Aghaalireza --
1. The main characters in this book are:
Author (Carhart): Carhart is an American Air Force "brat," raised in
France during the 1950s but following the nomadic life that families
do in the American military, where they are moved every 2-3 years.
His interest is piqued in the piano while in elementary school but it
gradually wanes as he goes to college and moves into his professional
career.
The story told in "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" develops as
Carhart, wife and two children leave one profession in California for
Paris. There, he starts to write and live on the Left Bank. His
curiosity about a small shop in the neighborhood leads to discoveries
about contrasts between French life and American life -- and to a
re-introduction to the world of music.
Luc (piano shop owner): in his thirties and single (at least at the
beginning), Luc is apprenticed to the older Desforges, learning the
trade as a piano repairman. More than being apprenticed, he is in the
process of buying out the shop.
And more than being just a piano technician, he has a true love of the
instrument, often describing pianos as having "soul" or "character."
He is also an accomplished musician.
Desforges (retiring piano shop owner): Desforges is "old school"
French, conservative and closed in his business practices. He sets up
the only real conflict in the book, refusing to help Carhart purchase
a used piano, even though that's the main business of the Left Bank
shop.
Jos (piano tuner): a Dutch tuner who works for the piano shop, Jos is
likeable but has a major character flaw: his addiction to red wine.
Jos is very good at what he does but his talents go to pot after the
noon meal, which is the largest meal of the day in France and one that
includes red wine. As Luc remarks, "He's very good. Just be sure
that he tunes your piano in the morning."
Jos' weakness for the wine leads to his being attacked by security
officers on the train and his descent into Paris flophouses. It also
leads to the embarrassment of Carhart, when a tuning job done by Jos
turns to disaster at the piano teacher's house.
Anna (piano teacher): Anna might not be considered a major character
in the book, but it's a her house that one of the major crises of the
book occurs -- with Jos. Anna, a Lebanese immigrant who had been in
Paris about 10 years, is Carhart's piano teacher. He's careful to
select someone with maturity because of his awkward situation as an
adult trying to build his skills on the piano.
She gives him the confidence to go forward and fill in holes in his
musical knowledge. Then the author recommends Jos to tune her piano,
which is her livelihood. It's a disaster and sets up Luc and Carhart
to intervene.
2. Desforges, the first person that the author ever meets at the shop,
is easy to dislike. After the author inquires about the possibility
of buying a used piano, he's told that there are none, though we later
learn that the shop sells dozens each month.
Though Carhart's presence (and nationality) are known by Desforges and
others in the 'quartier,' it takes an introduction to do business with
the piano shop. And even after Carhart finds an introduction, it's
clear that the old Desforges is inflexible about adding this new
customer. It takes an argument with Luc to change Carhart from enemy
to prospective customer.
If you believe a business is based on service to its customers, it's
impossible to like Desforges. You can apply all kinds of motives to
his behavior, implying even that he's xeonophobic. But it's how he
is. And we get other flavors of how conservative his business
practices are: customers always dealing with cash and his reliance on
the same suppliers.
3. Both setting and time period influence the story. One would have
to strain to place a Desforges and Luc in the U.S. or Canada, where
the retail traditions are open to serving all customers (though you
might have found a similar setting in a large North American city
before World War II). In addition, Luc and Desforges have a special
chief-apprentice relationship, which is disappearing in favor of
technical school training
Carhart also points out that the changes in the technology and use of
the piano make the shop unique. It was only in the late 1800s that
the piano became a popular instrument, with hundreds of manufacturers.
But now all of the great French manufacturers (Erard, Pleyel, Gaveau)
are gone -- which takes the French spirit out of the Parisian shop.
Even if Japanese, Korean and Chinese labels are emerging as new
suppliers of pianos.
Inasmuch as "The Piano Shop on The Left Bank" is a collection of
essays, other aspects of the story are timeless. The story of the
emergence of Fazioli Piano may appear unique in the days of mass
distribution, but is one that's occurred dozens of times as
manufacturers emerge, then disappear.
And the stories of "master classes" with accomplished pianists
mentoring young musicians sound just like what Frederick Chopin might
have done in Paris in the 1800s. The best teaching is still done
one-on-one and both students and teachers are international.
4. Written in first person, Carhart has moved to Paris from northern
California to establish himself as a writer. His two children are in
school in the Latin Quarter, where they live.
Paris, being a city with many specialty shops and workshops, has one
small piano store that intrigues the author. It intrigues him in part
because it's a closed shop -- not well-lit and inviting like modern
stores. Also because it re-kindles his interest in the piano, first
experienced when he was going to French elementary schools in the
1950s.
He had acquired a piano then and continued his lessons through his
pre-teenage years while back in the United States. But the
re-kindling of his interest in the piano is blocked by Desforges, the
owner of the piano store. Desforges is nearing retirement and
avoiding any problems with his business, including even considering an
American as a customer.
The story might end there, but Carhart is persistent in seeking a
piano from this mysterious shop. His break comes when he is greeted
by Luc, the apprentice who is about to take over the shop. It takes a
confrontation between Luc and Desforges to admit the author as a
POTENTIAL customer, but it pays off.
Luc takes the time to introduce Carhart first to types of pianos that
might fit from the store's continually changing inventory of used
pianos from the 19th and 20th century. In the process, the author has
a chance to discuss the history of the piano. He's also re-introduced
to the differences between French and American music technique -- and
continually reminded of the differences in businesses practices and
even schooling.
