Love is Blind

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In the late 1890s, Brodie Moncur is an expert piano tuner, working for a Edinburgh based piano manufacturer, and when the chance arises for him to move to Paris to try to reinvigorate their showroom there he grasps it with both hands. By this point I really did have the feeling that I fully understood Brodie – I was virtually living inside his head – I believed that I was tuned into his line of thought and fully understood his (sometimes drastic) actions.

One of his smart ideas is to sell more concert pianos by offering them, and his tuning services, for free to famous pianists, who will in turn endorse the company. Sooner or later, the gambler will lose his entire float, the losses from which will balance out the modest winnings. The story is somewhat of a picaresque, moving to many countries, where Brodie meets various people as he pursues Lida, vying for her competing attentions. Complicating matters is Brodie’s tuberculosis, a constant threat that dials up the book’s tension and, along with an old-fashioned duel in St.

Now, whereof Nerias knew that his son Sedacius was caught in the snares of harlots and indeed had lusted after his brother’s wife, Ruth, and his brother’s daughter, Esther, and showed no remorse, yet Nerias suffered his son to live in his own house, yea, and fed him and his servants also. As Brodie and Lika travel around, the novel tells us "between them, they made a modest living, supplemented by their nights gambling with the martingale system in Biarritz’s casino.

We are told of Brodie’s encounters with prostitutes and he is evidently attractive to women, and generally quite personable and popular. There’s some nice and apt literary references too with Onegin and Pushkin getting a mention and creeping into the story too. At 24, he’s handsome and has perfect pitch, but is also (in a slight twist on the archetypal blind piano tuner) severely short-sighted. Brodie Moncur, a talented piano-tuner in Edinburgh meets someone in Paris and ends up falling in love with her to the point of obsession only to realise that she is the partner of someone else.Things picked up a little in the later part of the book with some more dramatic developments and sense of threat, but it still wasn’t all that involving. I can't believe Boyd wasn't even nominated for the 2018 bad sex in fiction award (which gives me some idea of how REALLY bad the others were). Each character is vividly described – none more so than Kilbarron’s sinister brother, Malachi - and even the minor figures seem to be original and interesting. Brodie meets Lydia Blum, a Russian soprano destined to be the love of his life, although their affair results in them going on the run in fear of their lives .

this book offers a fascinating insight into how the instrument works and it also plays with the trope of tortured artistic souls albeit the elements that may seem half-familiar from the lives of genuine classical composers and performers are amplified in the case of the monstrous Kilbarron - if you like, he is John Field gone bad! Before that obsession starts, another one is already underway – that of the world of pianos and piano tuning.Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life.

It all comes out in the wash though and by the end I was feeling that my investment in wading through the slower sections had paid off. Or perhaps he was just on a tight schedule, as the whole thing seemed hurried and badly in need of further attention.This man-on-the-run tale, which wraps up at one exotic end of the Earth, is strangely ageless and very entertaining. I wish to thank Penguin Books Australia for providing me with a free copy of this book for review purposes.