In recent days, Erich Perle’s heart has started to beat faster. He has an affair with the love of his life and discovers joy. The reader, knowing the existence of little Gustav, wonders briefly how the author will resolve this development without turning the story into a sad romance, but the moral dilemmas are more than domestic. This is not chocolate box Switzerland, not at all.īut for Erich, stuck in a mean apartment and a miserable job, life blossoms. When they separate, the cause of Emilie’s ignorance and selfishness is revealed: she goes home to her miserly mother to live in abject poverty and hopelessness. They are ill-suited, and Erich is frustrated by her ignorance about the complex politics of the war just beyond their borders. A chance encounter with the handsome Erich and her impulsive boldness with him leads to an imprudent marriage. In Part Two, (which corresponds to the development in sonata form), the reader learns Emilie’s back story. The only thing Anton lacks is the temperament that he needs to succeed: he panics if required to perform in front of an audience. Gustav demonstrates this mastery again and again in this section of the novel about his grim childhood, a childhood enlivened only by his friendship with Anton, a child prodigy at the piano, and blessed with two loving parents and a comfortable luxurious home. From her he learns that what matters is to have mastery over the self, a characteristic of the Swiss people and one which enables them to survive in a complex world. Gustav does not know how his father died, but he does know that his mother doesn’t love him, or, indeed, anyone. He is sacked, he can only get menial work, and the family has to move to a cramped apartment far from the comfort they previously enjoyed. The authorities regard Erich’s compassionate actions as betrayal because they put the security of Switzerland at risk. Switzerland was neutral during the war, but under the very real threat of invasion by Germany they conceded to some demands including refusing entry to Jews. She is bitter about his dead father Erich, who held a senior position in the police department until it was discovered that he had been falsifying documents to allow Jewish refugees to stay in the country. Part One, (which corresponds to the exposition in sonata form) is set in a minor town in postwar Switzerland where we meet Gustav, a sober, rather prim little boy who lives with an unloving mother Emilie in reduced circumstances. In The Gustav Sonata she achieves it with an undemanding first section, which blossoms into something more complex as the novel progresses. Rose Tremain is one of those rare writers who can write literary fiction and yet be a bestseller.
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