The Piano Teacher: A Novel
by Janice Y. K. Lee
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Book Reviews of The Piano Teacher: A Novel
Book Review: Good but not Great
Summary: 3 Stars
Lee does a wonderful job of creating the atmosphere of Hong Kong during the Japanese invasion in World War II. The emotional distress of Trudy and Will comes through clearly as they both struggle to balance moral and ethical choices against survival. Claire faces similar struggles later in the novel, although it is her lifestyle at stake rather than her life.
Although the book initially starts out alternating chapters of the time line, later chapters from 1941 are more grouped together as are those from 1952. The chapters are clearly labeled with the month and year which does make it easy to identify which part of the story you are reading. Unfortunately, I would be drawn into one aspect of the story for several chapters and then pulled out of it to switch to the other storyline. This made the novel a bit choppy for me.
Without giving anything away, I will say that I was a bit dissatisfied with the ending. Although it may be quite true to life, I found myself wondering what happened next as it felt somewhat unresolved.
Overall, The Piano Teacher is quite a solid novel and I believe that it just didn't suit my reading tastes as much as I'd hoped it would. After all, it was on The New York Times Bestseller list.
Book Review: Nice, educational, entertaining read that falls short of its potential
Summary: 3 Stars
I enjoyed reading the first half of "The Piano Teacher" as the story unfolds and as the characters are slowly introduced. I loved the cinematic quality of the story; I think the author successfully created a beautiful, vivid Hong Kong in readers' minds that resonated with me. Unfortunately, the beauty of the surroundings almost overshadowed the characters.
Although I understand that the author is attempting to straddle two different time points, the coming back and forth from the 40s to the 50s with some of the same characters can become a little confusing. The three main characters, Trudy Liang, Will Truesdale and Claire Pendleton, were very appealing when they were initially introduced. However, they were not adequately developed and whatever characteristics that came through weren't very likeable or sympathizable.
Nevertheless, I enjoyed reading the book for its vivid historical allusions and background. I commend the extensive research that the author conducted to create a believeable and realistic backdrop for this period piece. This story had a lot of potential and unfortunately, most of the potential was not realized. I probably won't read this book again, but would be willing to read the author's future works.
Book Review: Some trees died for this :-(
Summary: 1 Stars
The beginning of the story was quite interesting. The portrayal of Hong Kong's elite society was nicely done, with the lavish parties and the luxury gowns and such. As the novel went along, the entire tone of the dialog took a turn for the daytime soap-opera. Read the scene where Claire and Melody are having tea and Will storms through the door, and tell me that's not straight out of "As The World Turns". Will had quite the penchant for storming through doors and confronting the Chens, like at the Coronation Party. Also, what exactly happened at that party that tipped Claire's husband about what was going on? Nothing happened that was so obvious. And also, why did Edwina reveal what she had done to Claire? What was the point of that? Don't you think that if you had done something so heinous you would take it with you to the grave? Plus, why is Will reacting TEN YEARS after the end of the war? What kind of human being stews and simmers over events of this magnitude for ten years?
This was a very aggravating novel, which started with some promise and fizzled out on daytime TV land. Don't waste your time on it, unless you like BS.
Book Review: Deceptively Brilliant!
Summary: 4 Stars
I think this book was done an injustice by the romantic cover: I'm not sure it was rightly marketed as a "love story set in tumultuous times" because it's got all the elements of high literature, and romance is only a small sub-theme. Maybe it can be subtitled "Thieves" because you have just about every character stealing something: from the house, from the colony, from the country, from each other's lives, a young child's heritage ... The names of the characters are very cleverly chosen - actually the only thing that's bugging me is the choice of a "piano teacher" for the title character's occupation, but then again, it's the employer whose name is "Melody" so maybe that's some kind of irony I'm missing - and the description of Hong Kong and its people astute and spot-on. I picked it up thinking it would be a short, sappy read, and found myself wishing I was back in college where there were tutorial discussions based on the book for at least three months! This book deserves as much recognition as "The Little Stranger" by Sarah Waters as really, really good writing that should be studied in classrooms and debated by scholars.Book Review: Unfortunate
Summary: 3 Stars
This book was chosen for my book group. Most of the books we read are historical fiction or from the genre of cultural anthropology. This book certainly fit. It would be easy to say that none of us liked it, but that would not be quite accurate. Still, none of us liked it. A well written book. A story with some twists. A book that kept my attention to the end. I believe all of us completed it. After a couple chapters, I expected to love this book. So why do I give it 3 stars? There was one strange thing about this book, and most of us agreed, we did not like any of the characters. That is extraordinarily odd for me. Still I never wanted to stop reading the book. What did the book in, was the ending. I admit, I like endings that feel good. That doesn't mean it has to be a "happy" ending. I did not like the ending of this book. Yet, regrettably, the ending fit the book. While reading the last chapter, I hoped for one more twist. It was not to be. I wish I had not read it. Yet, I'm not sure Ms. Lee could have written an ending I would be satisfied with that would still be true to the book and fit the nature of the characters.