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Dec 17, 2009

Adriana rated it:

I must begin this review with a caveat: I cannot write about The Piano Tuner in an unbiased fashion, because I love it more than words can describe. I have read it at least 3 times, and each time I am completely drawn in to the world of Edgar Drake, and 19th century colonial Burma. If I were forced to choose a favorite book, this would be one of the contenders. No novel before or since has spoken to me quite as much as this one has.

The Piano Tuner is the the story of Edgar Drake, a More...

1 comment like (13 people liked it)

Oct 16, 2011

Chrissie rated it:

I WILL AVOID SPOILERS! My review is less about plot than what happens to my head and my emotions when I read this book.

Finished: Nope I was wrong about how it would end. My guesses were not exactly right and the difference was very important! The end has a surprising twist. As you know this book had wonderful writing. Good story and good ending. This book has just about everything a book can have, but not much humor. Somehow I didn't miss it, maybe b/c rather than being a grim tale,t More...

21 comments like (8 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Denise rated it:

I was going through a box of books that a friend was giving away, and I came across this novel. I was attracted by the title, so I took it home to read.

The pros: There is a bit of history on the technical aspects of the development of piano-making that I found fascinating, and I enjoyed the details about the actual process of repairing and tuning a piano, though anyone not interested in pianos would probably skip that, much like I did most of the boring Burmese history. Also, th More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Jun 29, 2008

FicusFan rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Eli rated it:

I was shocked by how poorly written this book was. Maybe I'm missing something. I admit that I abandoned it somewhere just past the halfway point, but it was a bit like leaving a baseball game when a team is up 15 to nil. There wasn't a lot of chance for redemption here. This book read to me exactly like a puppet show, where each voice, and each emotion was just a undisguised projection of the voice of the author. Its as if the characters open their mouths and the exact same voice comes out of e More...

4 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 22, 2008

Trilby rated it:

The plot of this novel attracted me: Drake, a British piano tuner makes a journey to the jungles of Burma aka Myanmar) to tune and voice the Erard of an eccentric British officer. The protagonist is drawn quite sketchily, and I had a hard time seeing him in my mind's eye. We learn little of his inner life, except possibly his mindset while tuning. While there are some clunky devices (interjected book excerpts, notes, letters), the story of the tuner's journey is fascinating. I enjoyed the descri More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jul 05, 2008

Rene rated it:

Being a pianist, I especially enjoyed this book. I loved the references to various preludes by Bach and the Haydn Sonata Op 50 in D Major (Youtube it!). When I finished the book, I found my WTC (Well-Tempered Clavier) and played Bach's Prelude #4, referenced on p. 248 in the novel. I think I will always remember it. I was a little disappointed in the ending, although, it added to the mysteriousness of the story and the haunting qualities throughout (Please don't let my disappointment keep you More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Apr 21, 2008

Kelly_kpb rated it:

It is rare that I stop reading a book before the end. Usually I will read the whole thing and then come to the conclusion that it was a bad book, didn't need to read the book, etc.

I didn't need that long for this one. I have never taken so long to read 100 pages in my entire life. There is just no way that I can recommend this to someone, sorry. It reads like one of those books we hated in high school, and plods along like some 17th century English aristocrat who had to write som More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

Jun 20, 2007

Kristen rated it:

I have to give Daniel Mason credit -- if memory serves me right, he's a medical student who decided to write a novel after traveling through Southeast Asia -- a true modern-day Renaissance man. I found the subject matter really interesting, almost seducing -- the romantic idea of someone who lives a simple life in London in the early 20th century, who gets to go on an exotic adventure in colonial Britain to repair a piano. But without giving anything away, I found the ending really underwhelming More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Nov 04, 2011

Sorcha added it

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 More...

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Jan 27, 2012

Roger rated it:

Daniel Mason’s first novel The Piano Tuner tells the story of Edgar Drake, one of the finest piano tuners in England. Taking place in the 1880s, the British government summons Drake to go to Burma to tune the piano of the military general Anthony Carrol, who uses music to unite the warring Shan tribes. Drake may be the central figure of the novel, but the inscrutable genius of Carrol creates a most fascinating character. Mason successfully moves the story from the bustling streets of late 19th c More...

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Jan 09, 2012

Colleen rated it:

This is one of those books that you begin hopefully and end up putting down again and again. It has so much going for it--wow, the author graduated from Harvard and traveled in Burma studying malaria and as of the print date he is still just a medical student! How accomplished! This must be really good, right?

Well, I do give Mason credit for being obviously well-read and a very very good writer, but there are so many elements here that drive a reader insane. First and foremost, his w More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 05, 2011

Cameron rated it:

I Choose to read "The Piano Tuner" because it sounded like an interesting book that I would have enjoyed reading over the summer. "The Piano Tuner" caught my attention before I even knew what the word was about because I myself am a piano player and thought it might have been something different if I read about the life of a piano tuner. At first I thought the book would have been about a piano tuner doing his job and his everyday life of fixing and tuning pianos for vari More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 18, 2011

Venuskitten rated it:

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Aug 07, 2011

Linh rated it:

The story of a piano tuner that was sent to the Shan States to tune a Erard during the height of the British / Burman war. Doctor Anthony Carroll was the Surgeon-Major in charge of the Shan States at the time and he believed that music can do wonders as a peaceful negotiation strategy, in contrast to war. It was this Doctor that requested a piano tuner be sent all the way from England when the piano he ordered ended up out of tune due to humidity. During his time there, he fell in love with t More...

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Dec 28, 2010

Nick rated it:

Daniel Mason is clearly besotted with Burmese culture, the golden pagodas, the street theater, the wet uplands with its tangle of ethnicities. The star of the novel is nineteenth century Burma seen through the naive eyes of the piano tuner Edgar Drake. The colonial English are alternately brutal and witless; the Burmese barely exist, except as teenage scouts and the exotic woman of mystery with the improbably eloquent English. The object of the piano tuner's quest is the even more improbable More...

