THE PIANO TUNER by Daniel Mason

This book is extremely reminiscent of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, including a river trip to meet up with a man with an outsized reputation.  The British colony this time is Burma, and the country has an intoxicating effect on Edgar Drake, an English piano tuner.  He has been summoned to tune a rare grand piano that has been shipped to Anthony Carroll, a doctor who has become an almost mythical figure, trying to negotiate peace between the indigenous Shan warlords and the Brits, partly through music.  His strategy seems to be effective, but the mystery that surrounds him brings his motivation and methods into question.  Drake falls under his spell, as well as that of a beautiful Shan woman, who may be Carroll’s mistress.  Some reviewers have complained that the pacing is slow and tedious at times, particularly Drake’s journey from England to Carroll’s camp, but I viewed this section as more of a buildup for what was to come.  I found more frustrating Drake’s lingering in Burma, long after his assigned work there is done.  This very civilized man seems to gravitate toward the Burmese landscape and develops a sense of belonging in this exotic and dangerous land.  His beloved wife in England awaits his return, but we never get a sense of how she is faring while Drake is away.  The ending leaves several unanswered questions, but that seems to be par for the course with many novels these days.  Also, there is a tragic hunting accident in the first half of the book that seemed gratuitous to me.  I am not sure what the author’s purpose was, unless perhaps he is painting the Brits as bloodthirsty, reckless  and without concern for the native people.  I think his portrait is consistent with how we currently view imperialism in general, and he makes his point even more emphatically later in the book.