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    The Gustav Sonata: A Novel
    The Gustav Sonata: A Novel
    The Gustav Sonata: A Novel
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Gustav Sonata: A Novel

    Written by Rose Tremain

    Narrated by Derek Perkins

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem only a distant echo. An only child, he lives alone with Emilie, the mother he adores but who treats him with bitter severity. He begins an intense friendship with a Jewish boy his age, talented and mercurial Anton Zweibel, a budding concert pianist. Moving backward to the war years and the painful repercussions of an act of conscience, and forward through the lives and careers of two men, The Gustav Sonata explores the passionate love of childhood friendship as it is lost, transformed, and regained over a lifetime. Moving between the 1930s and the 1990s, this fierce and beautifully orchestrated novel explores the vast human issues of racism and tolerance, flight and refuge, cruelty and tenderness. It is a powerful and deeply moving addition to the beloved oeuvre of one of our greatest contemporary novelists.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHighbridge Company
    Release dateSep 27, 2016
    ISBN9781681682730
    The Gustav Sonata: A Novel

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    Reviews for The Gustav Sonata

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      The Gustav Sonata was an unusual book, but one that I really enjoyed reading, in fact, I stayed up half the night to finish it. The book is set in Switzerland, before, during, and after the Second World War. Although the book branches out to include other characters and other relationships, the focal point of the book is the friendship, since kindergarten, of Gustav, a poor boy with a dead father and a critical, selfish, anti-Semitic and hostile mother, and of Anton, a well-off Jewish boy with a loving family, who are, nonetheless, pressuring Anton to become a concert pianist despite his chronic and overpowering stage fright. It was interesting to get a glimpse of why Switzerland remained neutral during the Second World War. The book was very good at helping the reader understand the extent of the deprivations of poverty, and the quiet luxuries of wealth. We are permitted to see into the minds of many of the book's characters, including those of Gustav's parents, and to understand what made Gustav's mother the virago that she becomes. I liked the book very much and recommend it.
    • 3/5
      Read this one for book club, and I'm honestly not sure I would have picked it up otherwise. I enjoyed the overall narrative, but it felt disjointed at times, as if the author couldn't completely decide what story she was telling. The prose is wonderful. A couple of my favorite passages:"Laughing was a bit like crying. It was a strange convulsion; it just came from a different bit of your mind. The trick was to move the crying out of that bit and let the laughter in.""Gustav saw clearly that the best time to visit an unknown city was in the autumn. He understood that everything which gives to a foreign metropolis its outward expression of hostility – the grey contours of buildings from which you feel you might be forever excluded, the pavements with their freight of hurrying strangers – was softened and made human by leaves falling and dancing in the wind."The beginning and ending were good, but much of the intervening parts just didn't quite work. I did like reading more about Gustav's mother, understanding her motivations a bit more, although I still do not get her lack of care for Gustav. Overall, a solid book that falls squarely in the "like" category.
    • 5/5
      A very melancholic story. It reminds me of something I read or heard a while ago...that one of the most difficult things to do is to be a good person living an ordinary life (is there such a thing as an ordinary life??). The novel's titular character's answer is to "master one's self". It's very quiet, but very intense.
    • 5/5
      Great story telling - Switzerland during the war - difficult relationships with parents - Gustav and Anton finally together in their sixties.
    • 3/5
      Kind of predictable. Not great but OK for night 'reading'.
    • 4/5
      Tremain chose to set her latest novel in Switzerland, exploring the complicity that enabled the country to remain neutral during World War Two. There is plenty of music in this book, which is a novel in sonata form. Against this backdrop she has constructed a touching story of friendship and love.The first section explores the childhood of Gustav from 1947 to 1952. He is the child of a widowed mother Emilie, and lives a somewhat impoverished existence which is contrasted with that of his best friend Anton, a musical prodigy whose father is a rich Jewish banker. Emilie is cold towards Gustav and does not trust Anton's family.In the second part we move back to 1937, where Emilie marries Erich, who has an important position in the local police. When the Bern government passes an edict forbidding the acceptance of Jews after a certain date, he agrees to falsify the entry dates for some Jewish refugees, and loses his job when this is uncovered. (view spoiler)The third part covers a longer time-span from 1992 to 2002. Erich has become the proprietor of a small but successful hotel, which fails to impress his mother, while Anton is working as a music teacher. His piano playing is discovered by the owner of a classical record label who invites him to Geneva to record Beethoven's sonatas. The rest of the book explores the disruption this causes to Gustav's well-ordered life.This edition comes with an author's afterword, which explains how it evolved from a short story which was just a small part of the final section. The story of the police official was taken from a real life story. It also explains how she wanted the book to be enjoyed on a number of different levels.On the whole I found this a rewarding read full of quiet pleasures.
