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Earnest Jones The Piano Tuner Author: Daniel Mason Hardcover Usually ships in 24 hours Delivery is subject to warehouse availability. Shipping delays may occur if we receive more orders than stock. Our Price: $36.00 Our Sale Price: $25.20 Savings: $10.80 (30%) Ordering is 100% secure . Spend $39 or more at chapters.indigo.ca and your order ships free!. ( Details ) Dimensions: 336 Pages | ISBN: 0375414657 Published: September 2002 | Published by Knopf Canada chapters.indigo Review I can hardly believe this is a first novel. Part Heart of Darkness , part A Room With a View , The Piano Tuner is a wonderful tale of the clash between passion and duty, set in exotic 19th century Burma. The writing is magical, the story captivating – it's a book I couldn’t put down and it may well be the sleeper hit of this fall's line-up. — Indigo's CEO, Heather Reisman In Daniel Mason's unforgettable first novel, a British piano tuner leaves his wife and strikes out for Burma at the request of the British military, ostensibly to tune a rare piano. I did wonder if a book about a piano tuner was going to hold my interest. Then I held the book in my hands and found myself enthralled by the image of a woman holding a parasol, quietly staring across a pond at an ancient temple. This imagery so intrigued me that I began to read this novel in earnest. I could not put this book down, and I think many will feel the same. Over the course of two nights, the compelling story of this unassuming man's journey into self-discovery, mystics, storytellers, healers, and bandits in foreign lands both beautiful and treacherous kept me hooked, the insatiable need to know conquering all fatigue. 'The Piano Tuner' is a most amazing tale. It gives copious information on the history and tuning of an Erard piano, while holding one's interest to the end with palpable sensuality, passion, and enough adventure for Indiana Jones. -- April L. Burrows From the Publisher An extraordinary first novel that tells the story of a British piano tuner sent deep into Burma in the nineteenth century. In October 1886, Edgar Drake receives a strange request from the British War Office: he must leave his wife and his quiet life in London to travel to the jungles of Burma, where a rare Erard grand piano is in need of repair. The piano belongs to an army surgeon-major whose unorthodox peacemaking methods—poetry, medicine, and now music—have brought a tentative quiet to the southern Shan States but have elicited questions from his superiors. On his journey through Europe, the Red Sea, India, and into Burma, Edgar meets soldiers, mystics, bandits, and tale-spinners, as well as an enchanting woman as elusive as the surgeon-major. And at the doctor’s fort on a remote Burmese river, Edgar encounters a world more mysterious and dangerous than he ever could have imagined. Sensuous, lyrical, rich with passion and adventure, this is a hypnotic tale of myth, romance, and self-discovery: an unforgettable novel. About the Author Daniel Mason received his bachelor’s degree in biology from Harvard in 1998 and spent a year studying malaria on the Thai and Myanmar border, where much of The Piano Tuner was written. He is currently a medical student at the University of California, San Francisco. Tips for your Reading Group 1. 1. The Piano Tuner participates in a tradition of literary works that try to fathom colonized cultures vastly different from the author’s own. What features does Daniel Mason’s novel share with such predecessors as E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India , Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness , or George Orwell’s “Shooting an Elephant”? How is it different from these works? 2. In briefing Edgar Drake about Anthony Carroll, Colonel Killian tells Edgar that “there are men who get lost in the rhetoric of our imperial destiny, that we conquer not to gain land and wealth but to spread culture and civilization” (p. 18). Is this true of Carroll? Is he motivated to spread Western culture, via music, to the East? Is it true of Edgar? What does the novel as a whole suggest about the purpose of imperialism? 3. Why does Edgar decide to accept a mission to travel thousands of miles to tune a piano in a remote and dangerous jungle at the furthest outreaches of the British Empire? Why does his wife, Katherine, encourage him to go? 4. Why is Anthony Carroll viewed with such a mixture of reverence and suspicion by the British military? In what ways does his behavior defy convention? 5. As he contemplates his voyage to Burma, Edgar views London on a foggy night: “he could see the vague line of the shore, the vast, heavy architecture that crowded the river. Like animals at a waterhole, he thought, and he liked the comparison” (p. 23). Why is this a particularly apt simile for Edgar to use at this moment? Where else in the novel does Mason reveal the depth of Edgar’s consciousness through his impressions? 6. Edgar writes to Katherine that the “entire trip has already coated itself in a veneer of seeming, a dream likeness” (p. 146). In what ways is this true? What gives Edgar’s experiences an otherworldly quality? What role do his dreams play in the novel? 7. During the tiger hunt, Captain Witherspoon spots some egrets and asks if he can shoot them. “Not here,” Capatin Dalton tells him. “The egrets are part of the founding myths of Pegu. Bad luck to shoot them, my friend.” To which Witherspoon replies, “Superstitious nonsense. . . . I thought we were educating them to abandon such beliefs” (p. 94). What does this exchange suggest about the British attitude toward colonial subjects in Burma? About the cultural differences between the British and Burmese? 