The Piano Tuner

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing end
Review: I was very excited to read this book. Just the cover draws you in. The description of Burma, the culture, the people is fascinating. The piano tuner character is rich and complex. I enjoyed following him on his journey. There was a lot of detail about pianos which I found dry but easy to get through. I was excited to get to the end and did not put the book down last night in an effort to finish it. But the ending was a letdown. I was so caught up with the adventure the piano tuner was experiencing that I was hoping for a more dramatic ending. I wanted fireworks. I got a pop gun. If you are okay with that then this book is a fascinating glimpse into a wonderfully intricate culture.

Rating:
Summary: I loved this book!
Review: I enjoyed every minute of this book- although the ending is a bit weak.
Fantastic exotic travel writing.

Rating:
Summary: A story, a legend or a dream? A novel worth reading
Review: The novel "The Piano Tuner" could be described as "Heart of Darkness" meets "Fitzcarraldo." In Werner Herzog's famous film "Fitzcarraldo," an opera lover drags a ship over the jungle and we know the plot of "Heart of Darkness", Conrad's classic where a merchant agent sails up the Congo to find Kurtz, a renegade agent who is rumored to have set up his own kingdom.

In "The Piano Tuner", Edgar Drake, a London piano tuner, is asked by the military to travel to Burma and tune an antique Erard grand, owned by an eccentric military doctor. The piano was delivered deep into the Shan highlands by the military, cosseting the doctor who was able to forge treaties in nearly impossible circumstances. Drake takes the assigment and finds that, once he arrives in Burma, the situation about the piano and about Surgeon-Major Carroll is far from clear.

The similarity to Conrad is not an accident--this is a re-working of the tale along with some excellent history of the area and the symbolism of a grand piano as the questionable activity of Colonialism in a land where local politics are Byzantine and deadly. The end is foreshadowed deftly, yet still comes as a complete shock.

There were a few faults in the character development: I thought the tuner's wife was more a reflection of the main character's inner monologue and less a bourgeoise British housewife. In general, the women characters, even the hauntingly beautiful and educated Mae Lwin are not drawn as well as the men. However, that's a minor quibble. This is a wonderful novel in the tradition of Conrad and perhaps Ford Maddox Ford and I recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: A fine novel of travel and discovery of the inner self
Review: The Piano Tuner is a fine novel about discovery and about passions.
The discovery plot line is fairly similar to and obviously inspired in Conrad's Heart of Darkness (or Coppola's Appocalypse Now): A man's trip along a river from civilisation to an outpost in the jungle where an officer of un-ortodox methods rules over the local tribes. There are differences, of course, and Congo/Vietnam are substituted by Burma, the Medical commander is still somehow connected with the British military and the main character is not sent to the jungle to kill the "rebel" but to fix his un-tuned piano. But the learning-process associated to the experience of travel and the fascination of the piano tuner with the jungle leader are clearly inspired in Heart of Darkness.
The passion plot-line is linked to the passion of the tuner with his job, with music in general and tunning in particular.
The novel is generally well-written. Some dialogues are a bit naif and -a common handicap of many American history novels- the perspective of the characters is a bit modern: The thoughs of the piano tuner are not particularly Victorian.
The author introduces some elements of irreality (or magic realism) that are welcomed: the legend of the Man With One Story the Burmese legends, the fever dreams... Also some images are definitly worth a cinema adaptation: the piano floating in the river, for example.
In conclusion: the novel probably wont enter the history of adventure literature but it is definitely a very fine book.









Rating:
Summary: Remarkable journey
Review: The late 1800's was a time of intricate industrial modernism but this book takes a step back during that time to the simple needs of a rare piano in the far reaches of Burma. Edgar Drake is a simple and shy paino tuner asked to travel to northeast Burma to repair a piano. The British officer's narrative introducing Drake to the situation in Burma in the early pages of the book is clumsy but if you get past those pages that stall the book early on you'll become engrossed by the story of this lonely but fascinated man.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, Awe-Inspiring Debut
Review: Wow.