    • 4/5
      I liked this very much. If every novelist, at some point in their career, needs to confront the Holocaust, then this was an original and sideways way to go about it. Broken people living broken lives and managing the best ways they can. Searching for love and occasionally finding it. No one here was particularly remarkable, but there was a surfeit of compassion and loyalty and a genuine emotional payoff.
    • 4/5
      Well written book showing the disgrace of neutrality. Characters very well developed.
    • 2/5
      I read this book as a seasonal group read for one of my GR groups, though so far there isn’t any discussion in the thread. I suppose there could be a lot to discuss about this book.2-1/2 stars. I thought I’d be rounding up but by the last chapter realized I wanted to round down. 2 not 3.It’s too bad. I thought this would be my kind of book. The story and characters and themes are the kind that usually greatly appeal to me. Unfortunately, almost everything good I have to say I can also add something negative to say.The book has a high average rating at GR but most of my GR friends have rated it lower than its average. I still thought I’d like it better than I did. I wouldn’t have read it otherwise. (I’m at a stage where I want to love or really like all my books, so 5 or 4 star books. Even liking, 3 stars, isn’t enough for me. 2 stars, just okay, to almost liking it in this case, was a disappointment.)After part 1 it was nearly a 4 star book for me so I had hopes. After part 2 it was almost a 3, and I thought I’d be giving it a 3. Toward and at the very end it dropped into 2 territory again. I did enjoy the writing style and I’m willing to try other books by this author, as long as the subject matter appeals to me.This was too much of a soap opera for my tastes. I found much of the story bizarre and the characters exasperating.I did feel as though the times and places were captured well and that while it wasn’t quite serious enough historical fiction for me, what was there did give me some pleasure. I’m surprised that I had such a hard time fully understanding and feeling empathy for the characters, and by the end that pertained to virtually all of them. I think the symbolism it aimed for was more than it deserves, and it was trying to be deeper than it ever got, and the whole thing ended up feeling unbelievable to me. That’s rare for me when I read books; I’m usually just not that critical and almost always find depth, sometimes more than most see, and I almost always feel sympathy for characters when some other reviewers are critical. In fact, I often cringe when other readers are critical of characters, as I typically can rush to their defense. Not here, not enough anyway.In a way the characters all make sense because of their backgrounds, but not really. The whole trying to show how people can be impacted by their difficult backgrounds and pass on their traumas to future generations should have resonated with me, but the characters felt like caricatures to me. Nobody changes or gets past their backgrounds in even the teeniest ways?! Really?! The central friendship, when the pair were adults at least, also didn’t ring true for me. Every time I liked someone for some reason, they then said something/behaved in some way that had me liking them less or not at all. I felt annoyed and perplexed by these people. Because I found myself in the critical camp, an unusual place for me to be, I found the reading experience to be somewhat depressing. So even though the writing is good and I got a good feel for places/times, and the author attempts to show why the people are as they are, it was almost impossible for me to like any of them, at least the adults. Good issues story for reading about performance anxiety/stage fright, postpartum depression, childhoods deprived of love, poverty, loyalty and betrayal in relationships, and exploring the feelings of rage, depression, jealousy, and regret. I did enjoy the parts about and what was said about the game of gin rummy. That was fun, and I think true too.I did remain interested enough to want to read to the end. What I think was meant to emotionally move me did not.Off to read some other reviews over the next days to see what I might have missed.
    • 5/5
      Rose Tremain on top form in this heartwarming story of Gustav and Anton. The story tracks their relationship from kindergarten to senior years and shows how the lives of two unlikely families - like chalk and cheese- come to be intertwined by WW11. A delight.
