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Fiction.
Literature.
Historical Fiction.
HTML: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 methodsâ??poetry, medicine, and now musicâ??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 doctorâ??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 unforgettab… (more)
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.[return][return]Lovely languague, good story, ending so-so
An immersion into another world of beauty, intrigue which both the main character and the reader finds intoxicating. A shy and sensitive man grows deeper grappling with the mysteries of this world. ( )
Information from the Dutch Common Knowledge. Edit to localize it to your language.
"Brothers," I said, "o you who have crossed a hundred thousand dangers, reach the west to this brief waking time that is left unto your senses, you must not deny experience of that which lies beyond the sun, and all the world that is unpeopled."
Dante, Inferno, canto XXVI
Music, to create harmony, must investigate dischord.
Plutarch
Dedication
For my grandmother, Halina
First words
In the fleeting seconds of final memory, the image that will become Burma is the sun and a woman's parasol.
Fiction.
Literature.
Historical Fiction.
HTML: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 methodsâ??poetry, medicine, and now musicâ??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 doctorâ??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 unforgettab
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Book description
When Edgar Drake is summoned to the British War Office and asked to tune an eccentric major's 1840 Erard grand piano in the jungles of Burma, he is both confused and intrigued. The year is 1886, and the British Empire is attempting to tighten its control of its colonies in the Far East, to fend off French rivals in the Mekong Delta, and to quell the resistance of a confederacy of local Shan tribes in northern Burma. As Edgar embarks on his first trip abroad, the beauty and mystery of Burms, its customs and music, and an exotic woman named Khin Myo cast a spell that he cannot resist. Written in a prose capable of both historical precision and mystical lushness, The Piano Tuner explores British colonialism at a moment of crisis and the ill fortune of a man who confuses "the cause of music" with the cause of empire.
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Wikipedia in English (1)
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Daniel Mason
Publicado: 2003 | 309 páginas
Novela Histórico
En plena época victoriana, un experto y apacible afinador de pianos llamado Edgar Drake, especializado en los delicadÃsimos Erard, es requerido por el ejército colonial británico para viajar a Birmania con el fin de reparar un ejemplar que se halla en posesión del erudito comandante médico Anthony Carroll. Por medio de la música y la poesÃa, Carroll ha logrado pacificar a las tribus locales, razón por la cual, desde tiempo atrás, ha exigido el preciado instrumento como condición para continuar con su estratégica misión en el corazón de la selva birmana. Asà pues, tras dejar a su esposa en Londres, el afinador de pianos emprende el largo periplo por los mares de Europa, el Mar Rojo, y el Océano Indico hasta llegar al interior de Birmania, descubriendo en su camino paisajes gloriosos y personajes de leyenda. Pero si la prolongada travesÃa ha despertado sus sentidos hasta el punto de impactar de lleno en su percepción del mundo y, sobre todo, de su persona, lo que espera al afinador es una realidad aún más oscura y compleja de la que jamás hubiera podido imaginar. Cautivado por una civilización tan extraña, donde el ser humano vive y expresa sus sentimientos con una fuerza inusitada para él, Drake tendrá que enfrentarse a las raÃces de su yo más profundo y, a la postre, aceptar lo que el destino le tiene reservado. Impregnada de una creciente sensualidad y un misterioso lirismo, y ribeteada con fascinantes apuntes sobre la historia de la antigua Birmania o los enigmas matemáticos de la música, la narración conduce al lector a través de un mundo cincelado por los mitos, el goce de vivir y el descubrimiento de uno mismo. Daniel Mason ha logrado teñir de majestuosidad el encuentro entre los polos opuestos de la naturaleza humana, una puja de fuerzas donde la música se revela como el único medio capaz de tender un puente entre lo aparentemente irreconciliable.