The characters in The Piano Teacher are not particularly likeable—ala most of Fitzgerald’s characters—yet the reader is drawn to them in the manner one is captivated by the riches one might never attain. For this is one facet of the city we are shown, and those who live upon that surface are the European elite who use Hong Kong as both a playground of ethereal delights and a willing player in the contest for wealth. Beneath it all is the suspicion that Hong Kong is deceiving them all, that trust is a fleeting shadow, that the winners might be losers.

Ms. Lee tells the story of two time periods, the first during the 1951, when Claire arrives in Hong Kong with her husband, Martin, a water engineer. She is quickly hired as a piano teacher by a wealthy Chinese couple, Victor and Melody Chin, who also employ an English driver, Will Truesdale. This is a time when Hong Kong is struggling to dust herself off from the ravishes of war, and to become again the jewel that she was. Yet it is also a time when blame must be apportioned, and those who chose the wrong side, or both sides, must be punished.

We meet Will again when the story flips back to early 1941 when he is the new arrival who is immediately captivated by the capricious Eurasian, Trudy Liang. Trudy unleashes her chamaeleon-like charms on Will, partying in a devil-may-care manner of charm while at the same time displaying herself openly as insulting and scheming. When the Japanese invade Hong Kong in December of 1941, Trudy is shown to be, above all, a survivor.

As the story rocks back and forth between the two decades, Claire struggles to understand her blossoming relationship with Will, while Hong Kong itself seems to mold her into the person she was meant to be.

While the final portion of the book deals with the theft of the Crown Jewels—something I found to be measurably necessary, yet off-putting—on the whole The Piano Teacher is a wonderful novel of love, hate and intrigue set in one of the most gloriously confusing places on earth. Kudos to Ms. Lee, and may this be the first of many more books to come.

I want to apologize to Ms. Ephron; it’s not her fault, really. I could write this same review of myriad books, many of which have sold, or will sell, very well. In fact, Never Tell a Lie should sell well, and might have the makings of a television drama or motion picture—neither of which I’ll see. But, her book is, if nothing else, well thought out, and well plotted. Her story provides an escape, the characters who should be likeable, are, and those who shouldn’t be, are not. The reader isn’t forced to decide whose side to be on; nor is one’s mind challenged with new concepts to conjure—something considered too trying in most of today’s fiction. In short, there’s no real risk associated in following along this tried and true track, which is exactly what I find wrong with this book and all those like it.

Even though I don’t classify myself as a lover of mysteries, I do immensely enjoy good literature, and if a mystery is presented in such a circumstance, then it is a book I would covet. But, as one whose mind is constantly in search of exercise, I fail to understand the need to be mindlessly entertained. And, I have to say I found this story to be utterly predictable. At times, I was reminded of those very one-hour television dramas I don’t watch—the ones where anyone with half a brain knows “who done it” before the first commercial. In the case of Never Tell a Lie, the “who done it” is obvious if only for the fact that it just couldn’t have been anyone else. If it were a movie, I’d have felt baited into wasting money on popcorn—not as meaningless an expense as in the past!

I’m not going to provide a rehashing of the plot—if you happen to be interested, there are plenty of spots on the Internet where it’s available, for the Ephron sisters have an obvious gift for self-marketing. I’m not even going to tell you not to buy the book—if you’re after a bit of predictable escape and the television is on the fritz, then perhaps you should. Ms. Ephron hails from a family of writers, all of whom, it seems, are well aware of the formula for success. Yet still, I wish here well in her endeavors, just as I wish all writers well. I won’t, however, be finding myself drawn to any of her future releases.

“The past is always nipping at our heels. A surplus of half-dead worldviews lie in wait to interfere in modern life. On the other hand our engagement with the modern and the West amounts to emptying into that gushing river as an afterthought. Meanwhile, we’re not simply water, we’re human society, and we’re not a tributary joining a river, we’re appropriating a civilization along with its culture, within which we must possess a particular identity.”

Mümtaz, the main character, when orphaned as a child, is sent to live within the family of his paternal cousin, Îhsan, an intellectual, a teacher and a philosopher.  Îhsan would become like a brother to Mümtaz, and also his mentor. Îhsan’s students, Mümtaz among them, challenge his beliefs with the idealism of youth, but Îhsan is up to the challenge of leading them forward with the knowledge that the intellectuals will point the way toward Turkey’s destiny.

Mümtaz is tortured by the tragedies of his childhood, but also by memories of Nuran. We learn early on that their love affair has ended, but then throughout the second movement of Tanpinar’s beautiful symphony we are led on their journey through the Bosphorus strait. The Bosphorus itself seems a metaphor for the struggles pitting the Black Sea and the Orient to the east against the Mediterranean’s modern cultures to the west. As Mümtaz and Nuran travel back and forth by ferry and rowboat, standing in the way of a life together is the constant conflict of the two ways of life. Other than by Îhsan and his family, their match is not seen as perfect. Nuran is older than Mümtaz, is divorced and has a daughter seven years of age.

