The Piano Tuner: A Novel: "A gripping and resonant novel" (Vintage): Amazon.de: Daniel Mason: Englische Bücher

Pressestimmen

“Thoroughly engaging, an excellent early-21st-century reproduction of a late Victorian novel… [Mason] renders [Burma] and its culture brilliantly. His powerful prose style and his ability to embrace history, politics, nature and medicine within a fully imagined 19th-century fictional world would be notable in any writer and are astonishing in one who is just 26…The reader finds an excellent guide to the wonders and sorrows of another place and time.” –Andrea Barrett, The New York Times Book Review

“A rattling good story, complex characterizations, and a brilliantly realized portrayal of an alien culture–all combine to dazzling effect in this first by a California medical student who has worked and studied in the Far East. Piano tuner Edgar Drake undertakes his journey (thrillingly described), arriving at the inland fortress where the suave Dr. Anthony Carroll–part Albert Schweitzer, part Mistah Kurtz of Heart of Darkness–rules as a benevolent despot, aided by a beautiful Burmese woman to whom Edgar finds himself increasingly attracted. A wealth of information–musical, medical, historical, political–and numerous colorfully detailed vignettes of life in Burma’s teeming cities and jungle villages provide a solid context for the intricate plot, which brings Drake into ‘complicity’ with Carroll’s visionary dream…until the powerful denouement [and the] deeply ironic climactic action. (One keeps thinking of what a marvelous movie The Piano Tuner might make.) . . . An irresistible amalgam of Kipling, Rider Haggard, and Conrad at their very best. Masterful.” –Kirkus

“[The Piano Tuner] ends, inevitably, in tragedy, but the reader will regret that it ends at all. This is an utterly involving first novel, rich in historical detail. Mason’s language is at once tropically lush and as precise as a Bach prelude. A novel for readers of literary and popular fiction alike; highly recommended.” –Library Journal

“An ambitious, adventuresome, highly unusual first novel that offers pleasures too rarely encountered in contemporary American literary fiction…[Mason is] a gifted, original and courageous writer.” –Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World

“A strange, often beautiful story…full of haunting, gorgeous scenes…With a deft hand [and] trills of wit and suspense, Mason delivers a timely critique of the self-justifying nature of military action. In these troubled times, it’s a tune you can’t get out of your head...A smart, entertaining adventure.” –Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor

"An extraordinary piece of work. The Piano Tuner is a novel of journeys and the shifting grounds of perception, but at heart it is a story of the human urge to be absorbed fully into life, to cease to be a bystander, to be thrust into the essential dreamscape of human strivings. Daniel Mason's debut is shining and striking. He transported me thoroughly, well beyond the initial reading. Days later, the scenes shift and stir and agitate within me. This is writing of deep potency and resonance. Of beauty and pain and all things in between."
–Jeffrey Lent, author of In the Fall and Lost Nation

"Daniel Mason has woven together an elegant and unusually engrossing story, one that offers the reader the best possible journey–into a world that no longer exists. Rich, atmospheric, and evocative of the sights, smells and textures of 19th century Burma, The Piano Tuner is an astonishingly accomplished first novel. I truly enjoyed it."
–Arthur Golden, author of Memoirs of a Geisha

From the Hardcover edition.

Kurzbeschreibung

Rich with passion and adventure, this is a hypnotic tale of myth, romance and self- discovery, as a piano tuner travels to the jungles of Burma to tune a rare Erard grand piano. Already has serious film interest. -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Taschenbuch .

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A fascinating & rewarding journey 23. September 2007

Von Wombatsbooks TOP 500 REZENSENT VINE™-PRODUKTTESTER

Format:Taschenbuch

Mason's debut was a fascinating one to me. I couldn't put it down and I have to agree with the previous reviewer that it is a pageturner. Not because it is so thrilling, but because it is a gripping story written beautifully:

Edgar Drake is a famous piano tuner. Shortly after the fall of Mandalay he receives the request from the War Office to tune a military surgeon's piano. That itself would not be unusual, if it weren't for the location of surgeon Anthony Carroll and his piano: some remote place in distant Burma. Carroll seems to be a man of myths: he is said to have reached peace with the local Shan tribe by employing music and poetry. Since Drake knows of Carroll's importance to the British Empire, he is very proud and happy to comply the War Office's request.

About the first half of the book is devoted to Drake's journey to Burma. Mason has a very rich and descriptive style, which makes Drake's journey a very rewarding, unputdownable one to the readers.

The second half is about Drake's time in Burma. Burma and Carroll seem captivating to the British piano tuner - very much so, since things become surreal and Drake seems to be unable to find his way back home.

Mason's protagonists and their interactions to me were just fabulous. There are numerous twists to the story, that kept me nailed to my armchair. Last but not least Mason is a stickler for detail w/o overdoing it and thus "The Piano Tuner" was my time machine to a different, mysterious place in colonial times.

Result: A brilliant debut! Not to be missed!

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a real page turner 4. Juni 2004

Von M. V. Steiof

"The Piano Tuner" is an abolute must for everyone who as fallen in love with South East Asia or has ever relevled about what ravelling the world must have been like at a time when mass tourisme, jet planes or globalisations where unknown.
The story, placed mainly in "British"- Burma, doesn't idialize colonialisation but cast a slightly critical light on it without making it a major topic.
Edgar Drake, a 1886 London Piano Tuner, specialized in Erard Grands, is sent onto a unusual commission to Burma by the war office in order to repair the piano of a legendary but controversial army surgeon in the remote regions of the burmese Shan states.
On his journey half way across the globe he meet many excotic fellow travels, some of whom share extrodenary stories, customs and believes with him.
But what is starting out as a dazzling and enchanting adventure takes a foul turn somewhere along the way...

2 von 2 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

A real page turner 4. Juni 2004

"The Piano Tuner" is an absolute must for everybody who has fallen love with South East Asia or has ever reveled in imaginations of how travelling the world must have been like before the age of mass tourisme, jetplanes and globalisation.
It is a book that dosn't idealise colonialisation but casts a slightly critical light on the topic without making it part of the main story.
E. Drake, 1886 London piano tuner, specialized in Erards, receives the unusual commission to travel to Burma in order to repair the piano of an almost legendary but also controversial army surgeon in its remote Shan regions.
On his long jouney half way accross the globe he meets many interesting and excotic fellow travellers, some of which let him in on stories, local customs and believes that are nearly legendary.
But what is starting out to be a fabulous adventure takes a wrong turn somewhere along the line...