I stayed up until two last night reading. Quitting only when my eyes refuse to jump from word to word, I feel asleep happy, knowing that summer has officially come.
I finished Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss earlier this summer, and it was not satisfying. Tedious, melodramatic, and structurally incongruous with my tastes I forced myself to finish for the sake of saying I had.
Thankfully, Janice Y.K. Lee's The Piano Teacher has saved me. It may not be the most intellectually challenging novel, but it is wonderful. A book split between post, present, and pre war Hong Kong, it fantastically mixes romance with themes of survival and the things people go through and become in war. I have not been this happy with a novel, reading until the wee hours of the morn'....since...Harry Potter? Smile.
I didn't realize there was a novel. I've seen a film (probably the most disturbing film I've ever seen) entitled The Piano Teacher but I am sure they are not one in the same.
ReplyDeleteI too am pleased with my literary lineup this summer.