Let me tell you a story....

books:


	• The Piano Tuner: A Novel Daniel Mason Vintage, 2003 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 149 reviews view larger image
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The Piano Tuner

In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives an odd telegram from the British War Offices. The telegram contains a request that he leave his wife in London to travel the jungles of Burma, where he'd find an Erard grand piano that is in need of repairing. The piano belongs to an army surgeon major by the name of Anthony Carroll, whose eccentric peacemaking techniques include music, poetry, and medicine. As Drake travels through Europe, the Red Sea, India, and into Burma, Drake meets all sorts of people and learns of their stories.

The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason is a wonderful novel. Although slow to get through in the beginning, it starts to pick up when the journey begins. Each new cultural experience Drake encounters draws in the reader with the desire to know more. If you are looking for a book that you can't put down, one that is adventurous and touching at the same time, The Piano Turner is an excellent choice.

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A Good Read

Feels like Apocolypse Now in some ways. A good book with vivid imagery and character descriptions...it drew me in and I wanted to see where the story went.

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Let me tell you a story....

"Let me tell you a story" the old man said. "What is the story about?" replied the boy, his eyes bright with anticipation. "A book" said the old man as he settled into his favorite chair. "Is it a good book?" asked the boy. "Listen to the story, then you can decide yourself." And so he began, "There was a writer who loved words, and he loved to put them together into beautiful sentences. His words made the world of old Burma come alive. Spice scents fill the air, flowers glow like beacons, insects sing in the humid, fertile wet-lands. He decided in order to describe this hypnotic place someone from far away would have to view it for the first time. The traveler's reactions would give him an opportunity to write in rich detail about it. This made the man very happy." "So far I quite like this book" smiled the boy. But the old man held up his hand and continued,"And because the feeling of the place was so magical to the writer, he wove fantasies, strange tales, and many dreams into his book." "I like those things" said the boy, "but baba, what is the book about?" "Here is where the problems lie", sighed the man. "The writer made up a very strange circumstance to allow his traveler to reach Burma. It is a circumstance that would never happen, and even as you read his beautiful sentences, you know this." "Well then, what of the traveler?" asked the boy, "will I love him, or hate him, or find him an interesting human being?" "I'm afraid not" sighed the man, "He is almost bloodless in his interaction with the world. As an observer, he is first rate, but that is all. He is a tool to allow the writer to express his lovely words. One thing the traveler does very well though, is he falls into deep reverie, almost a trance, often. Other times he dozes, even in the midst of historical meetings. And when he is in either of these half-waking states, wonderful things happen. Candles glow golden against crimson silks, chopped peppers the color of ox-blood sit pungently in bowls, and bright water courses down beautiful tanned arms of Burmese women" "Well then, is the book well put together?" the youngster asked. "There are many strange things in the make-up of this book" the man replied, "A piano is carried on a journey, by six strong men who find it arduous. Yet, a man and 3 young boys are able to easily lift the piano off a raft while it floats on a river. Quotation marks come and go. Often entire conversations take place without them. I wondered if this was done on purpose to catch the reader off guard, to make one feel off-kilter." "Hmmmm" pondered the boy, "so far you have told me many things about this book, but you did not tell me if you enjoyed it." "I suspended the need for a believable plot or deep characterizations, so yes, I enjoyed reading it" replied the man "but not as much, I suspect, as the author enjoyed writing it."

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In 1886 a shy, middle-aged piano tuner named Edgar Drake receives an unusual commission from the British War Office: to travel to the remote jungles of northeast Burma and there repair a rare piano belonging to an eccentric army surgeon who has proven mysteriously indispensable to the imperial design. From this irresistible beginning, The Piano Tuner launches its protagonist into a world of seductive loveliness and nightmarish intrigue. And as he follows Drake?s journey, Mason dazzles readers with his erudition, moves them with his vibrantly rendered characters, and enmeshes them in the unbreakable spell of his storytelling.

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