*Have You Heard? * Audiobooks For Your Listening Pleasure* A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker

A Well-Tempered Heart by Jan-Philipp Sendker, Kevin Wiliarty
Also by this author: The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
Published by Other Press, Blackstone Audio on January 21st 2014
Genres: Fiction
Pages: 400
Format: Audiobook
ISBN: 1590516400
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The sequel to the international best-selling novel The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
 
Almost ten years have passed since Julia Win came back from Burma, her father’s native country. Though she is a successful Manhattan lawyer, her private life is at a crossroads; her boyfriend recently left her, she has suffered a miscarriage, and she is, despite her wealth, unhappy with her professional life. Julia is lost and exhausted.   One day, in the middle of an important business meeting, she hears a stranger’s voice in her head that causes her to leave the office without explanation. In the following days, her crisis only deepens. Not only does the female voice refuse to disappear, but it starts to ask questions Julia has been trying to avoid. Why do you live alone? To whom do you feel close? What do you want in life?   Interwoven with Julia’s story is that of a Burmese woman named Nu Nu who finds her world turned upside down when Burma goes to war and calls on her two young sons to be child soldiers. This spirited sequel, like The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, explores the most inspiring and passionate terrain: the human heart.

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For those of you who have either read or listened to The Art of Hearing Heartbeats by Jan-Philipp Sendker, A Well-Tempered Heart is the sequel to this book. Whereas The Art of Hearing Heartbeats dealt primarily with Julia’s journey to discover the truth about her father Tin Win, A Well-Tempered Heart is Julia’s story of self-discovery. Ten years have passed since her epic journey to Burma in pursuit of information about her father’s early life. Now another woman has taken over Julia’s mind and is leading Julia back to Burma to find answers about her own life. Once more readers and listeners are transported into a world we can only imagine – a world that is lyrically mystical and harshly realistic – a world that is both sensual and spiritual. We are once more connected to the unflappable U Ba, Julia’s half-brother, and his unique perspective. I found this interview with Jan-Philipp Sendker to be very enlightening about the author’s thought processes while writing these two books.

As in The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, the translation by Kevin Wiliarty is flawless and, once more, Cassandra Campbell has provided excellent narration for a book that is almost poetic in nature; she captures the tone perfectly. There is little I can say about this book that I didn’t say in my recent review of The Art of Hearing Heartbeats. For me, A Well-Tempered Heart was the better of the two books and I would be hard-pressed to defend that opinion except from a purely personal point of view. I think it was the growth process experienced by Julia and Thar Thar as they moved toward their inevitable meeting. Even though they spent only a little time together in the book, their individual journeys to the point where they came together seemed parallel and predestined. Both had childhoods that were less than loving and, as adults, they had to find the ability to forgive before they could move forward with their lives. Julia is a character that many of today’s career-minded young people can identify with because she is so caught up in doing what’s expected of her, she doesn’t take the time to ask herself what she really wants. Thar Thar, whose early life was similar, was compelled to live his life a certain way by circumstances outside his control. When their paths finally converge, Thar Thar is living his life on his own terms whereas Julia is still searching. The ending is a bit of a delight because it stimulates all kinds of possibilities in the readers’ minds. . .especially the prospect that the author will tell us more about these two in a future book.