Love Is Blind

by William Boyd

Love is Blind is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. 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.

When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum. Moving from Paris to St Petersburg to Edinburgh and back again, Brodie's love for Lika and its dangerous consequences pursue him around Europe and beyond, during an era of overwhelming change as the nineteenth century becomes the twentieth.

Love is Blind is a tale of dizzying passion and brutal revenge; of artistic endeavour and the illusions it creates; of all the possibilities that life can offer, and how cruelly they can be snatched away. At once an intimate portrait of one man's life and an expansive exploration of the beginning of the twentieth century, Love is Blind is a masterly new novel from one of Britain's best loved storytellers.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance, Historical, Scotland, Music, Book Club

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 20, 2018

About the author

Note: William^^Boyd

Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him.

At the age of nine years he attended Gordonstoun school, in Moray, Scotland and then Nice University (Diploma of French Studies) and Glasgow University (MA Hons in English and Philosophy), where he edited the Glasgow University Guardian. He then moved to Jesus College, Oxford in 1975 and completed a PhD thesis on Shelley. For a brief period he worked at the New Statesman magazine as a TV critic, then he returned to Oxford as an English lecturer teaching the contemporary novel at St Hilda's College (1980-83). It was while he was here that his first novel, A Good Man in Africa (1981), was published.

Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing.

Boyd was selected in 1983 as one of the 20 'Best of Young British Novelists' in a promotion run by Granta magazine and the Book Marketing Council. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in the same year, and is also an Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He has been presented with honorary doctorates in literature from the universities of St. Andrews, Stirling and Glasgow. He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005.

Boyd has been with his wife Susan since they met as students at Glasgow University and all his books are dedicated to her. His wife is editor-at-large of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and they currently spend about thirty to forty days a year in the US. He and his wife have a house in Chelsea, West London but spend most of the year at their chateau in Bergerac in south west France, where Boyd produces award-winning wines.

Reviews

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is nothing revolutionary in William Boyd’s style but it’s always a great pleasure to read his retro novels.
Love Is Blind has a meandering plot and as the title implies it is a story of grand love…

Was it the lips or was it the eyes? Or was it some more subtle equation of the face? The distance between eyes equalling distance between nose and top lip. Or the precise setting of the lips between nose and chin… How did such fascination occur? One saw a thousand women’s faces in a month, say. Why was your eye – your heart, your loins – enthralled by just one?

The protagonist learns that his love is reciprocated and despite his illness, he is happy… But there is some dark secret and the cursed fate takes his beloved away… And he searches… And he hides… And he waits…

What did he really know of Lika Blum? Really understand? And the answer followed: only what she had wanted him to know. It didn’t matter how well you thought you knew someone, he realized. You saw what you wanted to see or you saw what that other person wanted you to see. People were opaque; another person was a mystery.

Sometimes life coerces us into making odd journeys that end in strange places.

[Richard (on hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve been reading William Boyd novels for about 40 years (unbelievably!) and can’t think of another novelist I’ve enjoyed so consistently. His books are always elegantly written, funny and wise. Compelling plots, authentic historical settings and moving human dramas are Boyd trademarks.
Love Is Blind, his 16th novel, is no exception.
Brodie Moncur is a young, skilled piano tuner. The son of a popular, fundamentalist minister he is the first of his large family to move away from the family manse and pursue his career in nearby Edinburgh. The year is 1894 and the world is on the brink of the twentieth century with its automobiles, telephones, medical breakthroughs, mass world travel etc, but this is is also, still, the age of duals at dawn, tuberculosis and painfully slow means of correspondence.
Brodie is given the opportunity to relocate in Paris by his company to help turn around their prestigious piano shop. This is the first in a chain of many travels that will see Brodie living in Nice, Biarritz, Geneva, Trieste, an estate in Russia and even the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean!
Whilst in Paris, Brodie becomes involved with a famous, virtuoso pianist, John Kilbarron, his lovely young partner Lika Blum (a Russian opera singer) and his malevolent brother Malachi ......... relationships that will become deep and tangled over the years.
Love is Blind is an epic love story that grew in power, hooked me in totally and saw me reading long into the night to finish.
Very much recommended, as of course are all of William Boyd’s novels :)

[Andrew Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

William Boyd writes books you can get lost in. In Any Human Heart and The New Confessions so rich is his mix of fact and fiction that he almost convinced me he was writing about the life of a real people. He wasn't of course, but I became so immersed in the lives of Logan Mountstuart and John James Todd that I really found it hard to accept I was reading a piece if fiction. I’d lived the life of these characters and at the end of both books I experienced a tearful moment when I reached the final page. Here he manages to do it again, this time we are introduced to a piano tuner named Brodie Moncur. We’re close to the end of the 19th century and Brodie is 24 years old. He works for the Channon Piano Company at their Edinburgh showroom and we follow him through the ups and down of his working life, track his physical health, meet his large family and travel as far and wide as France, Switzerland, Russia and the little known Andaman Islands (in the Bay of Bengal if you're wondering). But most of all we get to share his obsession with a Russian opera singer called Lika. I’ll warn you in advance, it’s an emotional journey.

It's soon recognised that Brodie possesses an energy and an entrepreneurial spirit that would serve the company well in helping grow its new shop in Paris and he is dispatched forthwith. But before he goes, he returns to the small rural town in which he grew up to visit his family. His father is the local clergyman – and a real Hellfire preacher he is, too – and he demonstrates an unexplained animus towards Brodie. After a testing couple of days spent with his large family he’s glad to make his escape. Once in Paris he meets resistance from the shop manager, the son of the company owner, but he manages to push through a number of his ideas which includes the recruitment of a top piano player to publicise their brand. It will cost money and it's a bit of a gamble, but Brodie is convinced it’ll bring significant dividends. It's at this point that John Kilbarron (the ‘Irish Listz’) enters the picture… together with his lover, Lika.

Boyd brilliantly brings the whole thing to life with his rich descriptions of time and place and razor sharp dialogue. 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. And there are sufficient historical references and instances of casual name dropping to make the whole thing feel real.

As the book progresses the tension level fluctuates. There is one brilliant set piece I won't go into, but it’s so well done I sure my eyes were bulging out of my head as I read it. If you get to read this book you’ll know this event when you reach it. But if I have a bone to pick it’s that the dance between Brodie and the Kilbarron brothers does seem to go on a little too long and, in fact, there are a few sections that did feel unnecessarily protracted. 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. 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. I didn't know how was all going to play out but I really wanted some closure, some happiness for Brodie. And did I shed a tear when I reached the end? Yes, I'm afraid I did.

Another superb offering form this brilliantly gifted writer, who I've admired for some years. I've now read a dozen or so of his books and I'm blown away by his inventiveness, the diversity of his stories and above all the way in which, in his best work, he invites the reader to become a part of the story – to become, in fact, the lead character and to experience their life as if it were your own. Quite a trick that.

