Mason’s The Piano Tuner is an adaptation of Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. Edgar Drake, the piano tuner, is Charlie Marlow, and Anthony Carroll, Surgeon-Major in the British Army, then annexing Burma. Carroll is accused of setting up his state in defiance of British authority, and Drake is an unwitting dupe in the conflict. Unlike Conrad’s Marlow, who walks to the so-called edge of the universe and backs off, Drake heedlessly walks off and, in so doing, is doomed, like Carroll.
Edgar Drake, the piano-turner, is taken on a hunt (really a tour) of the valley and forest surrounding Anthony Carroll’s base camp. They pause for lunch by the wild river. It’s merely a lunch on the way, not a picnic, for a picnic requires intent, and this is a meal of necessity.
“Edgar rose and smiled and wiped off his glasses once again. While they talked, Nok Lek unpacked several baskets filled with stuffed banana leaves, which he laid out on the rocks, away from the precipice, where it was dry. They sat and ate and listened to the river. The food differed from the rich curries Edgar had eaten in the lowlands. Each banana leaf contained something different: sliced and seared pieces of chicken, fried squash, a pungent paste that smelled strongly of fish but tasted sweet with the rice, which was different too, sticky balls of grains that were almost translucent.
When they were finished, they rose and led their ponies up the path until it became flat enough to ride.”
See Daniel Mason. The Piano Tuner. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002