The gustav sonata by rose tremain7/7/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() When Gustav befriends a new boy in his class, Anton Zwiebel, and his affluent Jewish family, the friendship incites Emilie’s social inadequacy and antisemitism. He could often feel a cry coming up from his heart, but he always forced it down.”Īll that five-year-old Gustav knows about his father, Erich, when the novel opens in 1947 is that “the Jews are the people your father died trying to save”. T he protagonist of Rose Tremain’s 13th novel is a Swiss boy, Gustav, whose father died before he ever got to know him, and whose emotionally distant and impecunious mother, Emilie, instils in him the importance of self-mastery: “You have to be like Switzerland… You have to hold yourself together, be courageous, stay separate and strong.” So powerful is his mother’s edict that even when five-year-old Gustav is left at kindergarten “He never cried. ![]()
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