Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12113 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-02
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Synopsis
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 Erard 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, nd 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 a hypnotic tale of myth, romance and self-discovery. It is an unforgettable and haunting novel.

Customer Reviews

A tale with a twist - well worth persevering with
I found this book hard to read at first - in fact I started it more than a year ago and abandoned it half way through. Last week I picked it up again and found the second half absolutely gripping. I finished it last night and this morning when I woke up I lay in bed for a while thinking about the book and the strange ending, and suddenly the penny dropped and I was stunned. I don't want to give too much away to anyone who hasn't yet read it, but there's more to it than what it appears to be on the surface, and not everything is as it seems. I re-read different sections and there are hints to what is really going on, such as the talk of the nature of reality - think about what the author was doing while he wrote the book...then of course I could be wrong!

This is an amazing, intelligent, mature story, and vividly descriptive. One of the best books I have read and I can highly recommend it.

Difficult but rewarding
At first I found it hard to get into this book. I started reading it expecting an adventure story, and though there is some action involved (precious little however), that is perhaps the wrong way about it. Perhaps the best way to read it is let yourself be immersed in the rich, lyrical language, almost as if you would read a poem.

The plot reminds of `Heart of Darkness' by Joseph Conrad: in this book too an individual sets out to find a military commander, living in a remote area of an Asian state occupied by a Western country. Apart from that however, the difference could not be bigger, `The piano tuner' is almost a mirror image of `Heart of Darkness'. Whereas the latter focuses on the dark side of the human mind, the former concentrates (in beautiful language, I cannot help but repeat), on the beauty of the Shan states and its inhabitants. Edgar Drake (the piano tuner of the title) opens his heart to this beauty, with unexpected consequences.

One to savour!

Evocative and haunting.
It took me a few chapters to get into this book but once I was used to the writing style I found I couldn't put it down. The talent that Daniel Mason has to conjure the spirit and feeling of his setting is incredible - if I closed my eyes I felt like I could see, smell and touch Burma and its people. The story kept me gripped, especially once Edgar had reached Burma and the ending was heartbreaking. An incredibly clever twist. Not a perfect book but it is so clever and the writing so evocative and powerful that I couldn't give it less than 5 stars. Certainly one of the most talented authors I've come across in recent years.