With Luc he finds not so much a friend but a window on the music
world. Luc has his own views on who should own a piano and how it
should be used. And he romanticizes pianos far more than author,
falling in love with a recently-arrived used piano about once each
chapter.
Luc and Carhart continually take lessons from life from the music that
surrounds them. Luc introduces the author to other musicians, teaches
him little lessons about tuning and the mechanics of the piano, and
even arranges for him to meet master pianists of the concert world.
He also introduces him to an excellent tuner, Jos, who happens to be a
lush. Carhart has the occasion to use Jos, a Dutchman who was trained
in a German piano factory, then recommends his services to his piano
teacher. Jos' weakness for red wine at noon leads to a disastrous
tuning which puts Anna the piano teacher's instrument out-of-service
for several days. It's up to Luc and Carhart to intercede with Jos,
who continues his decline even afterwards.
Though Luc and the author enjoy and increasingly close relationship,
there are still large areas of their lives that remain hidden from
each other. Carhart realizes just how much is hidden after finding
Luc gone for weeks, then discovering that Mathilde has moved in with
the piano shop owner upon their return.
Are they married? We never learn.
5. The language is descriptive, often capturing both the conversation
and the surroundings. The chapters each could be essays (particularly
the chapter on Fazioli) but they are linked together well by
Carhart's voyage of the discovery of the piano.
In the chapter "Café Atelier" he describes a Friday in the shop, first
by a discussion of differences in American and French viewpoints about
religion and Freemasonry. Carhart recounts the highlights of
conversation, comparing a musically-inclined auto mechanic with Luc,
then coming to his own conclusions:
"Laughter rose up and we poured out what remained in the bottle of
wine. Looking around at the disparate group, it occurred to me how
rare it was in France to mix freely with so many people from different
backgrounds."
6. You could choose from several themes in this book: how an
individual's actions make the difference; differences between French
and American society; a social history of the piano.
What provides the attractiveness of the book is the voyage of
discovery for someone in a foreign culture. The author fell in love
with the piano when he was around age 5, then continued lessons until
a teenager. Now after decades, he's interesting in getting a piano --
and his interest is piqued, rather than squashed, by the closed and
mysterious Piano Shop on the Left Bank.
Lucky enough to find a seam in time, a spot where the old shop-owner
is giving way to his apprentice, Carhart is re-introduced to a world
even richer than the one he remembered from childhood. It's a world
where craftsmen fall in love with their instruments; where the
business practices are dramatically different from the American
businesses for which he'd consulted; and where learning is both
continual and emotional.
Every single chapter has some life lesson tied to it: that you can't
know your colleagues well enough, as when the previously-reliable Jos
disappoints Carhart, his piano teacher and Luc.
That pianos are highly personal items with emotional attachments for
families, attachments which cause them to cancel a deal to sell them
at the last minute. Or fail to buy: in one case he tells of a search
for a rare German piano by a dealer seeking to replace the piano or
her youth. When he found the rare Grotrian-Steinweg from the 1920s,
"the resemblance was only cosmetic." The dealer explains, "A piano is
just too personal. What people actually remember -- a certain raspy
tone, a lightness in the treble, a pedal that sticks slightly -- are
the kind of things that only one piano in the universe will combine."
The author continues the observations and discoveries right to the end
of the book, when Luc tells him after seeing yet another "perfect"
piano, "You can never have too many dream pianos."
7. This book was actually recommended to me -- as well as my wife and
daughter -- by a friend. He thought that each of us would find
something slightly different in Carhart's book but would enjoy the
descriptive writing and fresh look at Paris.
Carhart may have fictionalized portions of the book, but it's not
really a novel or fiction. It's a highly first-person account of life
and the role that music plays in it -- and even the Dewey Decimal
System lists it in the music section. More precisely, it's an account
of life and his personal discovery of the piano and includes a
substantial amount of historical research. The book could well have
been a collection of essays on the piano, including background on
Fazioli, the Italian concert piano maker:
Fazioli Piano
Home Page
http://www.fazioli-piano.com/homeen.html
Many people experience the same voyages of discovery with life and
sailing; or life and mathematics; or life and poetry. The people who
are most-likely to appreciate Carhart's writing are those with an
interest in music or foreigners with an interest in French culture.
They key difference between "The Piano Shop on the Left Bank" and a
novel is that a typical novel develops a plot and builds to a climax
with the main characters, resolving a crisis or issue by the end.
Instead, Carhart writes in first-person and tells a story of
self-discovery through music and the piano. Along the way there are
side stories: that of Jos, the Dutch piano tuner; and of Luc falling
in love with Mathilde -- but no real moral or life crisis threatening
Carhart.
OTHER RESOURCES
-----------------------------
You may wish to see what others have written about this book and the
impact that it had on them. Amazon.com is always an excellent place
to start because there's a summary of what's been written in printed
reviews and then many customers write about how the book touched them:
Amazon.com
"Piano Shop on the Left Bank" (undated)
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375758623/qid=1069698792/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/002-5243472-4164801?v=glance&s=books#product-details
Google search strategy:
Fazioli + piano
"Piano Shop on the Left Bank"
Best regards,
Omnivorous-GA |
,
0 Comments
)