lovers, colleagues all expertly observed. Excellent

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Mitteland

Where does The Gustav Sonata rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

In the top 30%.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Gustav Perle, the main character, whose character develops but within very tight confines.

What about Mark Meadows’s performance did you like?

He catches the understated quality of the novel.

If you made a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Life in Mitteland.

Any additional comments?

Rose Tremain’s “The Gustav Sonata” ambitiously seeks to tell a story of Switzerland between the 1930s and the 1960s through the story of Gustav Perle, who by the end of the novel is in his fifties, his lifelong friend, Anton Zwiebel, whom he meets at infant school, and their families. They live in, and rarely move from, the small town of Matzlingen.

This is a thoughtful novel and, in the interchanges between Gustav and his emotionally-dead mother, Emilie, for instance, we can see how personal self-restraint (or repression) might get generalised into national traits. Their cramped apartment mirrors the atmosphere created by Emilie as she lives on after the death of her husband, himself a significant figure in the novel. The episode when the two boys, on holiday with Anton’s more affluent parents in Davos, post- World War Two, discover a disused sanatorium is particularly successful: they invent what is, in effect, a children’s and a Swiss version of the sanatorium in Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain”, with the boys wheeling their imaginary TB-stricken patients out for the good air or because they had died. At which point, they dispose of the bodies in ovens.

The novel is -- at its most conventional but still interesting -- one of coming-of-age, of disappointments and family struggles. But what gives these stories and the characters wider meaning is the situation of Switzerland and its desire to be neutral in the face of Nazi expansion and persecution of the Jews. A retired British officer is introduced late on in the novel and he had the role of documenting in photographs, the arrival of allied troops at the Belsen concentration camp. Still later, Gustav considers leaving or breaking away from Switzerland: “He had never left Switzerland ... the best place on earth.”

Tremain’s ambition in “The Gustav Sonata” does, however, come close to undoing the novel. Some of the episodes, including one kiss and an attempted kiss, seem bolted on, seemingly there for symmetry. The theme of music, too, is driven by the title and the structure of the novel. As too much is attempted, so the dialogue becomes more and more dialogic, with not enough of a distance maintained between the voice of the narrator/author and the speech of the characters. Telling takes over from showing, a shortcoming that is not apparent for much of this perceptive novel.

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An eye opener

I really enjoyed this book. I was intrigued to learn of the tension in Switzerland during WW2. One doesn't appreciate how this was the feeling at the time, assuming every one there to be laid back and feeling safe in neutrality. The characters are of their time and beautifully drawn. A delightful story with love to the fore.

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This story stayed with me after I finished reading it

This took a while to get going and it was only once the book got to the end that I thought I understood why the Gustav of the title didn’t have any meaningful relationships with people of his generation. I felt sad for him so much of the time. The prose was sparse but compelling. A lovely book

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Irritating narration

Rose tremain is a wonderful author who brings the soul of her sympathtic characters to the fore and interweaves them into stories that are interesting and plausible.

Unfortunately, I found Mark Meadows narration irritating and distracting with an upward inflection every 2 or 3 words.

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4 people found this helpful

Quirky and revelatory

Rose Tremain writes with authority; I felt as if I really knew the two central characters in this story which is so different to the last of her books I listened to. The plot is convincing and the peripheral characters are also colourful and plausible. Kept me listening and intrigued as to how two different lives and a long friendship would work out. I wasn't disappointed!

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Somewhat tedious!

Struggled to finish....lost interest in all characters. Uninspiring ending. Maybe better read rather than audio.

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A beautiful, moving story

When excellent writing, a moving story and a top class narrator come together, this is what you get.

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