The Art of Hearing Heartbeats - Jan Philipp-Sendker

I can't remember when I first learned of this book, but it's been on my to-read shelf for quite a while. All in all it was fine, but kind of a let down because it could have been much better, and I'm not sure if the disconnect is in the original language or the translation, but I'm willing to give the author the benefit of the doubt. In The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, Julia's father abandons his New York family - Julia, an overly one-dimensional mother, and an almost comically absent brother - to return to "Burma," the country of his birth. (Okay so I know the whole Burma/Myanmar naming thing has been an issue since it happened in 1989, with may adherents to the old name refusing to recognize the new one, but even a passing reference to this would have made the book more realistic, instead it reads more of a westernized fantasy about an exotic locale - one of my first issues with the book).

In order to figure out what has happened to her father, Julia travels to Burma (I'm just going to go with it). While there, she meets Uh Ba (apologies for not knowing how to spell any names, I listened to the audio version). Uh Ba proceeds to tell Julia an elaborate tale about the life of her father, Tin Win, his abandonment at a young age, his early affliction of blindness, his reliance on the kindness of a neighbor, and finally, his falling desperately in love with Mimi - a young crippled girl in the village. The dramatic language attributed to Uh Sa stretched the line of credulity for me. I would have preferred a more streamlined straight-forward rendering of the Tin Win/Mimi backstory. I didn't need the added element of it being told by a third party to Julia. 

I'll say this, the Tin Win/Mimi parts were spectacular. Their relationship, the honesty of their love was very well done. Their disabilities don't impact the love they have for one another, even if others consider it a burden. Julia learns some valuable lessons in the meantime and learns to see her father in a new light. 

One of the themes of the book is reliance on free will versus predictions of fate. Tin Win is abandoned by his mother based on the predictions of an astrologer. As a young adult, his life is shattered by a self-interested Uncle who acts according to the predictions of an astrologer. Only Suu Kyi, his adopted mother, Tin Win and Mimi (and Mimi's mother) live outside the bounds of astrology and in the realm of free will. And their lives are richer for it.

3/5 Stars.