The Piano Tuner
Years ago I went to a bookstore at Zurich’s international airport and picked up a book to read on the flight, Daniel Mason‘s The Piano Tuner. I began reading then, but I kind of drifted away, never finishing it, putting it aside after I got back home, I never even got halfway. The book was sitting, forgotten, on top of an ever growing pile next to my bed.
Until last week, that is, when I picked it up again. I had to start from the beginning, as I didn’t remember much, just the uniqueness of the story and its atmosphere. This time around, it didn’t take long to get to the last page… despite the 19th century feel and pace, it turned out to be a page-turner after all.
And an unlikely story it is, set in Victorian England, telling the tale of a shy, self-absorbed London piano tuner who gets the most unusual commission of his lifetime: a request by Her Majesty’s War Office to travel to the remotest parts of Burma in order to tune and repair an Erard grand piano.
As it turns out, I’m not the only one who was mesmerized by Mason’s story. Now I hear that a movie is in the works. Not bad for the first novel of a medical student!