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The Gustav Sonata

The Gustav Sonata 1

A Novel

by Rose Tremain
Paperback
Publication Date: 13/06/2016
4/5 Rating 1 Review

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It was a game of love and death. Neither of us will ever speak about it. It's locked inside us.

Gustav Perle grows up in a small town in Switzerland, where the horrors of the Second World War seem distant. He adores his mother but she treats him with bitter severity, disapproving especially of his intense friendship with Anton, the Jewish boy at school. A gifted pianist, Anton is tortured by stage fright; only in secret games with Gustav does his imagination thrive.

But Gustav is taught that he must develop a hard shell, like a coconut, to protect the softness inside just like the hard shell perfected by his country, to protect its neutrality. But despite this hard shell, nothing in Gustav's life can be called neutral. Older, and increasingly curious about his absent father, Gustav discovers the traces of an erotic love affair - traces which still glow white-hot even now.

Fierce, astringent, profoundly tender, and spanning the twentieth century, Rose Tremain's beautifully orchestrated novel explores the big themes of betrayal and the struggle for happiness, and above all, the passionate love of a childhood friendship as it is tested over a lifetime.

ISBN:
9781784740047
9781784740047
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
13-06-2016
Language:
English
Publisher:
Penguin Random House
Country of origin:
United Kingdom
Dimensions (mm):
216x135x18mm
Weight:
0.28kg
Rose Tremain

Rose Tremain’s bestselling novels have been published in thirty countries and have won many awards, including the Orange Prize (The Road Home), the Whitbread Novel of the Year (Music & Silence) and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Sacred Country); Restoration was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

Rose Tremain was made a CBE in 2007 and was appointed Chancellor of the University of East Anglia in 2013. She lives in Norfolk and London with the biographer, Richard Holmes.

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1 Review

I had the absolute pleasure of reading an advance copy of this novel while I was adventuring through Switzerland and the Alps. The Swiss have a gentle surety about them and their country is absolutely breath-taking. This book captures those people and their unique landscape diligently. I'm so glad I brought it along.

The Gustav Sonata offers up remarkable characters living in the shadow of war and discrimination. The wonderful Gustav is followed intimately as the novel leaps ahead in time to where the echoes of his past have grown into a roar. The character is so completely constructed that the reader burns with his pain as he longs complete his story.

Intriguing, heartfelt reading.

Contains Spoilers No
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