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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Friend Picks - picked for me by Jon at Mr. K’s in Greenville, SC.
There were parts of this book that I didn’t like, but I loved the concept of the piano, anchoring people through time, and I really loved Clara as a character. Cander wrote something unique, complex, but beautiful.
“Music, if it was played properly, could melt the tundra.”
“With music there was too much letting go. With photography he could be greedy, acquiring the things he shot, like a collector or a pillager or a thief. The piano gave. The photographer took.”
There were parts of this book that I didn’t like, but I loved the concept of the piano, anchoring people through time, and I really loved Clara as a character. Cander wrote something unique, complex, but beautiful.
“Music, if it was played properly, could melt the tundra.”
“With music there was too much letting go. With photography he could be greedy, acquiring the things he shot, like a collector or a pillager or a thief. The piano gave. The photographer took.”
medium-paced
A well written meditation on music, life, love, and loss. While I wish the change the characters experience throughout the novel would last, I’m fearful that these adrenaline-ridden passionate folks don’t really get very far on their journey. If they had, this book would have been excellent instead of just good. However! This book isn’t about that, though. It’s about taking steps in the face of tragedy. It’s about holding hope, but not tying it down to anything. It’s about grieving, even if in immature ways, and letting burdens go. 3.5 stars.
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
emotional
reflective
sad
“I want to say there’s a point to all this. I want to say that there’s a reason this piano exists in the world. This specific piano. That there’s something important about it, to the people who made it, to the people who played it and lost it and found it and lost it again, thinking it was gone forever. This Blüthner made music out of nothing, it thawed frozen imaginations, and then it burned down and showed up again with its old scratches and a new owner. This piano has been playing in my mind all my life, and nobody knows that.”
A tale of fate, love, loss, and a piano. Following the life of a piano through two owners opens the reader to how a precious object can be deeply loved and how art can affect one's heart. The storytelling is rich and and beautiful. The ending, though heartbreaking, is the perfect closure.
Interesting premise that weighs heavily on readers' stereotypes of Russian literature characters. As the story went on the heroine became more "dumb girl annoying" but she does redeem herself.