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nmnewsome 's review for:
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
by Jan-Philipp Sendker
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
lighthearted
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A beautiful little tale of love, the loss of senses (sight) and how it evolves into a richer experience of other senses (hearing and touch). Love and bitterness. How life can be altered in both good and bad ways from the actions of others with both kind and unkind intentions. Familial love and pure, instinctual love. The story of Tin Win who is suddenly blinded as a child, abandoned by his parents — his father with an early death and his mother with literal abandonment due to her fear of her son as a curse and bad omen. A showing of how beliefs impact our behavior. Buddhism and monastic life surrounds the characters in Burma. And then drops away beneath the priority of money and education as some of the characters shift to New York. As the book calls out: Life is interwoven with suffering. That in every life, without exception, illnesses are unavoidable. That we will age, and that we cannot elude death. Tin Win loses his sight, is abandoned by his parents, taken in by a woman named Su Kyi, who takes him to a monastery where he spends a few years under the guidance of the Abbot U May. He falls deeply in love with Mi Mi, a girl born with deformed feet who cannot walk. After 4 years of their deep connection, his uncle takes him to Rangoon and finances a surgery to restore his eyesight. But he does it to benefit his own karmic favor. He hides the love letters written between the two and then ships Tin Win off to New York where he reluctantly marries and fathers 2 children. After his long life there, Tin Win suddenly disappears from his life in NY and eventually his daughter, Julia, travels to Burma to discover what happened. When Tin Win had arrived, he went to Mi Mi’s home and laid with her in her death bed. They talked into the night and were discovered dead the next morning by their son U Ba. A son that was unknown to Tin Win and to Julia.