    • 4/5
      Im englischen Original heißt das Buch die „Gustav-Sonate“. V.a. vom Ende her macht dieser Titel sehr viel Sinn. Gustav ist die Hauptfigur des Buches. Er wächst in den 1940er Jahren in einer Schweizer Stadt mit seiner alleinerziehenden Mutter auf. Sein einziger Freund ist Anton, ein Junge aus einem etwas wohlhabenderem jüdischen Elternhaus. Während Gustav sehr deutlich hervortritt als ein lieber, beherrschter und nachdenklicher Junge, bleibt Anton blasser: Musikalisch, etwas verwöhnt und leicht egozentrisch, sehr empfindsam – so ganz kann ich weder beim Kind noch beim Mann Anton verstehen, wieso Gustav ihn so sehr liebt. Das Buch ist in drei Teile geteilt: Im ersten Teil geht es um Kennenlernen und Kindheit der beiden Jungen (damit fing es sozusagen an). Dann kommt ein Exkurs in die Vergangenheit von Gustavs Eltern. Dieser Exkurs erklärt, wieso Emilie so verbittert ist. Der dritte Teil spielt ab 1992. Gustav und Anton sind erwachsene, schon ältere Männer. Interessant sind die Nachnamen der Hauptfiguren: Gustav Perle und Anton Zwiebel. Obwohl Gustav wirklich ärmlich aufwächst, ist er eine wahre Perle und der reiche Anton, mit Klavierunterricht und Urlaubsfahrten aufgewachsen, muss sich lange Jahre erst wie eine Zwiebel häuten, bevor er seinen inneren Kern ausleben kann. Emilie hingegen kommt mir eigentlich zu negativ weg. Bis zum Ende des Buches wird sie als liebesunfähig beschrieben, obwohl sie wirklich viel getan hat um Gustav anständig aufzuziehen. Und dabei muss die doch auch etwas Liebenswürdiges haben, auch weil sie zum Ende hin ja nochmal eine Liebesbeziehung aufnimmt. Ihre Feindseligkeit gegenüber der jüdischen Familie Zwiebel ist für uns als Leser natürlich befremdlich. Aber wenn man den Transfer zu heute zieht: Was in der Schweiz damals geschehen ist, war eine Obergrenze für Flüchtlinge zu beschließen. Anschließend wurden Flüchtlinge nicht mehr aufgenommen. Gustavs Vater ist dieses Gesetz umgangen und musste dafür büßen. Emilie wirft ihm vor, die unbekannten Flüchtlinge höher zustellen als ihre Sicherheit und die ihrer Familie.Und heute? Heute sprechen wir auch über eine Obergrenze, mit ähnlichen Argumenten („Wir können nicht alle aufnehmen“). Dass die Menschen dort, wo sie herkommen, an Leib und Leben bedroht sind, wird jedem klar, der Bilder aus Aleppo sieht oder hört, was das Kinderhilfswerk diese Woche über Syrien berichtet. Mehr wussten die Menschen 1944 auch nicht! Ich finde das eigentlich die aktuellste Botschaft dieser Geschichte. Mensch ist Mensch. Und was damals richtig war, nämlich Menschen zu helfen, ist auch heute richtig. Trotz kleiner Mängel habe ich das Buch sehr gern gelesen. Das sieht man auch daran, dass ich es in einem Zug durchgelesen habe, obwohl ich krank bin und heute Nacht meinen Genesungsschlaf gebraucht hätte.
    • 4/5
      Gustav and Anton meet on the first day of kindergarten. It's 1948 in a small town in Switzerland and Gustav responds to Anton's fearful crying by playing with him and distracting him. Gustav's mother, a depressed widow who works in a cheese factory, is not thrilled about her young son's friendship with a boy from a wealthy Jewish family, but Anton and Gustav become best friends nonetheless. Not only are their stations in life vastly different but their apparent prospects are, too. Anton is a gifted pianist, a prodigy. All expectations are that he will become a famous concert pianist, a dream that Gustav struggles to support although it evokes a bewildering sense of betrayal and abandonment in him. We follow the boys' relationship, but the narration also takes us back in time, to 1939 when Gustav's parents met, fell in love, and married, and had their happy life brutally disrupted by the specter of WWII and the fear of a German invasion. Gustav is told by his mother that his father was a hero in those early days of the war and that he sacrificed his life to save the Jews. Ah, but there is so much more to that story. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. Tremain develops her flawed characters with compassion and a bit of cynicism. At times I felt the story veered too far into implausibility but it was compelling and satisfying nonetheless. Tremain continues to be an author worth the allocation of my precious reading time.
    • 4/5
      Masterfully written story of two men who meet as boys in neutral post-war Switzerland, both misfits in their small town - one a musical prodigy in a well-heeled family and the other the only child of a psychologically damaging mother. They save each other but eventually grow apart, in part due to Gustav's mother's dislike of Jews. During the war Gustav's father helped Jewish refugees enter Switzerland and paid a heavy price, which in her damaged logic leads her to blame the victims. I don't want to give away the plot, but I can say the reading this plot thread on the day that Trump banned 'certain' refugees from entering the U.S. was very chilling.
    • 2/5
      This book did not convince me at all. I think it is simplistic, cliché, predictable and I have some doubts about the historical correctness as well. As it happens I just read a novel that has some remarkable similarities to this one but is much more convincing in its psychology: School of Velocity, by Eric Beck Rubin.
