The Piano Tuner: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: bandit chief, piano tuner, Khin Myo, Mae Lwin, Nok Lek (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Daniel Mason's debut novel, The Piano Tuner, is the mesmerizing story of Edgar Drake, commissioned by the British War Office in 1886 to travel to hostile Burma to repair a rare Erard grand piano vital to the Crown's strategic interests. Eccentric Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll has brokered peace with local warlords primarily through music, a free medical clinic, and the "powers" of common scientific instruments, much to the dismay of warmongering officers suspect of such unorthodox methods. Drake is an introspective, well-mannered soul who, once there, falls in love with Burma and stays long past the piano-fixing to aid Carroll's political agenda. Drake's arduous journey to reach the outpost, however, takes far too long (nearly half the book) and the plotting is rather heavy-handed at times (one night, Drake learns of a mysterious "Man with One Story" who rarely speaks, and the very next morning the Man tells all to Drake). The story is ambitious, the language florid and sure to please, but the dialogue and melodrama are sometimes tedious. While out on the town with Carroll's love interest, Khin Myo (who enchants Drake), Mason offers the townspersons' view of Drake:

It is only natural that a guest be treated with hospitality, the quiet man who has come to mend the singing elephant is shy, and walks with the posture of one who is unsure of the world, we too would keep him company to make him feel welcome, but we do not speak English.... They say he is one of the kind of men who has dreams, but tells no one.

Drake's complexity is thin; perhaps the beauty of Burma takes over any real need for introspection. Despite these quibbles, The Piano Tuner is a memorable achievement. --Michael Ferch --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Twenty-six-year-old Mason has penned a satisfying, if at times rather slow, debut historical. Edgar Drake lives a quiet life in late 19th-century London as a tuner of rare pianos. When he's summoned to Burma to repair the instrument of an eccentric major, Anthony Carroll, Edgar bids his wife good-bye and begins the months-long journey east. The first half of the book details his trip, and while Mason's descriptions of the steamships and trains of Europe and India are entertaining, the narrative tends to drag; Edgar is the only real character readers have met, and any conflicts he might encounter are unclear. Things pick up when Edgar meets the unconventional Carroll, who has built a paradise of sorts in the Burmese jungle. Edgar ably tunes the piano, but this turns out to be the least of his duties, as Carroll seeks his services on a mission to make peace between the British and the local Shan people. During his stay at Carroll's camp, Edgar falls for a local beauty, learns to appreciate the magnificence of Burma's landscape and customs and realizes the absurdity of the war between the British and the Burmese. While Mason's writing smoothly evokes Burma's beauty, and the idea that music can foster peace is compelling, his work features so many familiar literary pieces-the nerdy Englishman; the steamy locale; the unjust war; the surprisingly cultured locals-that readers may find themselves wishing they were turning the pages of Orwell's Burmese Days or E.M. Forster's A Passage to India instead.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Vintage; First Edition edition (August 19, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1400030382
• ISBN-13: 978-1400030385
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (164 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #32,396 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

47 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Elegant blend of history, myth, music and imagination., October 13, 2003

By A Customer

Was Edgar Drake a hapless foil? Was he really mixed up in espionage, codes and a plot against his own government? The reader must decide. Nonetheless the reader's trip from England to Burma is an exotic, engaging one. Edgar, a devout piano tuner, is summoned by the military to make an arduous trip to Burma to tune an Erard, an instrument that is to the piano what the Stradivarius is to the violin. He's honored that his reputation is so sterling that he willingly undertakes the mysterious journey in what he believes is in service to his queen, leaving behind a loving wife to whom he is equally devoted.

The story takes place in the 1800s. Britain, as a colonialist country, has laid claim to portions of India and Burma and is fighting multiple (Burmese) regional princes who are not about to willingly give up their country or their way of life.

As Edgar travels by train and boat, he's fascinated by his novel surroundings. Rather than passing judgment on the different food and customs and beliefs he encounters, Edgar is smitten. Finally, he meets the mysterious Surgeon-Major Anthony J. Carroll, who is so important to the English that they would accede to the unusual request for both the Erard and a piano tuner who must put it right because of the piano's own perilous trip, Burma's humidity, plus having been through a full on military attack by an enemy!

Enter a beautiful woman. She is intelligent, attentive to Edgar, escorts him about the mountainous environs where Carroll is in charge, introduces him to the local flora and lore. What the mysterious Khin Myo's relationship is to Carroll is speculative but her importance is obvious and she is omnipresent.

Carroll appears to be the antithesis of the British conqueror and introduces a fascinated Edgar to the small medical clinic he has founded where he assists the local people as best he can using both meager supplies of western medicine, as well as blends of herbs from the local area. Carroll is an avid scientist and social scientist. He has studied malaria, for example, although he has no archives to search or modern day medical journals, he's surmised that it is a mosquito that bears the disease.

