Customer Reviews

The Piano Teacher: A Novel

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(39)
2 star:		(32)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee tells the story of English piano teacher Claire's involvement in a complex web of lies, love, politics and war in 1950's Hong Kong.
Enjoy:
- Lee does a nice job describing the tumultuous Hong Kong social elite pre, post and during World War II. Her quiet, elegant descriptive prose is definitely her strength.
- The reader must respect Lee's decision to not use the standard linear timeline most novels use.
- The treatment of nationality is interesting as well, considering the time period (1940s and 1950s) in which the book is set. The upper class was undeniably hypocritical in their discriminations; everything boiled down to money and status.
- Will Truesdale's character has a lot of depth (he truly is the main character of the novel, despite the title). He is the most human out of all the characters; I found myself very sympathetic towards him throughout the novel.

What Rains on Lee's Parade
- Her desire to be mysterious is too obvious; the vague dialogue is often unrealistic. This obviousness is also a fault when Lee does decide to divulge vital information; these portions of the book do not flow well at all.
- The novel is entitled The Piano Teacher, yet it truly isn't about her. She is solely device to divulge information; I think the novel could have actually done more effectively without her. The attempt to view the local situation from an outsider's perspective ends up more of a hindrance upon the reader.
- Lee doesn't develop the relationships and characters enough, with the exception of Will. Granted some characters need to be flat to show the trivialness of the Hong Kong upper class, some of the characters should have been given more time.
- I didn't appreciate the quick "wrap up" mentality at the end. It was forced and a bit boring.

That fact that this book lacks in certain areas is frustrating because it could have been a great book. It will be interesting to see what Lee writes next.

Loving history as I do, this novel, set in WWII and post-WWII Hong Kong, would seem to be right up my alley. I also love books that have two stories molded into one book. Then you have the enticing cover. Even with one of these three, I would tend to be drawn to this novel. With all three, it would be a no-brainer. This was the book for me!

That said, I never could get fully engaged either with Claire's story or with Will and Trudy's. Although Claire would seem to be the more sympathetic of the three, none of the main characters were all that likeable. I tried with this book, I really did. But at my age there are too many other really good books out there to try. Librarian, author, and radio personality Nancy Pearl gave me permission to stop reading a book after 50 pages if it was, for want of a better word, boring. I even skimmed a bit farther into the book until I ended up skipping to the end. Thank you Nancy Pearl. You have saved me from many a worthless hour. Instead, I picked up another book with an Asian theme that also has a Hong Kong connection.

I am sorry to have to say I was not able to finish this book as it had all the hallmarks of a great read. So despite all the hoopla and the good reviews about The Piano Teacher, I can't, in all good conscience, recommend it.

The Piano Teacher is one of those novels that are the written equivilent of a two star movie. Not a complete waste of time, not the worst book ever written, not the best, just two stars. A C+ kind of experience when there was the potential for much, much more. After finishing it, I wanted a Book Club discussion to help me through my two star feelings. Preferably a club member with historical knowledge of the complex relations between Hong Kong, mainland China, Japan and the U.K. during the time period of the novel. So much of the book just didn't hang together for me. I read the pivotal chapter detailing the confrontation between the Chens and Truesdale several times to see if I was missing something. The best part of the book was the beautiful cover photograph. If only the rest of it had lived up to that promise!

Ms Lee has delivered a remarkable novel, in which she brilliantly interweaves two plots, both set in Hong Kong: one in the 1940s, right before and during the war, the other in the 1950s. In the first part of the book, a chapter in the 1940s alternates with a chapter in the 1950s, building tension until the war outbreak, while the focus in the second part is on the 1940s and the horrors of the internment camp, and the third part is mostly, but not exclusively, about the 1950s. Many of the same characters appear in both subplots, and it is fascinating to see what has happened to them in those 10 years.

The novel is about compromise and integrity in times of survival, and how the war brings out people's true personality. (This trite summary doesn't do the novel any justice, but the author excels at surprising the reader with little details and subplots that underline her point.) It is also about love, the love between Trudy and Will (the affair between Claire and Will 10 years later never comes across as more than a shallow pastime that will come to an end one way or another), and Will's gnawing regrets.

The point of view is third-person throughout, following Will in the 1940s and Claire in the 1950s. The author focuses on dialogue and richly textured descriptions of settings and clothes - it is very easy to become engrossed in the novel because of her vivid writing. She doesn't, however, spend much time convincing us Trudy (the Eurasian) and Will (the Englishman) are truly in love. Trudy comes across as an opportunist, and her personality seems too different from Will's for the relationship to last.

I was therefore very surprised when I reached the last few chapters of the book to read that they had truly been in love and that Will felt that he had failed Trudy. I didn't see that she was conflicted about what she was doing. Then Will reproaches himself his cowardice for not leaving the camp to be with Trudy (who's helping out the Japanese and has asked him to help her get information), explaining it was cowardice rather than integrity because he was afraid to face a world where the rules had changed, and I found that very hard to believe.

But overall the novel is masterly written, with many surprises I won't reveal, and represents a fascinating peek into human nature when people are thrown into extreme circumstances. This is the best novel I've read in a while, and I'd particularly recommend it to people who enjoyed "Waiting" by Ha Jin.