My sincere thanks to Penguin Books UK and NetGalley for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

[Paromjit · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has all the inimitable style and qualities of an epic character driven William Boyd novel, of love, passion, obsession and music within a historical period presaging the great changes in the world at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a beautifully written and structured story of the life of the young Scottish Brodie Moncur, afflicted with health issues, employed at the Channon Piano Company in Edinburgh, when he is offered the opportunity to work in their Paris outlet which he fervently grasps with both hands. It means that he can escape the clutches of his unbearably grotesque, hypocrital and bullying preacher father, Malky. The source of the rancour that Malky directs towards his son is not made clear. This is a tale that features numerous locations including Europe, Russia and the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean, taking in music, love, betrayal, revenge, and secrets with its wide cast of characters.

Brodie is a gifted piano tuner, and Boyd goes into some depth to give us detailed insights of all that this involves. The ambitious and energetic Brodie is inspired to move the business in innovative and risky new directions, despite obstacles, in his efforts to increase sales when he brings in the talented pianist, John Kilbarron, 'The Irish Liszt'. Kilbarron's amour is the beautifully arresting Russian opera singer, Lika Blum, a woman Brodie falls for hook, line and sinker, a passion that will have devastating repercussions on his future. Malachi, Kilbarron's brother and business manager is a particularly brutal and malign presence. Boyd delineates Brodie's relationship through the years, his travels, the dangers, a man that gambles with his own system.

Boyd presents us with a chaotic and challenging life conjured by the blindness of love in all its aspects and how it shapes up to be infinitely testing of the human heart. This is a fabulously immersive read, set in turbulent times for the world, a turbulence that is mirrored in the gripping and compelling Brodie's life with the enigmatic Lika. A particular highlight for me was Boyd's skill in making the era come alive with his rich vibrant descriptions. An emotionally affecting and memorable book. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Penguin UK for an ARC.

[Andy Marr · Rating 3 out of 5]

What an odd book. After a very good first half, I envisaged giving it at least four stars. But then it began to fizzle out as more and more characters disappeared and less and less began to happen. Then, after a hundred or so pages of nothing, the book just ended, and while I suppose the ending made sense, and made up a little for what had gone before, it was incredibly anticlimactic and failed to provide nearly the same emotional punch as many of Boyd's other works.

Overall, I'm left with the impression that Boyd struggled with writing this novel, particularly in terms of developing his plot. Or perhaps he was just on a tight schedule, as the whole thing seemed hurried and badly in need of further attention. Compared to the three other books I've read by Boyd - and particularly his masterpiece 'Any Human Heart' - this really was disappointing.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5
William Boyd is one of my favorite authors. He has written several novels which I have loved, all of which share a similar characteristic which is that he takes you through decades of a character's life and gets you to care so deeply for that character and to become so enthralled by his/her story that you almost believe this character to be real. Love is Blind is one such beautifully written character driven novel with a breathless plot. I grew to care deeply for the main protagonist, Brodie Moncur, in his blind love/obsession which takes over his life and this novel and leads us all on a tour of France, Russia, Ireland, Scotland and the Andaman Islands. Brodie Moncur, has a special gift as a piano tuner, so any music lover will find a bonus, reading about how Brodie honed his craft and used it to help pianists produce beautiful music. This novel takes place during the late 19th Century and the early 20th Century so piano tuning was an extremely important job and Brodie was known as the best piano tuner in Europe.

Brodie became so real and so beloved to me that I felt very sad when the story ended. It has taken me days after finishing this book to accept that Brodie would no longer be a part of my life and to come to my senses to even write these few words.

There are plenty of other more thorough reviews of this book which you can read. I found the ratings to be all over the map. Interestingly, I find myself in the somewhat unusual position of loving a book more than many others on GR. I can understand the flaws some people write about but none of them bothered me enough to make me love Brodie and his story one bit less.

[Esil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reading a William Boyd novel ensures a view of history, some travel and a somewhat naive main character trying to make sense of the world. Love Is Blind is no exception. The novel is set in the late 19th and early 20th century, focusing on Brodie Moncur, a Scottish piano tuner. Brodie comes from a large dysfunctional family near Glasgow, and he is fortunate to be sent off to Paris to work for a Scottish piano manufacturer. There, he meets Lida, a Russian singer, thereafter becoming blinded by love. 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. Brodie’s poor eyesight is a pretty stark metaphor for his lack of insight — as is the title. Yet, it’s hard not to like him and root for him. I found Love Is Blind hard to put down — entertaining and smartly constructed. Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for an opportunity to read an advance copy.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 2 out of 5]

So that was Lydia Blum... He felt his sphincter loosen and the bubble of air expand to fill his lungs... Brodie felt now as if his innards were molten - as if he might melt in a puddle of sizzling magma on the floor

Well, there are ways to write about physical love, lust and desire but this isn't it - for me, at any rate. Boyd's prose is no more than workmanlike in this book which manages to be both bogged down in detail (why do we need to know precisely which brand of cigarettes each character smokes? Oh yes, because Boyd researched them) and simultaneously skim the surface when it comes to the personal relationships supposedly at the heart of this book. I never felt, either, that these were people who had grown up in the Victorian period or late nineteenth century - the way they think, speak and act feels utterly contemporary.

The musical backdrop is done well but everything else felt overdramatic, almost operatic, but without the fantasy element that opera uses to, paradoxically, make us 'believe':for example, we learn quite early in the book that Brodie has the conventional lung disease that causes the sentimental early deaths of all those operatic women like Mimi and Violetta; while Lika carries a little pistol given to her by her lover so that she can't be ravished by any other admirers.

To me this feels overly simple and simplistic in writing and imaginative vision. There are lots of female breasts (lots) and quite a lot of masturbation (not explicit) all of which render sex as a transaction rather than something more emotional, no matter how many times Brodie swears his undying (ha!) love to Lika: 'Brodie kept a running calculation: from September 1898 to May 1899 - no sexual congress with Lika... masturbation was only the briefest consolation.'

On the plus side, there's quite a lot of story here as the tale sweeps from Edinburgh to Paris to St Petersburg and then swoops off to the Andaman Islands. Personally, I found the whole thing rather thin and uninvolving - as an evocation of erotic love, I didn't believe this for a second.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley

[Algernon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Falling in love is the one illogical adventure, the one thing of which we are tempted to think as supernatural, in our trite and reasonable world. The effect is out of all proportion with the cause.
Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque

A writer at the height of his narrative powers embarks on an incredible journey that takes his hero, Brodie Moncur, across half the world on a quest of self discovery. The exotic places he visits are ultimately irrelevant to the true scope of his life, a scope that remains hidden to him for most of the journey. But we are offered a key right on the first page, in the two quotes chosen by Boyd to frame his novel, from Russian and Victorian novelists. Brodie, a young man born into a 'respectable' household in the Scottish countryside, will escape from Victorian rigid, fake morality to Russian emotional torment. William Boys sets out to write the unfinished planned novel of Chekhov, to tackle the Big Questions championed by Dostoyevsky, to unravel the eternal mystery of a loving woman like Tolstoy. And, in my opinion, succeeds spectacularly.

