Vikram Seth novel

I've been reading Vikram Seth's 1999 novel about a string quartet for the last couple of weeks. The fact that I can't remember its title should be a clue.

I love Seth, you must know, I read The Golden Gate twice and I was very sad when the last of A Suitable Boy's 1400-odd pages trailed off into ellipses. So when I remembered to look if he had a new book and found that there was this one, whose name I can't recall and don't feel like looking up, I snapped it up.

And I've read more than 2/3rds of the thing, in excess of 200 pages, I'll have you know, and the novel has many of Seth's strenghts: acuity of characterization, general thoughtfulness, grace, and so on. And a fine theme, pining for the great lost love, and then getting to have sex with her too! Good stuff. But then he piles on all these allegorical resonances: deaf musicians, social disharmony, a little minor psychosis, it just gets precious and stuffy. Those only so much afternoon delight and poignant duets in quaint Eurolocales one can take.

Maybe Richard Linklater can make the movie with Ethan Hawke and frickin Julie Delphy.