(i'm dating back this entry since i finished this book over a week ago but have been too busy to write my review)

when i picked up this book, i was sure it would take me ages to get through the 1100+ pages but by the time i reached page 1000 i was regretting that i had read the book so quickly. i didn't want it to be over ALREADY! it was engaging, funny, poignant, and mesmorizing all at the same time. i marvel at how much happened in that monster of a book and yet i feel that it was all worth it and there was nothing that i would cut from it. it was perfect in many ways.

the story begins with a mighty wind torturing a dutch ship that was trying to circumnavigate the globe at the hands of an english pilot, blackthorne. unfortunately, they hit a typhoon off the coast of japan and never make it much farther. the ship is ruined and the crew is marooned in feudal japan. blackthorne becomes the de facto leader of their group (the captain is ill) and is spared a life of hell and disease by an interested japanese lord who thinks blackthorne can be of great use to him. so begins blackthorne's journey into becoming a confidante, a warrior, and a civilized japanese samurai. he learns their language, adapts to their customs, accepts his karma, and falls in love. what more could a good story provide?

and there's so much more in this story! the battle of religions, the quest for trading rights, and the secession of the shogunate. too much to actually outline in such a small review but i wouldn't want to give everything away, now would i?

i'm seriously in awe of how good this story was. though clavell's grasp of grammar sometimes fails, it's the rhythm of his storytelling that keeps it all together. a masterpiece that i wouldn't mind reading again someday. i'm definitely going to be reading the rest of his asian saga, that's for sure!

after reading all of the previous otori novels, i was anxious to get my hands on the last book (soon to be published in september) and thankfully one of my good friends works for the publisher! then KP snapped it up and read it before i could get my hands on it. yes, it's that good. my hubby is so picky about books and even he loves these! all i have to say about this book is that it's tragic.. so so tragic. in that japanese seppuku-like tragic way. but so appropriate to this series. how could it end all happy and fluffy? it just can't.

it's several years after takeo and kaede have married and united the three countries under their rule. they're happy. their children are growing and prospering. the people they rule over are at peace. but as with all good things, these times must come to an end. when kaede's sister, hana, and hana's husband, zenko, put forth plans to take takeo down for his past crimes against the arai family, things begin to fall apart. throw in some treachery from the tribe and the influx of foreigners from overseas and you've got trouble in the making.

this is another one of those books where i fear giving you too much information. it would just ruin all the fun! if you've read all the previous otori books (and if you haven't, you are no longer my friend) then you should definitely pre-order this baby from amazon and set aside multiple hours to just sit and read. you'll thank me for it.

i remember picking up this book and reading it and then becoming very bored with it the first time around. mishima is a delicate writer. he prefers to not bash you over the head with symbolism and instead walks around his themes on tip toes. the main character, kazu, is a strong and independent woman who just wants to be loved (and have someone look after grave once she's dead) so she marries a convenient man who would have her sit at home day after day and do nothing. kazu, though, just won't stand for that nonsense! she owns a restaurant and has been busy her entire life! when her new husband decides to run for mayor of tokyo she sees an opportunity to keep her idle hands in the mix of things but goes way overboard, mortgaging her restaurant more than once to finance the campaign and shaming her husband into cool and merciless behaviors. needless to say, it doesn't end well for her. she's a woman in japan in the 40s. not a very good time for women in general and even worse in japan. but the story is sound and ends on a high note if you can get that far. i had to push myself very hard to get past some of the duller moments and that's why i'm downgrading the rating on it. otherwise it was fairly enjoyable.

it's sad to think that this was the last of the otori novels (though i have heard rumors that hearn is in talks to do a sequel and a prequel so here's hoping!) because these were so good! lian hearn takes us once again to takeo and kaede's fight for the kingdom. we return to find them happily married though there is much unrest within their ranks and the villages that they are stowed away in. spring is here and the time has come for battle. takeo forms a plan for revenge against his adoptive father's brothers who have betrayed the family and denied takeo's right to inherit the otori lands. in order to conquer over his uncles, takeo rides off to find allies on a forbidden island. while he is off gathering warriors to build his army, kaede becomes restless and decides to visit her old home at shirakawa but this leads to nothing but misfortune for lord fujiwara steals her away from her retainers and claims her as his wife. the trap is set. will takeo come to claim kaede?