    • 4/5
      This is only the second Rose Tremain novel that I have read, and I find her writing very evocative and lacking in the self-indulgence that many successful novelists tend to develop. It tells a story that I found quite absorbing and compelling, but that in the end failed to deliver on the ending that I had anticipated; which of course may be as much my problem as the author’s. The setting is a fictional provincial Swiss town, and the story is told through various episodes ranging backwards and forwards in time from the 1930’s to the 1990’s. Two themes drive this account of the life of Gustav, the title character; the circumstances surrounding the early demise of his father – a former deputy police chief of the town - and his close friendship with Anton, the son of a Jewish family. Doesn’t that mix suggest a poignant mystery to be revealed? The period of the second world war, when Switzerland was – until it shut its doors - the only refuge for Jews escaping Hitler’s Europe, seems to be the crux around which both previous and subsequent events in the story revolve; but it turns out not to be.The apparent authenticity of the descriptions of provincial Swiss life and of the Swiss mindset, that occur earlier in the novel, is soon sacrificed for the needs of the plot, of which many of the devices seem rather artificial or clichéd; like the discovery of a cash hoard that changes a person’s life, or a beautiful but inaccessible woman who - out of nowhere - seduces an admirer. But all would be forgiven if the plot delivered on its promise, of saying something important about the nature of neutrality; whether the actions – or lack of such – by a so-called neutral party can ever really favor neither side in a conflict. But, in the end, it turns out to be nothing more than a love story.
    • 5/5
      The story takes place in a small town in Switzerland. Gustav and Anton are to be lifelong friends. They meet on their first day of kindergarten, with Anton in tears about his first day away from home and Gustav summoned by the teacher to keep him company. Gustav's mother is strict and unfeeling. Gustav is used to her unpleasant ways and doesn't take special notice of them. Anton is destined to become a concert pianist, showing signs of prodigality at a young age. Their childhood takes place in the 50s. Anton is Jewish with a banker father and doting mother. Gustav's mother holds a grudge against Jews, claiming she lost her husband because he tried to help their cause during the Holocaust. This novel does indeed feel like a sonata, with intimate portraits of each of the characters, going backward and forward in time, from the 30s and a newfound vocation for Gustav's mother, to the early 21st century, when both men have a loaded past separately and together. The characters come in and out of contact, in a kind of gentle dance. Rose Tremain's beautiful writing shines in this book, as it has done in the other five novels I've read by her in recent years. I learned a little bit about Switzerland, where nationalism was one of the core values and played a large part in helping that small county remain neutral during European conflicts. Loyalty is one of the themes explored here in depth, and once again, Tremain demonstrates a beautiful sensitivity to what makes humans tick. Highly recommended—one I will revisit for sure. Excellent narration by Derek Perkins on the audio version.
    • 4/5
      Set in the fictional Swiss town of Matzlingen, The Gustav Sonata is a quiet story that traces the relationship between Gustav and his Jewish friend Anton from their childhood in post-WWII Switzerland to modern day. It’s a “small” novel in the very best way, reminiscent of Bruce Chatwin’s “On the Black Hill”, exploring the intimate workings of the characters and the who and why they are and how they came to be. Both the characters missed out on the drama of the war though they must live through the consequences. Gustav is the focus of the story, though paradoxically (since he’s not Jewish) the most impacted by this. Gustav lives an ordinary life while Anton fights against the mundane existence in parochial Matzlingen, his artistic ambitions ultimately driving them apart. The novel is touching and well-handled, and no one is more delighted than the reader when in their middle years the two friends get their true happy ending.
    • 4/5
      A beautifully written, albeit melancholy story about the friendship of two men who first met when they were young boys. Gustav and Anton first meet in kindergarten when Anton arrives crying pitifully. The teacher asks Gustav to take Anton under his care, which he does, offering the same advice his mother gives him and that is to "master himself."This is the first book I have read set in Switzerland and when the backstory of Gustav's father is presented, during the war. Switzerland and its stance on neutrality will eventually turn away many Jews trying to escape Nazi Germany. Gustav's father will pay heavily for an act his conscience forces him to commit and will cause his mother to have a lifelong hatred of Jews. Gustav and Anton both will spend much of their lives trying for the unattainable, Gustav, his Mother's love, Anton, a piano prodigy, his full musical potential. Yet, their friendship will be the saving grace for each of them. An amazing book with strong emotion undercurrents though told in an undramatic fashion. Characters and a story that is impossible to forget. A book that points out the past is never past but we must learn to move forward regardless. Happiness is possible, hope is ever present. ARC from Netgalley.