From 1861 to her death twenty-three years later, Brodie had recently calculated, she had given birth to fourteen children, five of them stillborn or dead within days of their parturition. He wondered what his father thought about this woman, his wife. Was she just some sort of child-factory, a breed-cow?

Brodie Moncur, a young man gifted with an extraordinary accurate musical ear, but not enough talent to become a concert pianist, is a resourceful and methodical piano tuner instead. His talents and his innovative ideas may be his ticket out of a mostly boring Edinburgh career, as his boss decides to send him to their company's Paris office.

Everyone had seen a grand piano with the lid up but having the action on display somehow altered every easy assumption. The piano no longer seemed familiar. Now all the moving parts were visible beyond the black and white keys – the hammers, the rockers, the jacks, the whippens, the dampers – its innards were exposed like a clock with its back off or a railway engine dismantled in a repair shop. Mysteries – music, time, movement – were reduced to complex, elaborate mechanisms. People tended to be fascinated.

Once away from his 'trite and reasonable world', from his mechanical, predictable job, Brodie becomes almost overnight a cosmopolite, at ease in the business and artistic circles his new position opens up for him. 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. But complications arise.

Was it the lips or was it the eyes? Or was it some more subtle equation of the face? The distance between eyes equalling distance between nose and top lip. Or the precise setting of the lips between nose and chin ... How did such fascination occur? One saw a thousand women's faces in a month, say. Why was your eye – your heart, your loins – enthralled by just one?

Lika Blum is a Russian actress and singer, moderately talented. She's also the mistress of John Kilbarron, the first famous pianist to accept Brodie Moncur's sponsoring contract. But the heart moves in mysterious ways. A further complication is the discovery that Brodie is suffering from an incurable disease, the bane of the nineteen century – tuberculosis.

Naturally – she's an actress." He laughed wryly to himself. "Complications. Oh, yes." The doctor reflected and then said, "I always think a life without complications isn't really a life, you know. In life things go wrong, nothing stays the same and there's nothing you can do about it. Friends betray you, family is a nightmare, lovers are fickle. This is the norm, no?" He smiled to himself, as if remembering something pertinent. "What kind of a world would it be where nothing ever went wrong, where everything stayed the same, life followed a designated path – family was adorable, friends and lovers were faithful and true?" He paused. "You know, I don't think I'd like that kind of a world. We're made for complications, we human beings. Anyway, such a perfect world could never exist – at least not on this small planet."

The doctor recommends that Brodie Moncur leaves Paris for a sunnier, drier climate and that he avoids emotional turmoil, if possible. But life without Lika isn't really life, and Brodie is still young and impetuous, and more than a little naive. He somehow gets into more complications as he follows Lika, John Kilbarron and his brother/agent Malachi Kilbarron to St. Petersburg in Russia, as their private piano tuner.

Stay with these precious moments, he told himself as he stood on the bridge over the Seine as the dusky light thickened. Store them away in your memory's treasure house. It was entirely possible, he realized, that they may never happen again.

The best and the worst moments of his life take place in the northern city and in the countryside at their summer retreat, the violent emotions and bloody confrontations a true reminder of the greatest moments of classic Russian literature. I will try not to spoil them, but like a musical theme in a symphony, a simple country song that Brodie wrote down for Lika in Paris will haunt their every moment of illicit happiness.

Der Tranensee, The Lake of Tears : That song had been the catalyst of all the happiness in his life, he thought. He thought further: and all his unhappiness, also.

The conclusion of the Russian interlude is explosive, to say as little as possible about it, and sends Brodie, now accompanied by Lika, once again all around the map of Europe, in search of drier climates for Brodie's sickness and in search of a hiding place from the consequences of their romance.

Something about his new life – his life with Lika – convinced him that he would never return home, never return to Scotland. And then he did feel a moment's sadness: thinking of his brothers and sisters and their circumscribed conditions. Here he was on a terrace of a cafe in the south of France looking out at the breakers of the Atlantic Ocean. Escape, flight, freedom – that was the only solution.

Brodie does return to Scotland, and he sees his family again, but he is not the same man as the one that left. He now carries the Russian fire inside him, and the confrontations are as powerful, as emotional as his time in exile.

"My God," she said, nodding, taking it in. "Just as I keep telling you – it's completely like Russia."

So he leaves again , for Paris, for a society less strict, less conceited and less repressed. But once there, more complications arise, challenging the very core of his existence – Lika.

How much time do I have? A year? Two years? A decade, a quarter of a century? ... It was too depressing to contemplate; it made everything fragile, everything was now no more than a vague possibility – all probability and certainty had gone from his life. But then he reflected further: when had probability and certainty ever played a reliable part in the human condition?

Again, I'm trying to avoid spoilers, but the past catches up to them, and in their moment of panic, Lika leaves Brodie for another man. Were her declamations of love nothing but a lie?

It didn't matter how well you thought you knew someone, he realized. You saw what you wanted to see or you saw what the other person wanted you to see. People were opaque; another person was a mystery. Maybe he was as much a mystery to Lika as she was to him ...

What else is there to do for Brodie? Alone, with an incurable disease, uncertain about the compass of his life so far, he goes a little crazy, just like one of those crazy Russians in a Dostoyevsky novel. he tries to kill Malachi in the Tuilleries Gardens . Where is the resourceful, methodical and pragmatic young man from the beginning of the journey? Spin the globe all the way through and you'll see a tiny dot in the middle of the Indian Ocean. I guess that's as far as Brodie can go to escape from his complications.

In the Andaman Islands, Brodie finds some peace and some perspective, as he embarks on an etnographic study of the aboriginal tribes from the islands. He has gone to the end of the world, but what he needs to look at is right there in his heart.

It was good to gain some objectivity on a situation that familiarity had made stale. Your life was turned on its head when you thought about it in this way. If the Nicobars seemed strange and their beliefs outlandish, then so were ours, Brodie thought, seen from another perspective.

Objectivity and resignation are fine in theory, but this is a love story after all, and, no matter how hard he tries, Brodie Moncur cannot command the yearnings of his heart. Even as a new woman shows her interest in him, he still thinks of the one who got away. Love is indeed blind, as the title of this extraordinary novel suggests.