though you wouldn't know it by looking at the dates on this blog, i read this book very quickly (i'm just really behind in posting!) because i could not put it down! the stories are fast paced and interesting from page to page. like the majority of novels written these days, it's written in omniscient style (first person omniscient) so it jumps from plot to plot. in 80% of the books that i have read, this is a pain because i don't always like the subplots as much as the main ones. you won't find that here. every story is intriguing and worthwhile. every turn of the plot was amazing and breathtaking. this is one trilogy that deserves the very best in accolades.

when i first read across the nightingale floor, i thought of how simply the story was told and thought that there might be some crucial storytelling elements missing. i realize now that to give too much away with the first book is to deaden the impact of subsequent books. reading the first couple of books of a series is tough. you have to be intrigued enough to want to come back and read more, yet as an author, you can't give too much away. tales of the otori truly delivers.

we last left takeo in the grips of the tribe, a reclusive underground organization that has claimed ownership over him because takeo's father was also of the tribe. members of the tribe have unusual gifts that make them very good in combat or while playing the role of assassin. they can go invisible, use a second-self to confuse the enemy, and even have super-sonic hearing. takeo is quite gifted and therefore would be a great asset to the tribe. he has all these gifts and more but he doesn't want to be held prisoner to this gang of outlaws. his father left the tribe and now takeo is bound by honor to carry out the dying wishes of his adoptive father, shigeru. he also left his love, kaede, and wants to be back with her. knowing that to struggle will only cause him pain at the hands of those who have captured him, takeo submits to their will. he can learn a lot from their teachings even if he doesn't agree with their motives.

these books are short and so this review will be as well. i don't want to give too much of it away! i finished it so fast i feel like i didn't read it all (i guess i'll just have to read it again someday!) it's quick but it's definitely worth every moment you spend reading it. i even put other things aside so that i could have some quality time with takeo and kaede and not many books can capture my imagination in such a fashion. this book (second in the series) was an improvement on the first. there were more details here about a woman's place in japanese society and the rituals that bind her to her station. there was also more of the structure of the clans and the religions that lie just below the surface, twisting and turning the motivations of all the characters consciously or not.

lian hearn (man or woman? i don't know.. it's a pseudonym) is an exceptionally gifted writer and storyteller. s/he can turn the seasons easily by describing the rich color of the maple trees or the frogs that sound just outside of the window. the landscape can turn from mountains to valleys in the blink of a sentence yet it all feels entirely organic, never played-out or overdone. the dialog is exceptionally sparse where it needs to be and this is very typical of the japanese. though they spend an inordinate amount of time dancing around subjects, they can express themselves in a minimum of words. sometimes the cock of a head or the way they bow can speak volumes over an utterance. hearn has captured that ambivalence and made it a central part of how each character makes decisions. it's quite a masterful way of studying subtly and done very well. all the characters of these books benefit from hearn's wisdom. it's a rare gift to read something so well written.

note: i'm linking to the book of tales of the otori which contains both episodes 1 and 2 even though i read these separately in serial paperback.

have you seen the state of fantasy novels nowadays? everything is dragons, wizards, and medieval england or europe. i have often avoided the fantasy genre as if it were diseased mainly because i'm just not interested in any of the above mentioned points. this is why i was surprised and pleased to read tales of the otori: across the nightingale floor. it IS fantasy. don't be thrown off by the thoroughly researched culture and geography of japan that's the life blood of this novel. some of it is dead-on correct, the other is completely fictional but, nonetheless, this is a great novel for all those that enjoy japan and its culture.

