The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain

The Gustav Sonata by Rose Tremain is a deceptively complex book. The deception is borne of its author's skill to render complexity in a subtle, sensitive and simple way. Simplicity comes from the focus on a small group of families who interact in many of the ways acquaintances do. This is small town Switzerland, where perhaps very little of the unexpected ever arises. Complexity arises, however, from the ubiquity of sexual relations, passing lives, an approaching world war, with its persecution of Jews and a need to adopt neutrality.

The neutrality arises from the book's setting, which is Switzerland. But even in a land of clockwork, nothing is straightforward or predictable. Even time is not linear. When we start, we encounter Gustav and Anton, two young friends forging a relationship together. Their families are also close. They go on holiday together. The boys form a bond.

Then some years earlier, we encounter Gustav's mother, Emilie, as a teenager, still a maiden as Rose Tremain describes her, at a festival in her home town of Matzingen. It's an ordinary place, between the Jura and the Alps, not mountainous, not clockwork-pretty, just local. Both local and personal considerations fill the consciousness of Emilie, who instinctively knows the time is right. Erich was in the police and she was much arrested. A marriage ensues, and there are children. But there is little that is conventional about the eventual birth of Emilie’s son, the Gustav of the book's title. Rose Tremain would surely point out that in life little is ever predictable.

The Gustav Sonata is a book whose plot consists of the substance of people's lives. Any review that describes their relationships is pure spoiler. Even a list of elements might come too close to detail best left to the reading. But suffice it to say that there are multiple elements of interrelation between the families we meet in the book. Erich has a superior in the police. The boss has a wife. The Second World War turns everything upside down. Jews need to escape from neighboring countries. Emilie and Erich's close friends are Jewish. They have a son called Anton. Anton and Gustav are friends.

There is insubordination, sexual dalliance, splits and reformations.  There is time spent back at home with mother. Disgrace appears in its ugliest form, and destruction ensues. Ambition drives achievement, but careers never quite materialize.

The Gustav Sonata is a beautiful book because its characters come to life. Their experiences are particular, but always credible. They almost tell one another what they want, but gaps will inevitably widen, and misunderstandings, deceptions and outright lies breed in the void.

What is so refreshing about this book is that none of these people ever achieve greatness, and none of them fall to complete destitution. Events remain local, personal or familial. And precisely because of that, everything remains credible. The effects are magnified by their closeness to home.

Throughout Rose Tremain's always surprising but always simple and free-flowing prose provides the perfect vehicle to communicate these complex relationships in their simplest, yet most vivid form.