Eroticism’s symphony

Deep Purple

A Novel

Mayra Montero

Translated from the Spanish by Edith Grossman

HarperCollins/Ecco: 182 pp., $22.95

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Does a solo violinist make love differently than a clarinetist or a cellist? Ask classical music critic Agustin Caban, the protagonist of “Deep Purple,” Mayra Montero’s viscerally erotic novel, and he would tell you they perform worlds apart in the bedroom. “[I]f she’s a clarinetist, you have to be careful, very careful of her lips.” Regarding a virtuosa violinist, Agustin observes that “there is no more noble service to fine music, no more imperishable support one can offer a soloist, than to throw her facedown on a bed. There they finally explode.... Cellists howl more than the others. And almost all of them tend to be wildly passionate, or too demanding.”

Montero may be one of the most under-recognized Latin American writers of our time. She is the author of seven wildly different novels, five of which have been translated into English, and is a student of the boom generation represented by the likes of Julio Cortazar and Alejo Carpentier. She moved from her native Cuba to Puerto Rico as a teenager and has lived and worked as a journalist on that Caribbean island most of her life. There she has absorbed Antillean culture, its idiosyncrasies and its hyper-stimulated sensuality. Whether she is exploring the mysteries of Santeria or voodoo, as she did in “The Red of His Shadow” and “The Messenger,” or the biological riddle behind the disappearance of an amphibian species, as she did in “In the Palm of Darkness,” Montero revels in how the human will succumbs to obsession.

In “Deep Purple,” as in her earlier novella “The Last Night I Spent with You,” Montero explores primitive worlds, re-imagining them as sexual energy in the insular world of classical musicians. That it is more common for men in the history of literature to write about the erotic longings of women makes Montero’s seizure of the male psyche a rare treasure. In Agustin, Montero has created a satirical protagonist whose testosterone-addled mind drives him to categorize the vagaries in sexual conduct of orchestra members according to their instruments.

Agustin, who has just retired, is terrified of leaving his San Juan newspaper. It would mean the end of his secret life of conquests of touring musicians, both male and female, who visit the island. For Agustin, a man who takes himself quite seriously, the deep reservoirs of emotion in classical music are intricately entangled with sexual desire. This eroticization of music is pitched in perfect equilibrium with his preoccupation with death, compelling him to write his memoirs so he can relive his life.

He fears that, no longer having a reason to write about classical music, he will become like the masses who view music as merely a “peaceful oasis.” He sneaks into his office even after his retirement to unload his memories onto paper. Egged on to complete the memoir by the repressed Sebastian, another old-timer at the paper who wants to live vicariously through the critic’s work, Agustin writes increasingly racy episodes, torturing and titillating his colleague.

Agustin is the quintessential macho lover. “I judged musicians for their instincts; I evaluated their gifts as performers in a different way: besides listening to their music, I smelled them, I heard them speak, I listened to the rumble of their intestines. It may sound prosaic, but one’s musical soul lies in the guts: I could confirm this on the spot by placing my ear there and listening carefully.” But Agustin is far from coldblooded: He’s also susceptible to falling in love and being hurt by his lovers. His insistent longing for life’s crescendos makes him tragically sympathetic.

It can be most difficult to compose sex scenes without appearing to be gratuitous or crude. Montero’s work successfully transcends the erotica genre because her description of the act is clearly metaphorical, abstract in execution and devoid of cliched porno prattle. Her great talent is her ability to envelop the reader in her character’s psychological head games, which include underlying currents of sadistic pleasure. But even though most of the action is cerebral, her prose is blunt and direct; she does not choose to linger on sentimentality. It’s easy to see why the novel won Spain’s prestigious literary prize for erotica, the Sonrisa Vertical (The Vertical Smile) in 2000.

In comparison to Montero’s other novels, “Deep Purple” is deceptively simple. Buried in its pages are the mysteries of human desire; what some may see as a one-note novel is a dizzying work of art. Its subtle power comes from what is shown, without apology, about the human fetish. The perturbed Agustin is a modern vampire sucking up the musical spirit of his conquests. His euphoria is derived from watching the madness of the musicians unravel before him. “I possess the music they play, the shadow and the living cadence.... Tearing out the musical soul is all that is desired.” Through the writing of his memoir, Agustin can strut again, strain to listen to those sweet and sinful symphonies and try to fend off mortality. He is a critic putting down his pen, ultimately a man with nothing as he relinquishes his musical subjects.