Customer Reviews

The Piano Tuner

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

Highly imaginative, obsessive and truly magical novel by Daniel Mason. A combination of fiction, fantasy and travelogue, an ambitious but intriguing piece of work by Mason.

The plot seems to be travel fantasy - Edgar Drake, a piano tuner with perfection in Erards, travels in to darkest jungles of Burma and India.in 1886 to help the Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll. A sea voyage and boat journey in to the remotest possible place one would imagine to repair and tune a piano - a special piano, a peacemaker.

The novel takes you to trip of tropical Burma, in the setting of British imperialism. By the time you will finish the novel you would have imagined the life, the people and the nature there. You would have relived Burma of 19th century, through the eyes of 21st century student.

At times, especially in initial few chapters, the story line seems to be very confusing and moves all over the place. But there are sensuous, magical and intriguing moments that haunt you until you finish the novel.

"The Piano Tuner" is a beautiful story and I hope Daniel Mason's next novel "A Far Country" (haven't read it yet) is as delightful as this one. Positively recommend reading atleast once.

good - imaginative, obsessive, intriguing, sensuous

not so good - not well researched, overemotional at places

-- ashutosh jhureley

If you enjoy reading hundreds of pages of dull description of Burma then this is your novel. Honestly, it's just tidbits snipped from general histories jammed into a weakly-plotted novel. Thinly disguised digressions, silly anecdotes (in particular I'm thinking of the sailor). How can the character finally arrive and go on a flower expedition instead of seeing the piano? How ridiculous! A tiger hunt? A tiger hunt? That's satirical, right? They'll send him a piano, but not vaccines?

Written in a romantic style this adventure story draws you in from the first moment. Mystery abounds as Edgar Drake sets out from Victorian London to the 'exotic Orient' on a mission of great importance to the Empire.

The book is evocative and captures the feeling of time and place very well. The character of Drake and some of the others he encounters are very well developed. The story grabs you like a good page-turner should, but the beauty holds you like an Ondaatje novel.

In the end though, like any great novel, it causes you to look inside yourself and reflect on how and why you feel the way you do about Drake and the decisions he makes. Is Mason's Drake an everyman thrust into the role of hero becase he alone can accomplish the mission... or is he seduced by the potential of 'greatness' to compromise his mundane commitments. Do we make our lives or are they thrust upon us?

A great read that I've come back to a number of times.