As it was in many other works throughout his life, for Tanpinar, the concept of time and its effect on humanity is a prominent theme. Life, death and the passage between are an abstraction only evident to humans.

“Only for mankind does time, monolithic and absolute, divide in two; and because time, this dim lantern, this sooty radiance, struggles to burn within us, because it introduces a complex calculus into the simplest things, because we measure its passing by our shadows on the ground, it divides life and death, and like a clock’s pendulum, our consciousness swings between the two polarities of our own creation. Humanity, this prisoner of time, is but desperate, trying to escape to the outside. Instead of losing itself in time, instead of flowing along with all else in a broad and continental river-run, humanity tries to perceive time externally. Thus time becomes a mechanism of torment. One lunge and we’re at the pole of death, everything’s over. Since we’ve split the unity of whole numbers, since we’ve consented to being fractions, we should resign ourselves to fragmentation. Momentum, however, sweeps us to the other pole; we’re in the midst of life, we’re full of vitality, we’re once again the plaything of our hurtling inertia; but yet again, by its very nature, the balance tips irrefutably toward death, and torments increase exponentially.”

Tanpinar gently melds the two lovers to the seasons. The relationship is born of the spring, flourishes during the summer, begins to wain in the autumn and is snuffed in winter. Time passes, yet does it exist?

Mümtaz claims not to fear death; he claims to seek satisfaction rather than greatness. Yet he also feels humans are creatures of anxiety and fear. At moments of bliss, he finds himself “lanced by dread.” He fears the balance could suddenly tip. Nuran’s family’s deep roots to the past and Ottoman music is attractive to Mümtaz, yet Nuran is tiring of it and would like to move forward.
The final movement of Tanpinar’s symphony finds Mümtaz without Nuran and searching for inner peace and a consciousness of continuity.

Struggles abound in A Mind at Peace. Yet it seems that every page causes one to stop and think as insights into human nature are thrust forward.

“Every act, regardless of type, is a result of despair. Particularly in the period of open fear that won’t scab over . . . One by one, our continual rejection of cherished things. The fear of turning into one’s father. And, finally, the realization that whatever one does, death is inescapable.”

“How did life manage to thrive between two polarities? At one extent, an array of vehicles for mankind’s exaltation and, at the other, trifling worries, the settling of scores, and random enmities that strove to exclude and banish people from exalted heights.”

Regarding Ottoman music: “Whether we like it or not, we belong to it. We admire our traditional music and for better or worse it speaks to us. For better or worse we hold this key that unlocks the past for us . . . The past relinquishes its epochs to us one after another and dresses us in its labels.”

The translation from the Turkish is by award winning translator Erdağ Göknar and is, for the most part, lyrically gorgeous

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, who died in 1962, wrote A Mind at Peace in 1949. It has taken nearly 60 years for an English translation to be released. I for one believe it presents a beautifully melodic picture of Istanbul and the Bosphorus during a crossroad of Turkish and world history. We shouldn’t have had to wait this long for such an important work.

It’s been impossible not to notice the attitude adjustment that seems, at least on the surface, to have humanized the head-honchos of America’s auto industry. Rather than arriving via private jet with demands, they arrived in Washington yesterday via hybrid vehicle with hats in hand—although one wonders as to their sincerity, one still must applaud their apparent efforts toward appealing to the more common man. Yet, we continue to ask why they deserve a handout when a new, leaner auto industry, along with a new, leaner America, might be just what we all need.

Is the publishing industry learning from this? It appears they are. In fact, in an industry noted for snail-paced reaction times, it’s great to hear that the giants are hunkering down for a fight. Now, if we can just make some headway on curbing the practice of huge advances to would-be writers for what turns out to be shoddy work, we’ll really be getting somewhere. And, you know what? Starting with cuts at the top, which is what seems to be happening, is a perfect strategy. Now, when the book auctions begin, they’ll be able to point to overall cost cutting as the reason for lower, or non-existent, bids.

Yes, I’m always optimistic, but the reality is that no matter how dark the night, dawn will still arrive, and that knock you hear at the door just might be opportunity.

Though Amazon won’t release sales figures for the Kindle, gadget industry experts widely report that sales of Kindle and Sony Reader Book are running neck and neck. Logically, that should mean that once Sony goes wireless, they’ll begin to move toward dominance of the market. Amazon’s response will more than likely be Kindle2, but I also believe they’ll drop their price.

So far three million books have been downloaded from Sony’s online library, which is home to 57,000 titles. The electronics giant said it planned to grow its online library to 100,000 titles by the end of 2008.