8. What is the significance of the one boy to whom Edgar gives a coin being accidentally shot by Captain Witherspoon? Why does Edgar refer to the coin as “a symbol of responsibility, of misplaced munificence, a reminder of mistakes, and so a talisman” (p. 104)? In what sense does Edgar inherit the boy’s “fortune”? 9. In what ways is Edgar perfectly suited to the task set for him by Anthony Carroll? How do his dreaminess, his propensity for getting lost, his clumsiness, and his political na•vet? all serve Carroll’s ends? 10. After he’s been away from London for several months, Edgar writes to Katherine that he has changed, although, he admits “What this change means I don’t know, just as I don’t know if I am happier or sadder than I have ever been.” He also says, “There is a purpose in all of this . . . although I do not know what it is” (p. 252). How has Edgar changed? What has changed him? What is his real purpose in Burma? 11. What kind of woman is Khin Myo? Is her attraction to Edgar real or feigned? What is her relationship to Anthony Carroll? How is she related to the woman with the parasol at the beginning and end of the story? Is she, as Nash-Burnham suggests in the ghostly conversation in the guardhouse, Edgar’s “creation,” a part of his “imaginings” (p.302)? 12. Music occurs throughout The Piano Tuner , from the hauntingly beautiful song the Man with One Story hears in the desert, to the love ditty Anthony Carroll plays on a flute to fend off attackers in the jungle, to the Bach fugue Edgar plays for the sawbwa , to the call of insects scraping their wings in the jungle. What roles does music play in the novel? How does it affect its hearers? What is its ultimate importance in the story? 13. After Edgar escapes from the guardhouse, he reads the note that Carroll had given him–a passage from his translation of The Odyssey about the Lotus-Eaters who “forget the way home” (p. 310). In what ways has Edgar “tasted” of the lotus? Why does he find Burma so alluring? What does the lotus signify in this context? 14. Why does Edgar cut the piano loose from its moorings and send it down the Salween River in a rainstorm? In what ways is this striking image–a grand piano floating downriver on an unmanned raft and being “played” by the rain–suggestive of the novel’s larger themes? 15. What accounts for The Piano Tuner ’s elusive, hard-to-pin-down quality? What remains mysterious after the book is finished? How does Mason’s prose style contribute to the sense of ambiguity that pervades the novel? 16. At the end of the novel, Captain Nash-Burnham tells Edgar that Anthony Carroll is a traitor to England and suggests a number of possible roles for the Doctor: “Anthony Carroll is an agent working for Russia, He is a Shan nationalist, He is a French spy, Anthony Carroll wants to build his own kingdom in the jungles of Burma” (p. 301). Edgar thinks Carroll is a genius and a peacemaker. Which of these interpretations seems most likely? Is it possible to know from the evidence in the novel? 17. Why does Mason begin and end the novel with the image of the sun and a parasol? What symbolic or cultural values might attach to this image? 18. What does the novel as a whole suggest about the British Empire–its effects on colonized peoples and on those who try to rule them–in the late nineteenth century? In what ways is this historical portrait relevant to our own time and the political and cultural conflicts between the West and the Middle East? Review Quotes "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 "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 (starred review) Reader Reviews Average Reader Review: Number of Reviews: 1 1. An absolute page-turner Reviewer: April L. Burrows from Ontario Date: 9/6/2002 3:52:57 PM In Daniel Mason’s unforgettable first novel, a British piano tuner leaves his wife and strikes out for Burma at the request of the British military, ostensibly to tune a rare piano. I did wonder if a book about a piano tuner was going to hold my interest. Then I held the book in my hands and found myself enthralled by the image of a woman holding a parasol, quietly staring across a pond at an ancient temple. This imagery so intrigued me that I began to read this novel in earnest. I could not put this book down, and I think many will feel the same. Over the course of two nights, the compelling story of this unassuming man’s journey into self-discovery, mystics, storytellers, healers, and bandits in foreign lands both beautiful and treacherous, kept me hooked; the insatiable need to know conquering all fatigue. ‘The Piano Tuner’ is a most amazing tale. It gives copious information on the history and tuning of an Erard piano, while holding one's interest to the end with pal Info Desk iREWARDS Program About Our Company Affiliate Opportunities Careers Contact Us Corporate Sales Gift Certificates Privacy Policy Shipping Rates Store Locations Wish List chapters.indigo.ca: books Shopping Bag | Account Centre | Wish List | Help iREWARDS Program | Corporate Sales | Store Locations All Products Books DVD Video Gifts Books Advanced Search Search Tips About this Book chapters.indigo Review From the Publisher About the Author Read from the Book Tips for your Reading Group Review Quotes Reader Reviews . 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