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Jan 12, 2010

Gladia rated it:

I usually don't give up, also on books that I don't like at all, but today I do give up. The funny thing is that I don't even dislike The Piano Tuner that much, actually not at all. I like the main character (kudos to Mason to picture the boring job of piano tuning as a very interesting one), I like pianos, I like travelling and adventure (East not being exactly my favourite destination, but what the heck, as long as you're moving that's usually good enough for me to go there). And yet, I cannot More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Nov 11, 2009

Cliff rated it:

Anthony Carroll is a British Army surgeon who has created a utopia for himself deep in the jungles of Burma in the 1880s where he ministers to the sick, charms the local rebellious warlords by playing to them on his grand piano, and in his spare time does scientific research on malaria.

The local British officials think Carroll is ideologically unsound, but useful to them in helping pacify the country. Therefore when the piano goes out of tune, they persuade a rather passive, unworld More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 25, 2011

Holly rated it:

Had tried to read The Piano Tuner a couple of years ago after a strong recommendation from a friend, but I put it down at the halfway point. This time around one of my book clubs had chosen the novel for discussion, so I began again and successfully finished. Glancing at the earlier Goodreads reviews this appears to be a "love it-or-hate it" novel for most, yet I am decidedly lukewarm. Random thoughts: I could see the gears moving too much for my pleasure. It felt staged: each time som More...

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Aug 31, 2010

Nícia rated it:

O Afinador de Pianos é muito mais do que a história da afinação de um piano. É a história de um país e de uma guerra, é uma história sobre sonhos, aventuras e emoções, sobre a descoberta do self, sobre a música que há em todos nós.

Há muito tempo que não lia um livro tão surpreendente e cativante. O Afinador de Pianos está repleto de bons momentos que contrastam com instantes arrepiantes: temos suspense, humor, sensualidade, poesia, mistério e morbidade.

As descrições são l More...

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Dec 25, 2010

Steven rated it:

Update after completing the book. Burma or modern day Myanmar was considered the seat of orthodox Buddhism but, as can be read in the book regarding the everyday lives of the people, the true religion is a syncronism between Buddhism and Animism. The author, who has traveled and read extensively in Asia (although maybe not Myanmar in the last few decades due to the tight control of the military government - as paranoid as that of North Korea) covers quite a bit of the color of Burma in the 19th More...

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Jul 14, 2009

Alicia rated it:

I absolutely loved this book. I read it on a recommendation from my law school, that it was about the legal profession, which, it isn't, but it is still a wonderful exploration of the range of human emotion and feelings I think many humans get over their lifetime.

Edgar Drake is a complex, interesting and a character that one can easily relate to. I believe, so many of us as humans at some point or another wonder if there is more in the world that our mini-universes, which I think is More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2009

Bridget rated it:

I received this book as a Christmas gift a few years back, and it was one of those books that I figured I would eventually "get around to" reading. I'm so glad that I did, it was so interesting!

Edgar Drake, a middle-aged man in London in 1886, who is a piano tuner, receives a commission from the British War Office to travel to Burma to tune a piano that belongs to an army surgeon. The surgeon is considered to be eccentric, but he has accomplished a lot of good things with More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 03, 2011

Amber rated it:

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Following Edgar Drake on his journey from London to the wild frontiers of Burma was wonderful, especially because Edgar is the kind of traveler who knows how to leave his expectations of home behind and embrace the new cultures and experiences that present themselves along the way. This, to me, is the very best way to travel and the only way of making sure that you truly experience the place you're visiting. The character of Dr. Anthony Carroll is a legendary one. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Chana rated it:

I think British Imperialism was wrong; a simple statement but the chutzpah, the entitlement, the condescension, the war making; it ate at me the whole time I was reading. And I think the story was boring, vague and dreamy. The history was disturbing, the story meandered and didn't make much sense unless Edgar Drake was tuning a piano or Dr. Carroll was doctoring, in which case it seemed better grounded in reality. I went on Wiki to see what was going on in Burma today and basically it is a me More...

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Jan 25, 2011

sydney rated it:

Edgar Drake is one of the best piano tuners in Victorian London. One day, he's mysteriously summoned by officers of the British army to go on a mission to Burma to repair the piano of Doctor Anthony Carroll. Carroll is an important army guy (colonel maybe?) in command of a British army post in the Shan states of Burma. Despite a rebellion against the British, Carroll has managed to maintain peace in the town of Mae Lwin through some odd combination of music and diplomacy and doctoring. The More...

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Sep 14, 2011

Steve rated it:

Enchanting! I really enjoyed this book. the slow enchantment of the main character with Burma reminded me so much of my own enchantment deep in the mountains of the Golden Triangle; the jungles of the eastern Malay peninsula; the stark ricefields of Cambodia in the dry and the ephemeral surrealism of Mekong and its surrounds, the seductive chatms of thr cities on its banks during the early 70s. I relived many moments in the reading of this book. That only confirmed in me the thought that I arriv More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 23, 2010

Blake rated it:

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3 comments like

Dec 08, 2010

John rated it:

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0 comments like

Nov 03, 2010

Barrett rated it:

While the characters of The Piano Tuner invoke Homer's Odyssey as their literary foil, this novel is much more a reworking of Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now. Kurtz' methods were "unsound", Anthony Carroll's are literally sound. Maybe that gives a clue to the tone of the novel as a whole.

Daniel Mason sets the story in 1887 and includes a enough historical background on both British Burma and Erard pianos to orient most readers, but he chooses to set the dialogue in a much mo More...

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