He saw a shape, like the map of an unknown island, that turned into Lika's face. Then he saw the skein of geese flying low over the Neva river. He saw the deer at Maloe Nikolskoe look up from its grazing and stare at him. He saw Lika come though the door and walk towards him smiling. "Brodie!" she called. "I'm here!"

I find myself with a yearning too, to read some more from Boyd, who was already on my list of favorite authors, and some Chekhov, of whom there are numerous references throughout this story.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a rather strange read, and it is difficult for me to rate it. I was resting on one stars, but I decided to give two, purely because the first half of the book did in fact, intrigue me, and the writing was good. But honestly, by the time the second half commenced, everything fell flat. It was as if William Boyd fell asleep, and I felt I was reading a completely (tedious) different story, that was in no way connected to the first half.

Brodie as a character was fairly bland. The scenes with his Father were interesting, but were not elaborated on enough. The way in which he acted with the woman (Lika) whom he had an obsession with was unbelievable. The apparent love between them seemed false and cumbersome, and it was always about when Brodie could get his next sex session. For a story based on love to work for me, there needs to be more to it apart from sex.

The second half kind of trailed off, and pointless characters entered the story with no real connection to what was happening, and nothing new to bring to the table. I thought the ending was especially disappointing, and decidedly unfufilling. Considering this was my first Boyd book, this doesn't give me much faith in trying any more of his works.

[Chrissie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Look at the title, it says it all. This is first and foremost a love story, or rather, multiple love stories. Set at the turn of the 19th century, it is a period piece drawing the life of a Scot, Brodie Moncur. Look at the surname; if one is acquainted with French, one sees there a play on words. We follow Brodie from 1888, when he is eighteen, to 1906, in his mid-thirties, and from Edinburgh to Paris to Geneva to Nice to St. Petersburg to Biarritz to Vienna to Graz to Trieste to finally the Nicobar and Andaman Islands. Traveling from place to place we see the world he sees, and this is enjoyable. The descriptions are delightful, accurate both in their detail and in their relaying of historical events of the time. The world of music and food and liquor and sex fill the pages.

Brodie is a piano tuner gifted with absolute pitch. He has fallen rapturously in love with Lika Blum, a Russian soprano. It is just that there are numerous impediments to their love. We meet John Kilbarron, the so-called Irish Liszt, as well as his brother. One flips between sensual love scenes and suspense. One discovers what a “Lika kiss” is! There is a duel and one is battling consumption, a horrifyingly frightening disease.

The plot plods on toward the conclusion, but one is curious to discover how it will end. The ending is appropriate and the writing elegant. Along the way there are twists and turns and explanations that add credibility. For example, it made perfect sense to me that Brodie came to be framed for embezzlement and then subsequently fired from the Channon Piano firm, despite the fact that clearly he was innocent! Many a father might accuse another to save their own son’s reputation.

I listened to the audiobook narrated by Roy McMillan. At the beginning, I found it to be overdramatized. Also, the Scottish accent gave me trouble. The volume varied from too low one minute to too high the next. As one continues these problems disappear. French, German and Italian are all well performed. The more I was caught up in the story, the more I enjoyed the narration. The narration I have given four stars.

********


Books by William Boyd :
Any Human Heart 4 tars
Brazzaville 4 stars
The Blue Afternoon 3 stars
Sweet Caress 3 stars
Love is Blind 3 stars
Restless 2 stars
Waiting for Sunrise 1 star


Check out The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason. If Love is Blind draws your interest, this will too.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like the inner workings of a finely-tuned piano, the harmony of William Boyd’s Love is Blind is the work of true craftsmanship that is sensed more than outwardly observed.

On the surface, it’s a rousing good yarn – a book that is, among other things, a novel about the fine art of piano tuning (Brodie Moncur, the protagonist, practices that profession), about love, passion, and revenge, and about how fateful encounters can change the trajectory of one’s life. It’s page-turning and immersing.

Brodie experiences both an internal and external journey after falling under the spell of a Russian soprano, Lika Bloom, who happens to already be in a relationship with “the Irish Liszt”, a prodigious piano player named John Kilbarron who is managed by his sinister brother Malachi. His passion for her will take him from Scotland to Paris to St. Petersburg and to the Andaman islands.

Throughout, there are hints of Chekhov – one of his most famous short stories “The Lady with the Little Dog”, the name Lika (in Googling that name, I discovered that Chekhov was also passionate about a singer named Chekhov), the Russian overtones. I suspect there are even more references that I overlooked, having read some of Chekhov years ago.

The title, Love is Blind, offers yet more layers. Brodie is, indeed, near-blind—he can’t see well at all without both the lenses in his Franklin spectacles. It’s a metaphor, of course, that the reader must take care not to trust Brodie’s “vision” of events. Add to that the fact that Brodie suffers from tuberculosis and is under the hand of the ticking clock and the tension is riveted up even higher.

Each of William Boyd’s fans—and I am one of them—will have his or her own favorites. I have loved Any Human Heart and the more recent Waiting for Sunrise. In my estimation, Love is Blind can stand confidently with those masterfully-written books.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This rich, lovely novel offers a breathtaking tour of fin-de-siècle Scotland, France and Russia seen through the myopic eyes of Brodie Moncur, a renowned Scottish piano tuner. His severe short-sightedness serves as a metaphorical reminder that we should hold his perspective at arm's length. Brodie's adventures abroad often become misadventures due to his poor reading of reality.

Brodie is plucked from a dull piano showroom in Edinburgh to lend support at the company's troubled Paris flagship. There he comes up with a scheme to increase sales, and falls into the sphere of a once-celebrated and now slightly demodé Irish pianist, John Kilbarron, and his sinister brother and manager, Malachi. Brodie falls hopelessly in love with Kilbarron's Russian mistress, Lika Blum, an aspiring opera soprano, and becomes a man obsessed.

Lika and Brodie undertake a 'hidden in plain sight' love affair in Paris that blooms into a dangerous liaison when the small entourage moves to St Petersburg. After an old school duel goes tragically wrong (apparently, gentlemen aren't really supposed to fire those pistols), the lovers are forced to flee and go undercover. They are pursued in a cat-and-mouse chase across Europe, and eventually to India, that leaves the reader anxiously turning the pages, hoping the unlikely hero makes it out alive. Add to this Brodie's worsening tuberculosis, and love doesn't only seem blind, it seems doomed.

Love Is Blind is ripe with gorgeous period detail and Boyd makes piano tuning a fascinating avocation, particularly when Brodie uses it for nefarious purposes. He cuts through the melodrama with well-placed moments of humor. The novel is deliciously, compulsively readable-what a treat to relax into the words of a skilled storyteller.

I withhold a star for some of the most horrendously-written sex scenes I've ever read. 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). And for the ending, which left so many dangling threads, and this reader bereft.