The future seems obvious: Once the Beta versus VHS type wars have been fought, what should emerge is a single portal type for all available e-books. Prices per book might rise a bit at the beginning, but the price of the e-reader(s) will plummet. The winner in the book world, will be (as it should be) whoever sells the most e-books, rather than whoever sells the most e-readers.

Today we read in an AP article by Hillel Italie that the freeze is news to Otto Penzler, whose Otto Penzler Books is an HMH imprint. Mr Penzler doesn’t work at the HMH offices so he called to find out whether the story was true. Apparently he was told the report was blown out of proportion and that he could keep buying books—his is mystery book imprint and he releases about 6-8 titles per year.

According to the AP article, Penzler says the information came from a high-level Harcourt Houghton executive, whom he declined to publicly name, saying he wanted to preserve the official’s privacy.

The book world was stunned Monday by a posting on the Web site of Publishers Weekly that HMH had “temporarily stopped” buying books, the latest shock resulting from the economic crisis. HMH is the publisher of Philip Roth, Nobel laureate Guenter Grass and one of the literary world’s most lucrative franchises, J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

Houghton Mifflin acquired Harcourt in 2007. Their owner, the private-equity concern Education Media and Publishing Group, has acknowledged that rival publishers have expressed interest in buying HMH, leading to broad speculation in the industry that the announced halt in buying was a prelude to the company’s sale.

More from the AP article: “To the best of my knowledge, the company is not being shopped,” HMH spokesman Josef Rosenfeld said Wednesday. He would not comment on whether other publishers had approached HMH.

Rosenfeld has called the current policy “freeze-lite,” although cracks keep appearing. Rosenfeld confirmed that education and children’s books are still being acquired, did not dispute Penzler’s assertions and added that the “right” book, of any kind, would still be considered. He said talk of a freeze had been taken out of context.

“A headline about a freeze is very appealing, but in reality all we’re doing is taking a good, hard look at everything that comes in, much the way this company is watching all expenses and expenditures,” he said. “It’s just a higher degree of scrutiny.”

Asked if agents should continue submitting manuscripts to HMH, Rosenfeld said, “I don’t see why not.”

At LFR we find the whole idea of a freeze sort of an interesting way to attack the practice of ridiculously high advances being paid. While HMH may not technically be in a freeze, it’s our bet that they won’t be in the running to win any mega-auctions. This could very well be the beginning of the end for agents and authors shopping for huge advances. In fact, this could be the signal that we could be witnessing the rebirth of the publishing industry of old—the industry operated by book people rather than deal makers. We might return to the era when the book and the author were able to sink or swim on merits. Wouldn’t that be nice!

Update on the Kindle 2: It was scheduled to be released in October in time for this holiday season, but Bezos himself reportedly pulled the plug for last minute changes to the software. Our sources now say it’s tentatively scheduled to go on sale in “early next quarter.”

The images that surfaced of the new Kindle in October are real - it’s a longer device but not as thick as the original Kindle, and fixes some of the button issues that plague users (like accidental page turns). A larger-screen student version is still scheduled for the first half of 2009.

Amazon is slow to turn new versions of the Kindle, which isn’t surprising given that this is their first foray into actual devices. I still think they’d be better off licensing the platform and letting the factories in China iterate more often on the Kindle - from what we hear a bunch of new ebook products are about to hit the market, and some of them may be real competition to Amazon.

A work in which the greatest powers of the mind are displayed, in which the most thorough knowledge of human nature, the happiest deliniation of its varieties, the liveliest effusions of wit and humor are conveyed to the world in the best chosen language.

Sounds like a novel might be the perfect Christmas gift!

“Marcella Edwards at PFD has secured a new deal for William Trevor in the UK and the US. Rights for a new novel and a long-awaited collection of stories from one of Ireland’s most celebrated writers have been sold to Tony Lacey at Penguin UK and to Kathryn Court at Viking Penguin, US (brokered by Peter Matson at SLL).

“Love and Summer is Trevor’s first novel since The Story of Lucy Gault (2002) which was shortlisted for both the Man Booker Prize and the Whitbread Fiction Award. It will be published by Penguin in August 2009 and will be followed by The Collected Stories for Christmas 2009.

“Tony Lacey at Penguin said: “It’s been six years since William Trevor’s last, magnificent, novel, The Story of Gault, but the wait has been worth it. Love and Summer is a wonderfully observed and deeply compassionate novel about a sudden and secret love affair in a small Irish town during one long summer. One feels that only William Trevor could have written it.”

“A new novel from William Trevor is always an event,” said Edwards.”

I couldn’t agree more! We’ll be reading the advance on this one for sure. Look for our review next summer.