Review: The Piano Teacher by Janice YK Lee

I'll be honest, I wasn't looking forward to reading this book. It really didn't look like it would be my kind of thing.

Last year I was buying birthday presents for a neighbour and wanted a couple of novels to go with her champagne and chocolates. My friend is a gentle, lovely, homely sort of person and I wanted some gentle, lovely, homely sort of books - so I chose The Return by Victoria Hislop and The Piano Teacher by Janice YK Lee.

I had read and enjoyed Hislop's first novel, The Island, so I knew it was the right sort of thing. The other, I'm afraid, was a real case of judging a book by its cover. I knew nothing about either the story or the author but it looked like it would be of a similar ilk.

When my friend offered to lend me The Piano Teacher a few weeks later, I politely accepted, but I'm afraid I wasn't enthusiastic. As a fan of Edgar Allen Poe and the like, chick lit makes me do a major swerve on sight. Anything with high heels on the cover or a blurb going on about women looking for husbands and I can't bung it back on the shelf fast enough.

With its pastel colours and whimsical picture of a woman in Oriental dress meandering across a beach, the cover wasn't floating my boat. And when I reacquainted myself with the synopsis - 'two beautiful women, one mysterious man', etc - my heart sank and it got chucked straight to the bottom of my To Read pile.

After several months had passed, I thought I'd really better get the thing read and returned before my friend forgot I'd ever borrowed it. And, against expectations, it was a jolly good read.

Set in Hong Kong, over two time periods - one at the outbreak of the Second World War and the other in the early 50s - The Piano Teacher took me on a highly unexpected journey. Yes, its focal point is love (or lack of it) but this is an engrossing and at times upsetting exploration of the impact of war.

When naive English newlywed Claire is brought to Hong Kong by her nice but dull husband, she finds herself both captivated and alienated by the exotic, complicated social etiquette. But a handsome older man soon begins to show her that she can be more than the English rose everyone expects. Yet Will, the dashing chauffeur, cannot let go of a past betrayal, something which will come between Claire and her exciting but distant lover.

The two stories are interspersed throughout the tale, with the darkness of the past creeping into the light of the present. From the very beginning, Lee shows a strong talent for characterisation, bringing the culture-shocked Claire into sharp focus almost immediately and making her the most sympathetic character in the story. Far from a bland tool to help shed light on the haunted Will, Claire's character is carefully sketched and her relationship with Will is far from idealised.

At the start I thought that Will was going to be a paint-by-numbers contrary cad, intriguing yet cold, but as his past experiences are drawn out into the light, his own inner conflicts give him greater depth and interest. Interestingly, it is with the book's most exotic character, Will's wartime lover Trudy, where Lee fails to fill in the blanks.

Whether this is deliberate or not is open to debate, particularly as Will himself is uncertain how to read Trudy's actions and attitudes. For much of the time it appears that she is a cardboard cutout, a character being sold as loveable purely on the basis of looks and charisma. At other points we are given a glimpse of something more illuminating, a contradiction which is reflected in Will's enduring confusion over his lost love.

But the story really gets into a different territory when war finally breaks into the champagne lifestyle of moneyed Hong Kong, taking dark and at times horrific turns as the mirage of Western privilege is rapidly dissolved by the realities of conflict.

There are some unanswered questions at the end, but life isn't always black and white, so that's no bad thing.

Review: Fingersmith by Sarah Waters

A real heavyweight among contemporary storytellers, Sarah Waters is one of my most admired authors. Her last three novels have each been nominated for the prestigious Man Booker Prize and the television adaptation of Tipping the Velvet, her debut tale of lesbianism in Victorian England, was an eye-opening experience for many viewers.

I have not yet read Tipping the Velvet but, after being gripped by her latest novel, The Little Stranger, I have decided to explore Waters' back catalogue. Set in the aftermath of the Second World War, when society has changed and formerly rich families are struggling to maintain their grip on the good life, The Little Stranger tells a slow and creeping story about the effects of decay, both physical and social. Brilliantly narrated by a character who keeps you guessing about his own motives and plays with your sympathies, it touches on the supernatural in an ambiguous way that I find rather thrilling.

So I went on to read The Nightwatch, again set in and around the Second World War, and I was not disappointed. With this novel, Waters seems to excel in telling stories that are kind of about nothing - nothing, that is, other than the complexities and absurdities of human life. Even though it often concerns itself with the minutiae of day to day life - affairs, failed romance, petty and not so petty crimes - the secrets you know are coming still grip and enthral the reader. Telling the story in reverse chronological order, Waters' grasp of structure is awe-inspiring and a useful lesson to all aspiring writers out there.

As a reader, Fingersmith was my first foray into Waters' Victorian period. And to be brutally honest, after the first few pages, my heart was starting to sink. Although it had clearly been intricately researched and was written with as much class as ever, I began to feel uneasy. For the dialogue was too twee, the research shovelled too heavily onto the page, as if the authenticity of its setting had been judged more important than the story or establishment of character. When a chap nicknamed 'Gentleman' turned up, I wondered if I had inadvertantly picked up a Catherine Cookson potboiler by mistake.

But I stuck out this inauspicious beginning and almost immediately, my faith began to pay off. When Waters allowed us to move beyond the grim atmosphere of a thieves' den in Victorian London, the story picked up apace and before long, I was hooked. The twist at the end of part one literally made my jaw drop and now, I cared - I wanted to know what happened to these characters and I had opinions on how their fates should pan out, which is surely the mark of a truly successful storyteller.

Of course there was a bit of lesbo action, but it was handled in a tender and not remotely titillating manner. Indeed, given the behaviour of the story's male population, getting busy with a fellow chick seemed an infinitely more favourable prospect. At one point, I was a little concerned that a subplot about sexual deviancy was going to poison the experience, but it was expertly handled. Without subjecting the reader to the ins and outs of it, so to speak, the deeply unsettling influence is made to pervade the atmosphere, just as it does the lives of Waters' fictional heroines.

Drawing characters that are all too human, Waters leaves you wondering if they deserved their fates; who was good, who was bad and just how far you have to go in order to earn redemption.