[Ray · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brodie Moncur is a young and talented piano tuner in fin de siecle Edinburgh. He itches to get away from an unhappy and oppressive home life in a dreich Scottish manse. When he gets the opportunity to move to Paris with work, he grabs it with both hands.

In Paris he meets a Russian singer and embarks on an all consuming, dangerous, love affair.

Boyd writes immersive fiction that really grabs you by the throat and pulls you in. He is a master of hidden secrets and unexpected twists - can we ever really know the person we love and the past events that have shaped them?

It is the little details that provide the hook - like the skills of a piano tuner, and virtuoso pianist. I reckon I can now tune a piano, at a pinch.

A good read

[Paul Fulcher · Rating 2 out of 5]

"'You could say,’ Vere mused, ‘that, looking at it from one angle, you’re having an amazing Russian literary experience.’"

In the TLS's recent Booker 50th anniversary edition, various past winners were asked about underrated authors that should have featured more in the prize's reckoning. Thomas Keneally suggested: "William Boyd is a consistently pleasing and illuminating writer. He made it onto the Booker shortlist once with An Ice-Cream War, and – to be honest – should have won it."
(https://the-tls.co.uk/articles/public...)

This commendation drew me to Boyd's new novel, Love is Blind, but I would be very surprised if it caused this year's panel to tary long in their deliberations.

It's a straightforward (overly so) historical romance, set around the turn of the 19th Century around Europe, particularly in Scotland, Russia, Paris and the French coast (Nice, Biarritz).

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. There he meets and forms a business venture with John Kilbarron–“The Irish Liszt” - a brilliant pianist but with fading powers, but their professional relationship is soured as Brodie falls in love with Kilbarron's muse, the soprano Lika Brum. As the novel progresses, Moncur travels across Europe, finding work wherever he goes, following Lika, and pursued in turn by Kilbarron's vengeful brother and business manager, Malachi.

"Not for the first time he gave thanks to the universal nature of his profession. Wherever there were pianos he could find work, one way or another."

Boyd's descriptive prose is his strong point, conjuring up the sights and sounds of the places and time:

"The dog cart clip-clopped through the village and led them past the church, St Mungo’s, still looking new – pure Gothic Revival with flying buttresses, finials wherever a finial could be placed and a tall bell tower with no steeple. Its rowan- and yew-dotted cemetery was crowded with ancient graves, former parishioners, the late, good folk of the Liethen Valley. Then they turned into the gravelled carriage drive of the manse, set in a wide dark garden filled with ornamental conifers – monkey puzzles, larches and cedars – and beech trees. Beeches grew well in the Liethen Valley soil."

And he - via Lika's observation - particularly effectively compares the Scottish highlands to the Russian steppe:

"I feel I could be travelling through a Russian village, so isolated, you know? The mood , the landscape. These small , low houses. The poverty. It’s different, of course, but somehow it makes me feel back home."

But Boyd is rather less successful conveying the historical background to the era, which is simply dropped in as lists of background events whenever Brodie picks up a newspaper:

"He read about the continuing animosities of the Dreyfus Affair, the celebrations being organized around Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, the economic tribulations facing President McKinley , and a review of a shocking new novel called Dracula."

And the plot itself, while a reasonable page turner, was a little overwrought and contrived for my literary taste.

A couple of particular bugbears for me in the book - although in each case one hopes the author was aware even if the characters aren't.

First, at one key point, Brodie's tyrannical father, Malky Moncur, a famously impassioned, if rather hypocritical, preacher, bases a sermon on an Apocryphal text to indirectly condemn his son: but the verses quoted bear no resemblance to any version of Baruch 6 I have seen (did Malky simply invent them? or Boyd?)

"Regulars turned the pages of their Bibles looking for the verses that Malky had chosen as his text for his sermon. It was, Brodie saw, very obscure, even for Malky. From the Apocrypha, the Book of Baruch, chapter six , verses ten to twelve. He could see people vainly flicking through their Bibles, searching for it.
...
‘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. For Nerias, the Levite, was a righteous man. And the people saw the wisdom of the righteous man and Sedacius was spurned by the Levites, they spake not of him. There was a void, thereof. He was forgotten as a cloud melted by the force of the noonday sun, as smoke dispersed by a breeze. He was shadowless, a nothing, less than a mote of dust.’"

The second bothered me more. 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."

Brodie describes his 'foolproof' system:

"I only played roulette – you know what a hopeless gambler I am. I played a simple martingale system: doubling my stake (2 fr) when I lost and pocketing my winnings when I won. You only bet on 2 to 1 odds. Red or black, odd or even. By the law of averages you will win at some stage. The only strange thing – if you double your stake each time you lose – is that sometimes you can be betting 40 francs to win 2 – so you need a substantial float."

Except of course this system is based on a mathematical fallacy. Even if the chances of winning were genuinely 2-to-1 (in practice, roulette is biased to the house) the expected winnings are zero. The last sentence highlights why - you don't just need a 'substantial float', you need an infinite one (and a casino prepared to extend you infinite credit lines). Sooner or later, the gambler will lose his entire float, the losses from which will balance out the modest winnings. I assumed that the flaw in the system would ultimately form a key plot point - but when it didn't it caused me to wonder if the author saw the flaw.

Overall, a pleasant but not particularly stimulating read. 3 stars less one for the dubious scriptural and mathematical references.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed parts of Love Is Blind, but I found a good deal of it dull and I’m not sure that it added up to much in the end.

The book follows Brodie Moncur from his early working life in the late 19th Century as a talented piano-tuner in Edinburgh as his work and his health needs take him to various places in France, Russia and beyond. He develops an obsessive love for a Russian singer and this is both the driver of the book’s events and the main subject of William Boyd’s interest.

For the first third or so of the book I was carried along by Boyd’s easy prose and the interest which, slightly surprisingly, I found in the details of Brodie technical work on pianos. The trouble is, I wasn’t very convinced by Brodie’s passion and found that I was more interested in his piano-tuning than the state of his heart. I got no real sense of obsession and I also found it completely un-erotic, despite some fairly graphic descriptions. This is not a good combination in a tale of overmastering passion and as the story moved from place to place I kept thinking, "OK, you're somewhere else now and you're still in love with her. And…?” I wasn’t drawn in by the period setting, either. The language isn’t always convincing and there are some rather clunky references to contemporary events and so on.

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. It wasn’t helped by a somewhat melodramatic feel and in the end I was quite glad to finish the book, whose emotional climax didn’t affect me in the slightest, I’m afraid, because it felt contrived and overdone. Love Is Blind is by no means terrible, but it certainly isn’t one of Boyd’s best and I can only give it a very lukewarm recommendation.

(My thanks to Penguin for an ARC via NetGalley.)

