On a misty London afternoon in 1886, piano tuner Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the War Office: he must leave his wife, and his quiet life in London, to travel to the jungles of Burma to tune a rare Erhard grand piano. The piano belongs to Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll, an enigmatic British officer, whose success at making peace in the war-torn Shan States is legendary, but whose unorthodox methods have begun to attract suspicion. So begins the journey of the soft-spoken Edgar across Europe, the Red Sea, India, Burma, and at last into the remote highlands of the Shan States. En route he is entranced by the Doctor's letters and by the shifting cast of tale-spinners, soldiers and thieves who cross his path. As his captivation grows, however, so do his questions: about the Doctor's true motives, about an enchanting and elusive woman who travels with him into the jungle, about why he came. And, ultimately, whether he will ever be able to return home unchanged to the woman who awaits him there ...Sensuous and lyrical, rich with passion and adventure, "The Piano Tuner" is an unforgettable and haunting novel.
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About the Author
Daniel Mason received his bachelor's degree in biology at Harvard in 1998 and spent a year studying malaria on the Thailand-Myanmar border, where much of The Piano Tuner was written. He then went on to become a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco. A seasoned lecturer, brilliant and inexhaustable, he couldn't be more promotable.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful Storytelling,
This review is from: Piano Tuner (Paperback)
Mason tells the story of Edgar Drake, a piano tuner from London who is asked to journey deep into the jungles of Burma to tune the piano of an eccentric officer.
This is a story evocative of Conrads "Heart of Darkness" and the spin off movie "Apocalypse Now". However, in Conrad the journey up the Congo river represents a descent into depravity as the shackles of civilization are cast off, and barbarism takes over. Mason replays the story in a very different way. Instead of descending into darkness, Drake ascends into enlightenment. He blossoms in the heat of the tropics, becoming things he did not dare in polite London society. From tuner he becomes a pianist. From tradesman he becomes a diplomat. From a dry emotionless husk of a man he becomes a passionate lover. But circumstances conspire against our hero and in the end it is the civilized world that shatters the primeval dream of the jungle. Beautifully written and a well told story. We can never be sure of the final resolution until we reach the end of the book. Will love, music and passion triumph over politics, empire and the gun? Can the music of a piano in the jungle bring greater peace than an army? What a nice notion.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Nonsense Ending,
This review is from: Piano Tuner (Paperback)
I'd heard good things about this book. Unfortunately, the writing made it annoying to read in places. Things like switching from present tense to the past tense in the same paragraphs. Yes, the setting in Burma was wonderful. But it couldn't make up for the ridiculous ending. It felt like perhaps the author faced a deadline, panicked, and threw something in for the finale. I won't give anything away, but the entire premise of the ending made absolutely no sense.
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not magic realism, just unrealistic and slow moving.,
By
This review is from: Piano Tuner (Paperback)
I bought this book because I was intrigued by the title. A London piano tuner is engaged to go to Burma at the end of the Nineteenth Century. It starts quite slowly, and there is quite realistic detail on the construction and maintenance of pianos ( in fact I would have liked more ). The trouble (if you can call it that) starts on the journey to Burma, the tuner is told a tale of shipwreak and we know there's a big metaphor going on here, if not a portent, only we just don't quite know what its portends. He meets the lovely Asian girl, but is loyal to his wife, and journey's to meet the influential, conflicted anti-hero (or is it hero?) .Violence ensues. Our piano tuner must make a choice between the conventional and the heroic. Will he be windy, or throw caution to the winds?. At many points during the Burmese part I was afraid it would turn directly to magic realism, and we would understand that the piano was an emotion or a dream or a cloud or something. But it doesn't, otherwise I wouldn't have finished the book. The story ends in very concrete terms. Which is good, I think, however I didn't enjoy the book overall, and in retrospect should have stopped at the Suez canal.
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