The Piano Teacher

Summary (from the publisher): In 1942, Will Truesdale, an Englishman newly arrived in Hong Kong, falls passionately in love with Trudy Liang, a beautiful Eurasian socialite. But their affair is threatened by the invasion of the Japanese as World War II overwhelms their lives.

Ten years later, Claire Pendleton comes to Hong Kong and is hired by the wealthy Chen family as their daughter's piano teacher. Seduced by the colony's heady social life, she soon begins an affair...only to discover that her lover is hiding a devastating past. 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.

Review: The Piano Teacher is told in dual narratives from 1941 and 1952. The central narrative is that of newly married Claire Pendleton, who has moved to Hong Kong with her dull husband, Martin. Claire begins giving piano lessons for Locket Chen, the daughter of wealthy Hong Kong residents. She also begins to fall into the moral deep end, with petty theft from the Chens and an extramarital affair. The other narrative is that of Will Truesdale, a young bachelor who moves to Hong Kong and promptly falls in love with Trudy, an heiress who is of Portuguese and Chinese descent. As the Japanese invade Hong Kong and WWII swings into full gear, Will and Trudy's relationship is strained. The two narratives of this novel slowly begin to intertwine throughout until Claire learns the full truth of her employer, the man she is sleeping with, and the consequences of her immoral behavior.

The first half of this novel was beguiling and very atmospheric. It reminded me a lot of The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham. Both feature married British couples traveling to Hong Kong and a cheating wife, although Maugham's novel is set earlier in the 1920s. Both novels end tragically. However, the second half of The Piano Teacher began to disappoint me. Few of the characters are very likable. Claire has no compassion for her husband and is sleeping with a man who seems to feel nothing for her. Victor Chen is evil, and Will's first love, Trudy, seems vapid and self-serving. Whereas The Painted Veil saw the redemption of its main character and the deepening of a true love, The Piano Teacher concludes with an implausible scenario of Claire living independently in Hong Kong.

I could never quite get past my distaste for Claire. She is cold and cruel to her husband, Martin, who is basically a non-entity in the novel and seems to have only served as her ticket out of her parents' home. She is also cruel to Locket, who she is hired to tutor. "'I don't know it it's worth it to teach you.' Claire was getting more and more agitated. The girl had stumbled over the simplest exercises and had no instinctive ability to read music. And she with a Steinway! 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Pendleton.' Locket was already by the door. 'And it's extremely rude for you to stand by the door as if you are waiting for me to leave.'" (229).

From the very beginning of the novel, when Claire's theft is revealed, it's clear that Claire is unafraid to bend the rules; "It started as an accident. The small Herend rabbit had fallen into Claire's purse" (3). Although her thefts lead to several servants losing their jobs, Claire continues to swipe items. At night, she sorts through her stolen treasures, and plays dress up with them, effectively donning the seemingly glamorous life of her wealthy Chens. "She groomed her hair with the tortoiseshell comb, rubbed French hand lotion around her fingers, then carefully applied lipstick to her mouth. Then she clipped on heavy gold earrings and tied a scarf around her head. She stood in front of the mirror. The woman who looked back was sophisticated and groomed, a woman who traveled the world and knew about art and books and yachts" (41). Claire seems desperate to upgrade her life and become someone else, and is naive and ignorant about the dark secrets that pervade the lives of those she envies.

I do think this novel does an excellent job of providing insight into not only what Hong Kong was like for foreigners during World War II, but also what it would have been like in the years following the war, when it was slowly recovering from wartime. Although the world Claire enters in the 1950s seems whole, with happy celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's coronation, survivors have not forgotten the war years, and she is surrounded by people who have a back story is she frequently not privy to. I do wonder, however, why Lee provides no conclusion for Will's storyline, since his life and entanglement with Claire are central to the novel. 

Stars: 3