[Amanda - Mrs B's Book Reviews · Rating 3 out of 5]

*https://mrsbbookreviews.wordpress.com

3.5 stars

‘I always think a life without complications isn’t really a life, you know. In life things go wrong, nothing stays the same and there’s nothing you can do about it. Friends betray you, family is a nightmare, lovers are fickle.’

Affairs of the heart, choices, morals and ambition revolve around the fifteenth novel from prolific writer William Boyd. In this cross-country tale, William Boyd’s historical composition considers the life and times of a Scottish piano tuner, who finds his existence upended by his extreme love for a married Russian singer. Love is Blind is a poignant and sensitive tale from decorated author William Boyd.

Opening in the late nineteenth century and moving through to the early years of the twentieth century, Love is Blind is a touching novel that follows the life events of a young man from Scotland, who finds fortune and love in his travels across the globe. When we first meet principal character Brodie Moncur in Scotland, we glean more about the difficult upbringing of this ambitious young man. When an opportunity of a lifetime is presented to Brodie to take up a position as a piano shop manager in Paris, Brodie spreads his wings and soars in the French capital. But a chance meeting with a talented musician sends Brodie in a downward spiral, defining his life for years to come. As Brodie works for a famous pianist, he is thrown into the arms of Lika Blum, the musician’s wife. Passions are immediately ignited with tragic results. As Brodie follows his heart and his love for Lika consumes him, he is taken on a long-winded adventure across Europe and beyond. In an attempt to finally win Lika’s heart and claim her as his own, Brodie’s faces an uphill battle to achieve his happy ever after.

Born in Ghana and spending his early life in Nigeria, William Boyd is known around the world for his prize winning books. It seems a little strange that I have not read this well-respected author’s work prior to Love is Blind. I did enjoy the television adaptation of Boyd’s literary composition Any Human Heart, so I hope to explore the writing of this decorated author in the future. Love is Blind is a conflicting tale of overwhelming passion, desire and morality. A rich historical piece that showcases a number of key European destinations, Love is Blind offers an interesting reading experience.

Our guide for the duration of Love is Blind is a young man who hails from Scotland named Brodie Moncur. Brodie is a conflicted soul, full of love for a woman he can’t have and driven by ambition. Boyd does a good job of illuminating this sometimes-complex character and unveiling the layers to this man until we reach his inner soul. I felt the strong emotional turmoil this man faced, both in his early family life and his later years as he struggled to gain a grip over his unattainable object of affection. The attraction between Brodie and Lika is instantaneous, but I can’t say that I felt the full force of their overwhelming love. It did come across as mostly one sided, as Lika continually remained true to her husband. Boyd interrogates this aspect well, examining passion and sex with morals and obligations. In a time of strict expectations in social life, Boyd highlights this aspect well in the actions of his character set.

Underpinning the umbrella theme of love and passion is Brodie’s work as a piano tuner. I confess to knowing next to little about this trade or pianos in general, but I appreciated the attention to detail Boyd provided in this area of the novel. Brodie’s trade was interesting to follow and I felt that Boyd captured the inner workings of this form of employment with a strong air of authenticity. I liked how Boyd used the piano tuning business as platform to enable Brodie to launch his career, assist key musicians, find love and travel the world.

Overall, the plot itself was a slow going at times and I did get a little overwhelmed in some areas. I did find the overall tone somewhat melancholic and the end was bitterly sad. After a fruitless exercise, involving many years to win the heart of his one true love, Brodie learns more about his own personal resilience and emotional stamina in his search for love

Love is Blind offers a fictional historical account of the emotion, madness and heartbreak involved when you love someone who is attached to another. Heart wrenching, sentimental and moving, William Boyd’s 2018 release presents a tragic portrait of the challenges of love.

*I wish to thank Penguin Books Australia for providing me with a free copy of this book for review purposes.

*Book #12 of the 2020 International Male Author Challenge.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Love is blind” may seem like a tired proverb, but it fits literally and figuratively as a theme for the protagonist in Boyd’s new novel, which spans over a decade at the turn of the 19th century. Brodie Moncur is a 24-year-old handsome, educated gentleman, a first-rate piano tuner in Edinburgh,with perfect pitch and attention to detail. He has poor vision, though, and depends on his Franklin bifocals; otherwise the world appears “utterly aqueous.”

When Brody’s boss at Channing & Co, a family-run piano shop, offers him a showroom managerial position in their Paris store in 1894, Brodie accepts. He offers an innovative idea to employ a pianist, John Kilbarron, known as the “Irish Liszt,” to play a Channon piano in concerts and hence boost sales. This leads Brodie to the love of his life--a tall, beautiful Russian opera singer--and thus to the main action of the story.

Boyd’s novels tend to be genre-benders, and this is no exception. It is part romance, international adventure, classic drama, a bit of melodrama, and even shades of a play—or a Chekhov play. The epigraph is written by Chekhov’s widow, Olga Knipper. She describes a play that her husband intended to write in the last year of his life, in which the hero loves a woman “who either does not love him or is unfaithful to him.” This isn’t a spoiler for Boyd’s novel, only perhaps an inspiration for certain narrative flecks.

But there are other Chekhov parallels—from “The Lady with the Dog” and Chekhov’s gun principle to a consumptive protagonist and a small but significant appearance of a Russian doctor, among many examples. I see most of the Chekhov allusions, however, as an aspect of the author’s playful wit, his levity that occasionally borders on farce. But Boyd’s use of the absurd is counterbalanced by an underlying poignancy, so intimate does the reader become with Brodie and his fate.

Brodie is immediately smitten with Lika, Kilbarron’s sometimes-mistress, and feels “as if his innards were molten—as if he might melt in a puddle of sizzling magma on the floor.” Curiously, and I think this was the author’s intention, Lika remains inscrutable, inexplicable—not really three-dimensional EXCEPT from Brodie’s point-of-view. We see her through his eyes, not ours. In fact, she “stood at the very limits of both of the lenses of his Franklin spectacles—move and squint as he might, he still couldn’t bring her into focus.” The antagonist is John Kilbarron’s brother, Malachi, a truly old school villain who follows the couple “like a hell hound,” and is present at a duel that marks a turning point of the story.

What kept me fastened to the novel was Boyd’s meticulous plotting and the deepening of Brodie’s troubles related to his constant love for Lika, despite the odds which would have driven most men away. He is committed to her despite threats to his life and his need to flee at intervals, and the stress it has on his tubercular health problems. The reader is sent on quite a journey—from France, to Scotland, to Russia—and then full circle where the novel opens with a prologue in the Andaman Islands in 1906.

Many sections of the novel are like little short stories that could have theoretically expanded into their own separate narratives. One of my favorites is when the reader is installed at the Moncur family home in the Scottish Borders, with Brodie’s eight brothers and sisters and his fire-and-brimstone preacher father, Malcolm Moncur, a widower, perhaps an analogue of Malachi—a grim and sinister figure.