It is hard for me to believe that this is not only a first novel, but one written by a fairly young man. It is so full of wisdom, insight, delicacy and depth that it fairly stuns the reader.

As other reviewers have mentioned, the plot, while straightforward, is a dream within a dream. How much is real? How much is fantasy? How much is a waking dream or a dreaming wakefulness? We only know for sure that the highly improbable circumstance of shy, self-effacing piano tuner Edgar Drake journeying beyond his ken (in more ways than one) into the jungles of Burma at the request of the British War Office is true within the confines of the novel.

Once Edgar begins his dreamlike journey from the London of his safe world and on through Europe, into India and into the otherworldly Burma, where he is to tune the piano of surgeon-major Anthony Carroll, we are no longer sure what is real.

There are so many contrasts--a jungle that is brown and dead one day and awash with exotic flowers the next; a man driven deaf by the beauty of a song; a love affair that may not be; a man who may be the hero of the British Empire or may be a deadly spy...all of this is filtered through the enchanted and dreamlike state of Edgar's impressionable mind.

The end is terribly disturbing, and I will not present it in order not to have a spoiler. I took it as a condemnation of British Imperialism at its worst. But maybe not. Like the entire rest of the book, the end may just be a dream.

Absolutely a reading must for anyone who loves literature and is ready for something truly different and new.

Rating:
Summary: One note novel
Review: Borrowing themes from Graham Greene's The Quiet American and Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, one will enjoy this novel for the descriptions of colonial Burma. The description of Drake's, the titular piano tuner, travels from London to Carroll's stronghold in inner Burma is very interesting. His pacing matches the slow journey from the docks of England and his sailing on the waters of the Mediterranean, his train ride through India and his arrival in Rangoon and the slow boat ride up the river to Mandalay up to his journey to where the Erard Piano is located. This section of the narrative takes up 3/4 of the book and nearing the end pages, it's as if nothing is happening. There are hints and inner musings of Drake on his views about Burma and his dilemma of leaving Burma and a femme fatale for home, but all these are done in a pretty vague way, you feel detached and unsympathetic to the character. When we get to the final twist, it is only mentioned in a few paragraphs thus, it gives a rather hurried ending.

Read it if you're interested in colonial life in Asia, Burmese history and pianos, you'll learn a lot. But if you're looking for a compelling, satisfying if not mind-opening read you can do better by reading his inspirations.

Rating:
Summary: Loving description of Burma
Review: Edgar Drake is a quiet, middle-aged piano tuner in Victorian London with a nice job, a nice house and a good marriage when he receives an unusual commission: the British War Office asks him to travel to the Burmese jungle to tune the precious grand piano of a slightly eccentric, but very important, medical doctor, who is capable of arranging peace with the rebelling princes of the Shan states. After a trip that brings Edgar, who has never left England before, to exotic places like Alexandria, Aden en India, he arrives in Burma, where everything is different. But somehow he seems to cope very well, really eager to learn the habits of the country and its people.When the trip to his final destination, Mae Lwin, is endlessly postponed for unknown reasons, he travels illegally to the idyllic hamlet. He meets the doctor and his lovely Burmese girlfriend, tunes the piano and gets caught up in political intrigues that he cannot begin to fathom. In the end his love for Burma leads to his downfall.

A beautifully written book, lovely to read about Burma and amazing that a young American writer can capture the atmosphere of 19th century London so convincingly. A shame that the intrigues with regard to the uprising of the Shan states are so scarcely described that the end of the book was incomprehensible from a political point of view, even though I understood the human aspect of Edgar's downfall. 

Rating:
Summary: An attempt at being deep, but poetic at times
Review: This book was just an excuse for the author to use his skills of painting a beautiful picture with words. The story seamed to meander. I forced myself to finish the book even after I knew there would never be closure. I found myself at the end asking... WHAT?! What about The man with one story - what was the significance of that... and what about ... and what about... read it only for it's descriptions of the land and not for a an engrossing story. Otherwise you will need a great deal of patience.