The Art of Hearing Heartbeats New York Times Book Review

The Fine art of Hearing Heartbeats

Past Jan-Philipp Sendker

PBR Book Review:

This is a moving love story set in Burma written in a lyrical understated style. It'south virtually a young women'due south journey to find the reason her father unexpectedly disappeared from her life. While the principal theme is a love story, it's also a coming of historic period story for a young man with an all -consuming desire to be reunited with his true honey. A range of emotions surface every bit the story unfolds and the mystery is revealed. The descriptions of Burma are excellent, creating a strong sense of fourth dimension and place and exposing the vast cultural differences betwixt this land and ours. In summary - a unique and compelling story for those that relish a more than literary read. It's character driven with a rather languid pace that needs to exist read slowly and savored for full appreciation.

Book Lodge Talking Points:

Talking Points: This book explores the pregnant of true love between a man and a woman. Is there such a thing and tin can it suffer years of separation? Information technology also explores the dear between a parent and child, issues of abandonment, trust and forgiveness. Recommend for volume clubs that savor a more literary read.

*Author Website: http://artofhearingheartbeats.com/almost/

*Word Questions

i. In your opinion, what does the back-and-forth between Julia'south and U Ba's narratives add together to the telling of the love story between Tin Win and Mi Mi? How do these stories interrelate?

2. Can Win is born to parents who abandon him as a child but Mi Mi is born into a close-knit family unit. Mi Mi's mother, especially, adores her daughter. Do you see this developmental difference reflected in the developed each one becomes, or in the way the two relate to one some other?

3. Later on he loses his sight, Can Win spends several years in a monastery under the tutelage of the abbot, U May. In your opinion, what does U May model for Tin Win? How does Tin Win grow in these years?

4. Can Win'south wealthy uncle, U Saw, finances Tin can Win'southward eye performance and subsequent instruction abroad. Merely to U Saw's discredit, his motives are cocky-interested, and for his own convenience, he obstructs all communication between Tin Win and Mi Mi. Is U Saw portrayed equally a villain-or is he even villainous?

5. A portion of the novel is in the course of letters. Does this change the mood or the menses of the novel? The way yous see the characters?

6. Tin Win and Mi Mi develop an intense, literally symbiotic human relationship: he walks for her; she acts as his eyes. They become inseparable, merely then they are separated for decades. Given what you know about each character, how do you call back they are able to withstand the fourth dimension apart?

7. Discuss the part of memory in the novel, both individual and collective. viii. Burma (now known as Myanmar) was occupied by the British from the nineteenth century until 1948. How important is this colonial history to the major events of the novel?

9. Prophecy and superstition play a significant office in Burmese civilisation. Do you think this belief organization inspires a fundamental feeling of security or of anxiety in the chief characters of the novel, and why?

10. The novel contrasts Western and Eastern values: individualism and personal achievement versus kinship and transcendence. Where and how are these differences brought to calorie-free?

Other Press - 336 pages - January 31, 2012 - ISBN-10: 1590514637
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer all of a sudden disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has whatever idea where he might be...until they notice a love letter of the alphabet he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father's by, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader's belief in the power of love to move mountains.

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