The preacher acts despicably toward his children, especially Brodie, who Malcolm refers to as “you black bastard” and other racist images of Brodie’s coloring, which doesn’t match the rest of the family’s ginger complexion. Malcolm’s blackness comes from the heart-- “a dark singularity.” Brodie rejects religion as he rejects his father.

Instead of blind faith to God, Brodie chooses the providence of blind devotion to Lika. The author expresses his narrative within the secular Chekhovian divination of love, art, time, and death. As Brodie is gazing into the guts of a piano, he reflects, “Mysteries—music, time, movement—reduced to complex, elaborate mechanisms.”

[Roz Morris · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh dear. I'm so glad I read Any Human Heart before I read this. If it had been the other way round, I would never have read Any Human Heart - and it's one of my favourite novels.
So this is to say that I'm an admirer of Boyd, so I was willing to go where this book wanted to take me. However, I think this is a novella that's been padded to way beyond its natural length. The time and place are well evoked but much of the action is repetitive until the duel near the end. But that can't make up for the thinly drawn relationships. I wanted to share Brodie's infatuation with Lika, but I never did because she seemed so wooden - and so I didn't believe it. This led me to suspect the author didn't believe it much either. I'm sure there must be something I've missed and I'm waiting for someone to tell me - but the book simply didn't hold my attention the way Any Human Heart did.

[Leah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Adolescent obsession...

Brodie Moncur works for an Edinburgh piano manufacturer, Channon, at the turn of the 19th century. He started out as a piano tuner but now helps out with the general running of the saleroom, so when the new Paris branch is struggling the owner asks him to go over and see what he can do. Brodie has long been at odds with his father, a bullying hellfire preacher, and has no real ties in Scotland, so happily agrees. Once there, he falls in love with Lika Blum, the girlfriend of an Irish pianist. Then he stays in love with her for the rest of the book, has sex with her quite a lot, and fantasises about having sex with her most of the rest of the time. He has sex with her in Paris, the South of France, Scotland and St Petersburg. And maybe other places – I forget.

Oh dear! I remember jokingly making a note to myself in a previous review that I must stop reading books written by major male authors once they reach the age of 60, since hormonally they appear to revert to a kind of adolescent obsession with sex. William Boyd is 66 now, and let’s face it, he was reasonably obsessed even in his prime. It’s not that the sex is graphic, nor even particularly erotic. It’s just that it’s not nearly as interesting as a subject to this reader as it appears to be to the writer. Sex as a literary side-dish, fine, but it makes for an unsatisfying main course.

There’s so much potential in the story too, but very little of it is realised. None of the locations come to life, and the bits I’d have liked to know more about – his relationship with his father and family, for example, or what life was like in St Petersburg around the time of the Revolution – seem to be introduced and then sidelined and forgotten about. Brodie’s passion for Lika doesn’t burn up the pages, probably because she hasn’t got much personality – his desire for her is purely physical, although he calls it love. The stuff about the piano tuning is actually the best bit of the book, although even here one can tell Boyd has researched it to the nth degree and is determined to name every part.

There is a plot of sorts, around musical plagiarism and the rivalry of Brodie and the Irish pianist for the love of the fair Lika. But when I tell you that, as it reached its climax, the three words I wrote in my notes are “ludicrous”, “laughable” and “dire”, you’ll be able to tell I wasn’t wholly impressed by it.

I am a long-time fan of William Boyd and when he’s on form he’s one of the all-time best storytellers out there. Unfortunately, sometimes his form seems to desert him, and for me this is one of those times. If you’re new to Boyd, don’t be put off him by this review. Read Brazzaville Beach instead – there’s sex in it too, but there’s also a good story...

NB This book was provided for review by the publisher, Penguin Viking.

www.fictionfanblog.wordpress.com

[Silvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

*3.5*

A digital ARC of this book was provided to me by the publishing house, Viking, via NetGalley

"Love is Blind" is the bittersweet story of Brodie Moncur, a young Scotish man who fixes pianos for a job, in the late 1800s. But the new century is coming, and so are a lot of changes in Brodie's life. He will fall deeply in love with a Russian soprano, Lika, and this love will perpetuate for all his life, through thick and thin, and through difficulti but wonderful times.

I must admit that I've never read anything by William Boyd, I requested a digital copy of this book only becuase I'm a sucker for historical ficiton set in the 1800s in England, but this story is so much more.
First of all because it is set all around the world, and that solely is truly fascinating. And Boyd has a wonderful way with words. He has the magical ability to create vivid settings (more than vivid characters), and for this reason I was fully in the story.
The characters were a little bit flat in my opinion. The love in the title really is blind, cause the two main characters meet once and are already in love, but I can get over that, it seems believable considering the strong passions of that time. Love was very different from what we experience today, and at the same time purer, in my opinion.
Lika was... Lika. I didn't truly comprehend her reasons and the plot twist was a little bit predictable for me, we had all the clues, but at the same time I truly don't understand why she did what she did.
The story in certain points seemed to drag a little too much for my tastes, and the same events took place over and over again. And then again.
The ending too was quite clichey but at the same time frustrating.
But beside that I'm glad I've read this book, it's a fascinating story for sure, set in a wonderful time in our history.

[Alecia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm hovering between 2.5 and 3 stars for my first book by William Boyd. On the one hand, I can tell he writes very well, but much of it struck me as rather thin. It is a love story (with quite a bit of lust) set in the late 19th century between Brodie Moncur, a brilliant Scottish piano tuner and Lika Blum, a Russian soprano of dubious talent.

I found the scenes between Brodie and his tyrannical, despotic father quite powerful, and also the parts describing how Brodie tuned a piano to please a finicky concert pianist were very interesting.

The love/lust story itself was rather mystifying to me as I thought his choices and actions were rather ill-advised. And since these choices were the basis for the whole book, it didn't resonate with me. I also found the ending to be quite melodramatic and I was rather glad the book was over.

[Annette · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm reading this in a distracted state, in short bursts, in noisy places, feeling a bit weary after work, BUT... it holds my attention and I look forward to continuing.

I've hit the half-way mark and although I'm happily reading away the story somehow isn't delivering the something - whatever I thought that was going to be.

I'm going to finish it but there is a lack of depth to the characterisation that really prevents me from caring in the way I normally do with other novels by William Boyd.

The final third of this novel feels undeveloped and dashed off - a dead ball.

[Mary Lins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I simply couldn't put down "Love is Blind", by William Boyd, finishing it over a weekend. I was captivated by protagonist Brodie Moncur, a flawed but compelling character blinded by love. Boyd is a fabulous writer, winner of many awards; anyone enamored with beautiful prose and a well paced plot, will love this novel, AND learn a lot about pianos and piano tuning, music, tuberculosis, and the aborigines of the Andaman Islands!