Okay, so I quit at 100 pages. I found the characters completely flat. Their conversations were entirely meaningless. I kept wondering when the plot would begin. Well, from reading other reviews I've learned that the war is the plot. Not my preference. I prefer to have the plot in the foreground and the history in the background.

So...if you want to read about China, I recommend "The Painted Veil" by Somerset Maugham. That is a really great piece of fiction. Come to think of it, maybe that's where Lee got the plot for her book, "The Piano Teacher." English woman marries to escape mother and journeys to China where she has an affair with an uncaring man... Sound familiar?

Or, for more war-related, but excellent fiction, try "Gilgamesh" by Joan London. Now that is one excellent piece of writing.

The Piano Teacher is a complicated novel. On the surface, it's about a love affair between two British ex-patriots in Hong Kong in 1952-3. Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong with her husband Martin at a time when the world is still recovering from WWII; Claire takes up work as a piano teacher for the daughter of a wealthy Chinese family, where she meets Will Truesdale, the Chens' enigmatic chauffeur. The book jumps back in time between the 1950s and the beginning of WWII, when Will is interned in Stanley, a Hong Kong camp for enemies of Japan. On "the outside" is Tudy Liang, Will's beautiful Eurasian lover.

There's no doubt that Lee's writing is beautiful. But there's something lacking in this short, terse novel that I can't quite put my finger on. First, I think it's the tenses she uses when taking about each story: that which is set in the 1950s is in the past tense, while the war scenes are talked about in the present tense (confusing, no?) The interpersonal relationships of the main characters take a back seat to the horrors of Stanley camp (over 3000 people housed in a hotel with bad plumbing, bad food, and other horrendous conditions), as well as the brutal treatment of the British and Americans by the Japanese.

While the war scenes were sobering and thought-provoking, I would have liked to have seen more of the relationship between Trudy and Will. I would have liked to have found out more about Will and Claire's relationship, too: why are they drawn together, since they seem to have nothing in common? Too, there's a lot that's implied about what happened during the war, especially to Trudy and her cousin, Dommie; but we never find out for sure. And the "villain" in this novel wasn't quite what I expected, either. His motivations for doing what he did are a little odd. But as I've said, the writing is beautiful, the research is superb, and the setting is fantastic. I just wish that Lee had done more with her characters, because they had so much promise.

Set in Hong Kong and taking place in two different decades, this book follows a love affair between Claire,a married woman, and Will, a man with a complicated past. Without giving too much away, it would suffice to say the historical aspects of the book lead to a long and drawn out climax. The characters are never fully resolved, and the action always fell a little below the level of interest. Had a lot of potential, but failed to measure up to the hype.

I generally enjoy historical fiction, but I just couldn't get into this one! I thought the combination of WWII and an interesting setting like Hong Kong would make for a great story. And let me say, this story had potential. I just couldn't buy into the characters, who were two-dimensional and boring. I kept waiting for the plot to pick up, for something exciting to happen, but it never did. How can you go wrong with a war story? There is so much opportunity to write exciting plot lines. I wanted to know more about the Crown Collection, but it was never even mentioned until halfway through the story. Finally, about 2/3 of the way through the book, I just gave up. I feel like I gave it a fair chance. Skip it!

I held great hopes for this book - a fascinating historical context and an enduring love story. Unfortunately, it was a huge disappointment and I felt as though I'd wasted my time trying to see why this book gets such rave reviews. The story itself had potential but the characters were so wooden, one just couldn't feel any emotion towards them; all were poorly developed. The dialogue too often was forced and stilted and scenes which should have had immense impact fell flat. Why would the author interrupt one climatic scene of dialogue to describe what one of the characters is wearing? The plot was the only thing that held any interest but that too ultimately feels unresolved in the end. This book left me with a very unsatisfied and empty feeling. I will say the author did fine research - too bad she couldn't convey it into a story worth savoring.

I enjoyed reading this book, I thought it was good but not great. I thought it was well written in terms of minute delineations of character, like when Claire turns to say good-bye to Will and finds he's already started reading a book, or when she observes that Victor can't wait to tell her he went to Balliol. That's important because the character themselves are fairly archetypal -- Claire is the blooming English rose, Will the dashing ne'r do well, Trudy the socialite diva, Martin the drudge, Victor the devious businessman, etc. But these details, esp. what they've lost, make each of them feel much more like individuals and I did end up caring about their fates.

But then there are parts that seem too boilerplate romance novel, like when Claire tells Will: "'Be good to me,' she said. It was a warning. She wanted to save herself." There's also, unfortunately, no distinction in terms of the style of the narration or the dialogue between the wartime past and the mid-century present. The narration doesn't get in the way, but its realistic tone is the same for every character, time and situation. Just because it's written in the third person doesn't mean the narration has to be so flat.

My main problem is that the story builds up interesting plot strands but then is basically explained to Claire by Edwina looking back from the 50's. We could have flashed back to wartime to have that revealed as well, at least in terms of Trudy, instead of just having so much exposition.

Where the novel really succeeds is re-creating the Hong Kong of the time, especially the interesting and surprising interplay between the Westerners and the Chinese. Among many insightful observations, it really shows the limits to which the English could 'colonize' the Chinese without understanding their culture.

If you like challenging literature, this book won't be top of your pile, though it may be worth a quick read. But if you like historical fiction, I would recommend it.