![]() Reasoning that “if we are to make these people our subjects, must we not present the best of European civilization?,” Drake undertakes his arduous journey (thrillingly described), eventually arriving at the inland fortress of Mae Lwin, where the suave Carroll-part Albert Schweitzer, part Mistah Kurtz of Heart of Darkness-rules as a benevolent despot, aided in ways that aren’t quite clear by a beautiful Burmese woman, Khin Myo, to whom Edgar finds himself increasingly attracted. Anthony Carroll, a pacifist iconoclast who has set about winning over warring tribes by introducing their souls to music and poetry while healing broken bodies. Drake has been chosen to tune an Erard (French-made) grand piano for Dr. ![]() ![]() In mild-mannered London, 1886–87, piano tuner Edgar Drake is persuaded by the British War Office to travel to Mandalay and beyond, during the third of a succession of Anglo-Burmese Wars, to fulfill a strange request from an army surgeon-major serving in Burma. ![]() ![]() A rattling good story, complex characterizations, and a brilliantly realized portrayal of an alien culture-all combine to dazzling effect in this first by a California medical student who has worked and studied in the Far East. ![]()
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