The Piano Teacher

A Novel

By: Janice Y. K. Lee

Narrated by: Orlagh Cassidy

Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

Janice Y.K. Lee's latest novel, The Expatriates, is now available from Penguin.

In the sweeping tradition of The English Patient, Janice Y.K. Lee's debut novel is a tale of love and betrayal set in war-torn Hong Kong. In 1942, Englishman Will Truesdale falls headlong into a passionate relationship with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is soon threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their part of the world. Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong to work as a piano teacher and also begins a fateful affair. As the threads of this spellbinding novel intertwine, impossible choices emerge-between love and safety, courage and survival, the present, and above all, the past.

©2009 Janice Y.K. Lee (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"A rare and exquisite story...Transports you out of time, out of place, into a world you can feel on your very skin." (Elizabeth Gilbert - The New York Times best seller)

"Laced with intrigue." (The New York Times Book Review)

"Evocative, poignant, and skillfully crafted, The Piano Teacher is more than an epic tale of war and a tangled, tortured love story. It is the kind of novel one consumes in great, greedy gulps, pausing (grudgingly) only when absolutely necessary.... If we measure the skill of a fiction writer by her ability to create characters and atmosphere so effortlessly real, so alive on the page, that the reader feels a sense of participatory anxiety - as if the act of reading gives one the power to somehow influence the outcome of purely imaginary events - then Lee should be counted among the very best in recent memory." (Chicago Tribune)

I really enjoyed this book

I listened to Expatriates first because it was recommended to me and I loved it and I was so excited to discover this. The fake British accent was a little annoying but the narrator did a great job over all! The story was really captivating.

Easy listening - perfectly decent, not outstanding

Would you try another book from Janice Y. K. Lee and/or Orlagh Cassidy?

Probably not, unless I was in the mood for something light

What was your reaction to the ending? (No spoilers please!)

Honestly I was bored with the ending, and felt the author did not wrap up the mystery of Will's life in an explicit enough way

Have you listened to any of Orlagh Cassidy’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to any other of her performances, but I thought she was fantastic with the accents!

Do you think The Piano Teacher needs a follow-up book? Why or why not?

Definitely not.

Any additional comments?

This is a perfectly decent book. It is good for an easy read/listen, but if you are looking for something that is deeper and has a complex plot with complex intriguing characters, this is not the book for you.

Loved it

I could not stop hearing. Finishing listening in 3 days. Did not want it to end.

Mediocre Chinese Soap Opera

"The Piano Teacher," which is less about the title character, than it is about several other
characters is a shallow, but fairly interesting tale of life in Hong Kong before WWII, during the Japanese occupation, and for about a decade thereafter. It had great possibilities, but ultimately disappointed. The main characters were unoriginal and recognizable from any number of old grade B movies, and in other geographical settings, from soap operas that endlessly repeat hackneyed recognizable character themes. You'll find an amazingly handsome English expat hero, a naive teacher who has an adulteress affair with him, her hapless, but good, husband, and several very rich, reprehensible people who cause endless problems for others, but whose exotic backgrounds and lavish lives provide escapist interest. The plot moves forward with enough momentum to have kept me listening, but fell short of any satisfying conclusion. The historical situs of the novel is a fascinating chapter in history, but the author has only a superficial grasp of it, but still, enough to make it sound authentic. A much better book about the same period is "Hiroshima Joe: A Novel," by Martin Booth. "The Piano Teacher," while not exactly a waste of time, could be easily replaced by time better spent. As for the narrator, I felt neutral about her: she didn't add to, nor detract from, the listening experience.

OK Book, Poor Reader

The reader was terrible and for me made it hard to enjoy the book. Her enunciation was fine, but she showed no understanding of nuance or what word in a sentence should be emphasized. In fact, when given a choice, she invariably emphasized wthe wrong word. She can read, but has no understanding of conveying meaning. Please don't use her again.

Didn’t want it to end.

I found this book riveting. Since both of my parents grew up in Shanghai prior to being ousted by Chairman Mao, I found the multi-cultural world this book takes place in very real. I found the narration to be perfect and not at all too slow for the character nor the others having grown up among speakers of several languages. I’d love more books in a similar vein.

Wonderful, and the narrator a jewel

I'm dismayed to see such vicious reviews about this book and its audio production. Although I've been an audible.com member for over 5 years, this is the first time I've been moved to write a review - for good or ill. And before getting started, I thought I'd read the two reviews before me. Is it possible they listened to the same book????

I found this story to be completely engrossing, with such richly drawn characters and an introduction to a world I knew nothing about. I was captured completely, pretty much to the exclusion of everything else going on in my life. (Thankfully it's the holidays so nothing much is being expected of me right now.)

And the narrator, I thought, was absolutely amazing. Her acting is nuanced and insightful. Her variety of accents was perfect. And I actually will seek out books she's narrated. Please keep using her!

I really don't know what my two predecessor reviewers were talking about. I thought it was terrific.

10 stars!

Great Story, Great Narrator. Enjoyed Immensely!

I ordered this book without reading the reviews because it is this month's selection for one of my book clubs. After listening for a few hours and thinking what a great choice it was and how glad I was I ordered the audible version I went back to the review page to see what others had said - I was shocked to see a number of listeners had the exact opposite response! I consider this to be one of the best audio books I've listened to this year. The story was intriguing and gave a detailed glimpse into life in Hong Kong, before WW II, during and after.

Hong Kong is a place I know nothing about, I'm sorry to confess, so I can only assume the picture Ms. Lee paints is accurate. The characters were complex and the story emerges at just the right pace, mixing an unusual romance, well two romances actually, with the horrors of life under the Japanese occupation.

The narration was exquisite - once again my impression of the reading was the exact opposite of the negative comments - I found the various accents believable and natural sounding, Ms. Cassidy has a lovely voice - a couple of times I would have emphasized a different word in a sentence but that is quite common in an audio book and certainly forgivable. I only mention it here because someone complained as if it was frequent in this book and I honestly only noticed it twice.

I sat and knitted for hours listening to The Piano Teacher and was sorry to have it end. Take a chance and get it if you have a credit to spend - I think you will like it and if you don't, there is always the Audible guarantee.

Look deeper for meaning

I saw the reviews that criticized the flat characters and so forth. Take what you may from that but if you can move past that type of thing, you will find yourself transported to a time, place and circumstances in the way books should do for you. This book to me was a story about regret, choosing between the lesser of two evils, during a time living under hostile occupation of the Japanese Imperial Army. It was an awful time for everyone living in Hong Kong and all were reduced to a pathetic versions of themselves. People did what they had to to survive and that definition was different for each person. Some died, others flourished and some survived with enormous burdens of regret, survivors guilt, even amusement at having survived relatively unscarred. Still some are just left haunted by the awful choices they made.

I did not care for this book.

I didn't feel the characters were at all sympathetic and I didn't really care what happened to them.