Summary
Location (location, location) is often as important to the success of a novel as it is, or used to be, to real estate. What otherwise might not hold our interest, or at least not to the same degree, does so because of the setting. And that is, I believe, in large part the case with Janice Y.K. Lee's "The Piano Teacher," a book set in Hong Kong, that unique metropolis that was for more than a century and a half a British colony that drew exotics from many other areas as if they were needed to offset the (surface) blandness of the Brits.
The plot? Begin with a pair of star-crossed lovers, add a war (WWII) and an occupying force, and see if you can find any grace under all that pressure.See the full content of this document
Extract
Love and Internment in Hong Kong
In the book, the result is an always interesting and sometimes fascinating portrait of how some humans behave, and some others misbehave, in a world not of their making.
While many grovel, some resist, and it is to the author's credit that their actions do not come across as stereotypical. And it is also...See the full content of this document
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