[Susan Stuber · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is neither excitingly crunchy like granola, nor fuzzily heartwarming like oatmeal, but rather blandly filling like cornmeal mush. In order to make it a bit more appetizing, it has been seasoned with a bit of Paris, Moscow, Vienna, Nice, and, as garnish, an obsure South Sea island.

What we have here is a triangle story with contrived conflicts. We are presented in the very beginning with the main character’s family: the absent mother, the numerous children, the brothers, but particulary, the pastor father who hates Brodie and lets him know it, but we never find out why. Brodie hates his father, too. Conflict Nr. 1. Brodie goes to Paris and gets involved with Lika. Conflict Nr. 2. Brodie gets sick. Conflict Nr. 3. Brodie gets framed at work. Conflict Nr. 4. More detail at the end here.

The book reads like it is written for a movie the way the scenes, the way people dress, what they eat, smoke, etc. are described. Even the architecture of the houses is relayed in much technical detail.

Excepting the excentric John Killbaran, the characters seem bloodless. The characters move around a lot and things happen, but we never really get into their heads or their hearts. What kind of a woman Lydia/Lika really is remains to the end a mystery. In the beginning, she is presented as a vivacious femme fatale, only to relax comfortably into a being a somewhat plump mistress and then goes on, surprisingly, to become an entrepreneuse and a practically-minded grand dame. All we really know is, as we are repeatedly told, is that she is the woman Brodie loves. Brodie himself is getting along well in life as a debonair bachelor until he meets Lika, and from then on, she is really all he cares about. Brodie doesn’t see well. Love is blind, Get it?

The sex scenes are awkward and crude, lacking in any eroticism. They f…..d. They kissed. After having had numerous trysts, all of a sudden Lika is worried about conceiving and so “she masturbasted him.” Yuck.
Or at one point when they are in bed, he looks at her breasts hanging down. Please. Was this thought to deem the sight lovely? Maybe Boyd thought that if he had written, instead, “Her breasts swayed from her chest like ripe pears, ready for the picking,” he would have thought it overwrought??

The prose, too, is only occasionally inspired. Such as: “the slow river’s lazy chestnut sprawl turned lithe as it poured over some rocks into a deep shadowed pool.” Very nice. Otherwise Boyd resorts to using vocabulary that very few are familiar with, and I, for one, was grateful for the dictionary on Kindle. Words such as: refulgent, charabancs, exegesis, demesne, wassailing, etc.

What is supposed to be the lead up to the main conflict in the book arises when Brodie realizes that his mother’s lullaby has been “stolen” by Killbaran for his symphony, and yet Brodie himself admits that the arrangement is genial. And even us readers wonder why he is so furious when it wasn’t “his” melody to begin with. We also agree with Lika that Killbaran most likely kept the melody in his head after hearing it once. Incidentally, there is actually a “My Bonny Boy” English Folk song Suite: III. Intermezzo,: Andantino by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

[Liviu · Rating 5 out of 5]

For about 2/3-3/4 of this novel i thought it was truly excellent and would make my top 10 of the year, but then the author makes some choices with how to get to the end (which was always kind of clear) that just didn't work out for me so the last 1/4 or so of the novel became a bit of a slog

Overall excellent for most of it but loses energy in the last quarter or so and becomes a fairly banal story of failure after that; the writing and characters still keep it readable but it could have been so much better with a different storyline in the last part (and the same ending more or less as that was the natural conclusion)

[Iveta K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomēr 5*.

[SueKich · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boyd’s vision.

William Boyd writes a story of love and great passion set at the turn of the last century. Brodie Moncur, son of an overbearing patriarchal clergyman, has a particularly musical ear. His work as a highly skilled piano tuner takes him to Paris and beyond, fine-tuning the instruments of the great concert pianists of their day. On one such occasion, he meets Russian opera singer Lika Blum, mistress of a now-fading Irish pianist, and falls madly in love with her. Their affair must be conducted in secret.

Boyd is a natural storyteller who conjures up whole other worlds in which his readers can thoroughly immerse themselves. And this is no exception. One might assume the work of a piano tuner to be a dry subject but in Boyd’s hands it becomes fascinating. And as he describes these procedures of “elaborate precision”, it strikes me that this is what he gives his readers: precisely crafted novels of intricate complexity.

In Brodie Moncur, he has created a sympathetic and likeable hero, although Lika, his great love, is less convincing. (One never quite gets a handle on her but this may well be the author’s intention.) The relationship between Brodie and his father, the “domestic potentate”, is one of the more intriguing aspects of this book and I would have liked to see this more fully explored. Just why does Malky Moncur resent his son so?

All in all, this is a highly enjoyable and diverting read that takes in Edinburgh and Paris, Nice and St Petersburg, dampers and hammer-heads, jealousy and plagiarism, contemporary complaints and human conundrums.

My grateful thanks to Viking for the ARC.

[Richard Newton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed with this book which is well written and often engaging. But the storyline did not work for me. There is a part of the book which is quite a page turner, but the ending did not work for me and felt almost a random addition to bring a complex story quickly to an end. Additionally, the title was a mystery to me in the sense of why the book has that name. It is explained briefly and unconvincingly at some point. A shame for me as there is, as I have experienced before, much to like about Boyd’s writing.

[Kerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel took me almost completely by surprise. I've read Boyd in the past so the arc of the story was one I expected (the life of one man during his formative years to death) but the depth and richness of both the character and the setting made this a wonderful and I feel what will be an unforgettable read.
The one man—Brodie Moncur is a Scottish piano tuner. Brodie works for a large piano company in Scotland during the late 1800’s. His innovative ideas for piano sales and service have landed him a job in the expansion of the company to the Paris. There his latest sales idea to furnish the company’s pianos to famous concert pianists brings him into contact with John Kilbarron (a world renown pianist), his brother Malachi (manager for brother John) and Lika Blum (a want to be Russian opera singer, the mistress of John). Brodie becomes part of this entourage as they tour Europe and by mid-story land in St. Petersburg Russia at the turn of the century.
I won't go any further into the story as it may give away too much but from the title one can guess that a love affair happens and affects all of these characters.

It is a wonderful read with a rich historical setting that I could and did get lost in it. Its only draw back is that it is slow to get going as Boyd seems to revel in setting the stage with his main characters for several hundred pages and there were times when I felt the story was too light for the heft of the characters drawn. But once it got going I was thankful for the ground work laid. The characters who all build their lives around music in one way or another proved fascinating. This was a time when the richness of music and a ticket to a concert hall were primary sources of entertainment and the musicians fostered and supported a part of the cultural fabric.
Highly recommended it if like rich historical fiction and a strong character driven story. A great story for a winter nights by the fire.

(Want to thank Penguin Random and Main Street Books in Orleans, Ma for this advanced reader's copy and the chance to review this book).