The Piano: A Novel
by Jane Campion (Author), Kate Pullinger
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Uniformly well written and authoritative, this guide will channel anyone's love for the instrument, through social, intellectual, art history and beyond into the electronic age.Tags
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Concise, well written extended story that informed the famous film, though it was written after the movie got famous. Luckily I did not remember the script of the movie. It is a killer of a story, with, however, the obligatory Hollywood ending (breaking the thread of connectedness to the piano, by letting it sink and drifting to the surface oneself).
What was really well elaborated in the novel is the central role that the piano plays as a conveyor or proxy of the sensibilities of its player – how music can enchant the soul while allowing souls to meet or repel each other. Campbell and co also treat the classic dilemma of strangers in a foreign, wild society very well by developing two diametrically opposed archetypes in Stewart show more (settler – hungry for fenced land) and Baines (interpreter between two worlds – going local). The local Maoris also play a healthy role as antidote to Victorian fanciness. I like the Maori woman’s remark on Baines’ tool wasting away with his wife far off in Scotland – such a waste. Also on the way to Stewart’s house there is a hush and stoppage, when the Maori carriers pass the spot where the old man died.
Campbell is one of the best writers on female sensitivities in a positive sense of the word. show less
What was really well elaborated in the novel is the central role that the piano plays as a conveyor or proxy of the sensibilities of its player – how music can enchant the soul while allowing souls to meet or repel each other. Campbell and co also treat the classic dilemma of strangers in a foreign, wild society very well by developing two diametrically opposed archetypes in Stewart show more (settler – hungry for fenced land) and Baines (interpreter between two worlds – going local). The local Maoris also play a healthy role as antidote to Victorian fanciness. I like the Maori woman’s remark on Baines’ tool wasting away with his wife far off in Scotland – such a waste. Also on the way to Stewart’s house there is a hush and stoppage, when the Maori carriers pass the spot where the old man died.
Campbell is one of the best writers on female sensitivities in a positive sense of the word. show less
I was sure this book would be one of my all-time favorites because I absolutely love the movie. However, the writing style (I believe it's called the 'passive voice'?) kept me at an emotional distance from the story unlike the movie, which was intensely passionate. It was my visual memories of Holly Hunter, Anna Paquin, Harvey Keitel and Sam Neill that kept me engrossed in the written story. I did appreciate that the book delved into Ada's past, telling the story of why she does not speak. I also thought it interesting how Ada's will is portrayed as an almost separate being, surprising even Ada at times throughout the story. In the case of The Piano, I would break my very strict rule and suggest seeing the movie first and then reading show more the book. show less
I almost never like movies, but "The Piano" haunted me. I craved a prequel -- why didn't Ada talk? What brought Alisdair Stewart and George Baines to New Zealand?
The book by Jane Campion answers these questions. Like the movie, the setting and style set a tone that rises a plot of jealousy and adultry to literary heights. Profoundly moving story and I could really feel for all the characters.
The book by Jane Campion answers these questions. Like the movie, the setting and style set a tone that rises a plot of jealousy and adultry to literary heights. Profoundly moving story and I could really feel for all the characters.
As I understand it, this book expands on the stories of the characters from the film. From that I expect it was written after the film, and I got that feeling from the book itself - there was a feeling of something being rushed over or left out. By that I mean that the story and the tensions within it would have benefited from being teased out a little slower, given more time to unfurl. I didn't fully believe in the connections between characters as there wasn't enough fleshing them out.
Having said all that, I did actually enjoy this book a great deal. The writing is of a good quality, and it doesn't stumble awkwardly over the sexual content either. It's given me an appetite to see the film too.
Having said all that, I did actually enjoy this book a great deal. The writing is of a good quality, and it doesn't stumble awkwardly over the sexual content either. It's given me an appetite to see the film too.
Was I meant to applaud Alisdair Stewart doing….what he did? Because I did. A story with a completely unsympathetic female lead character, who, one feels, would benefit from a spell in a psychiatric unit. One for the charity shop.
In the award-winning film The Piano, writer/director Jane Campion created a story so original and powerful it fascinated millions of moviegoers. This novel stands independent of the film, exploring the mysteries of Ada's muteness, the secret of her daughter's conception, the reason for her strange marriage and the past lives of Baines and Stewart.
A beautiful, compelling novel set in New Zealand in the ninteenth century. Ada and her daughter move to NZ to meet the man she is married to. He refuses to bring her piano to "their" house. Ada, being mute, sees the piano as her only outlet for expression. Her husband's neighbor, who is very intrigued with Ada, takes the piano in a trade. Ada and Baines (the neighbor) fall in love while she plays the piano, but will it end in tragedy when her husband finds out?
Absolutely breathtaking.
Absolutely breathtaking.
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Author Information
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Belongs to Publisher Series
Cine para leer (15)
Rainbow pocketboeken (238)
Work Relationships
Is an adaptation of
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1994
- People/Characters
- Ada McGrath; Flora McGrath; George Baines; Alisdair Stewart
- Important places
- New Zealand
- Related movies
- The Piano (1993 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- Today I will not seek the shadowy region;
Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
And visions rising, legion after legion,
Bring the unreal world too strangely near.
--Emily Bronte (1818 - 1848) - First words
- The story of Ada and her piano has been told and retold by those in the small New Zealand settlement of _________, and by those back in Scotland who knew Ada and her daughter, and her daughter's daughters.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)At night I think of my piano in its ocean grave, and sometimes of myself floating about it. Down there everything is so still and silent that it lulls me to sleep. It is a weird lullaby and so it is, it is mine.
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There is a silence where hath been no sound
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave - under the deep, deep sea . . .
--Thomas Hood (1799 - 1845)
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- 534
- Popularity
- 55,999
- Reviews
- 12
- Rating
- (3.64)
- Languages
- 14 — Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 32
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 4