The good doctor is also well schooled in local myth and lore and uses his ample negotiating skills to make peace with the local warlords. He's convinced he can bring about peace without firepower. Music is also a preferred tool to his anticipated peaceful outcome. Edgar is fascinated and Carroll completely wins him over.

However, over time the doctor seems to elevate Edgar's role from piano tuner to one involved in bringing about peace to the area. Edgar is perceptively unwilling to return to England and the western ways. This proves his undoing.

The beautiful Khin Myo's allure is fundamental to Edgar's remaining with the Shan people. The relationship remains chaste but promising? Then everything falls apart and Edgar is accused of being the doctor's accomplice in betraying his country. To describe the plot more is to spoil the journey for the reader.

The author is impressive in his storytelling, although parts of the tale are slow moving...perhaps intentionally. Especially in the descriptions of Edgar's journey to Burma. Nonetheless his research into the country, its history, its music, its lore is certainly evident. Finally, the descriptions of the Erard, of the tools of piano tuning, as well as the painstaking process in tuning a piano are just as impressive!

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Tale of a faraway land and time, June 22, 2005

By	klavierspiel "klavierspiel" (TX, USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

Author Daniel Mason's debut novel tells the tale of Edgar Drake, an English piano tuner who specializes in working with Érards, upscale French instruments. One day out of the blue Drake receives a mysterious summons to tune an Érard belonging to Anthony Carroll, a British Army surgeon stationed in an unstable region of colonial Burma, and off he goes.

Mason has done his research--the descriptions of a lost, exotic land and its people are poetically evocative and cry out for visual realization (David Lean, where are you when we need you?). He also demonstrates a considerable knowledge of the workings of the British Army, colonial Burmese history and culture, and piano technology. All of this background, as fascinating as it is, frankly overwhelms the slow-paced, slender plot, which takes more than one hundred pages to bring Drake and the mysterious Dr. Carroll together. Along the way the hero meets the obligatory exotic heroine, in this case a beautiful and educated servant of Carroll's named Khin Myo, but the affair remains tastefully chaste. If one hangs with "The Piano Tuner" there is a surprise twist and an unexpected, tragic denouement that grip the reader at the eleventh hour; but the time and number of words it takes to get there suggests Mason, as beautiful and atmospheric as his writing can be, needs to work more on his sense of pacing and proportion.

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exotic, Lyrical, Captivating, November 29, 2002

By	Paul McGrath (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This review is from: The Piano Tuner (Hardcover)

A quiet, bespectacled, home-bound English piano tuner is sent into the wide, wonderful, exotic world of 1886 in this outstanding first novel by Daniel Mason. Specifically, his job is to repair an out-of-tune piano which has somehow preceded him into the jungly wilderness of Burma, but in general he experiences the world as it was then, particularly that part of it at the furthest outpost of the British Empire. Thanks to the author's careful attention to detail, derived unquestionably from his own overawed sense of wonder, we get to experience it too.

With the piano tuner, Edgar Drake, we see the coast of Africa one hot morning off the starboard side of his ship; we sail through the Red Sea; we disembark in Bombay, then make the overland journey across India; and finally there is Burma from Rangoon to Mandalay to the final destination in the wilds of the Shan states, Mae Lwin.

Mae Lwin, with its children playing in the river, its tattooed men, its women with their strangely beautiful, lined "thanaka" make-up. Mae Lwin, built on the side of a mountain, with stairs slanting everywhere connecting its buildings. Mae Lwin, surrounded by a jungle filled with butterflies, flowers, snakes, mosquitoes, heat, sheeting rain, and various birds such as parrots, mynah birds and kingfishers. It is so exotic that we, like our besotted piano tuner, become enraptured by it.

But beyond this the novel is a pretty good intrigue also. The British, you see, had to be concerned with the French incursion into Indo-China, and also the never-ending Russian menace. The fierce Han warriors in the region had to be subdued either through alliance or war. Our piano tuner, summoned to Burma for a reason, suddenly finds that piano tuning is only one of the missions in which he is to engage.

There is also the beautiful and delicate Khin Myo, who initially is his guide, but who eventually becomes something much more to him. "Stay away from matters of love," his superior tells him.

Finally, with the exotic locale as its backdrop, the plot functions as a metaphor for the journey we sometimes take outside ourselves. The search for beauty and truth is not always a straightforward and easy one; there are many distractions along the way. Indeed, the signs can be confusing, and one can become lost.

This excellent novel exhibits a bit of clumsiness here and there, particularly with some early narrative exposition, but on the whole this is a fine, well-written, almost lyrical first effort. May there be more.