the story is set amongst warring clans trying to establish dominance over the land through intrigue, assassination, and marriage. a young boy, tomasu, after finding his family slaughtered by the vicious tohan warlord, iida, is rescued from an early death by an opposing warlord, otori shigeru (all japanese names in this novel are written in the correct manner, last name first.) shigeru-san takes young tomasu under his wing, renaming him takeo after his brother, takeshi, and educating him in the ways of the samurai. takeo, though, is hard to teach. he was raised as a pacifist and never learned to wield a sword or to harm another person. under the tutelage of shigeru-san and a mysterious old man, takeo becomes hardened and loyal.

the novel takes us through his training and the ultimate coup of the tohan clan. along the way, takeo falls in love with a beautiful youg woman, kaede. she, though, is promised to shigeru-san in marriage. takeo becomes torn between lust and grief, loyalty and frailty, but with his hormones raging and the blood of his slaughtered family pulsing through his veins, takeo comes to decide what's best for himself and his adopted family, the otori clan.

i was given these books (episodes 1 and 2) from a good friend who works for the publisher. she heard that i was into japan and japanese culture and thought that i would enjoy them, and she was correct. the books themselves are written very simply, in the same style as the harry potter books actually. they are considered "young adult" fiction but, besides the simple sentence structures, i can't see why anyone wouldn't be interested in them. reading these is like watching a great samurai film by kurosawa. all the political, family, and love intrigue you could want from a great novel. i especially loved that the personalities and mannerisms of the japanese people were not overtly submissive as they generally are in kurosawa films or even memoirs of a geisha. they seem to be more comfortable talking amongst people of their own rank and, though they bow low to the floor and show respect to those of higher class rank, they are not weak in any way. these people are hardened from living in harsh conditions and it shows... very true to how things really were.

the only things missing from this story are the japanese details. i was glad that the author, lian hearn, didn't overly explain all the japanese quirks but there were many times when certain points were mentioned off-hand and never followed up on. for example, any westerner who grew up in a christian culture would not understand how blase the japanese are about homosexuality or how concerned they are with family honor. i know of these things because i've been studying japanese and japanese culture for almost five years now but i think that others may find it confusing without a little back story. but don't let that hold you back from reading these! you'll get an idea of how things worked in old japan and a surely great story. i'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the books in this series.

out, winner of japan's grand prixe for crime fiction, isn't so much a study of crime as it is a study of trust and greed. i picked up the book thinking that it would be a murder-mystery but it wholly deviated from that path after only three or four chapters. it's definitely not what i thought it was going to be.

masako works the night shift at a local boxed lunch factory mainly to make money and avoid her distant husband and son. she leads a solitary life, the kind of life one who sleeps when others are awake and works while others sleep leads. she has a few companions at the factory that she works with often enough to call friends: yayoi, yoshie, and kuniko. her life is a twilight zone with hardly any sleep or proper nourishment and it leaves her feeling rough and despondent. one night, yayoi shows up at the factory battered and bruised by her husband. the next night, she calls masako and admits to having killed him after he squandered their entire savings playing baccarat in kabuki-cho. masako rushes to yayoi's side and, with the help of the other two women, disposes of the husband. unfortunately for them, their troubles are only beginning.

each woman (and in essence, every man or woman on earth) has a weak spot. kuniko is in deep debt.. drowning in credit card and lone shark payments she can barely handle. yoshie, a widow, has a needy daughter (and another thieving one waiting in the wings) and an invalid mother-in-law. yayoi has just killed her husband, and masako just needs the attention. disposal of the body and the subsequent payout from yayoi's husband's insurance is enough to form a false sense of trust amongst each of the characters. but when the money runs out or there's more to be had, who will be the first to crack and squeal on the others in order to benefit themselves?

lots of age-old questions about trust and friendship are gone over in this book and for covering them in a creative manner, this book gets high marks. as with most japanese novels that are translated into english, the language tends falter a bit. the sentences become simple statements and observations, nothing beautiful or poetic. i think that the translator (stephen snyder) here was being a bit too literal. yes, japanese is a language of simple statements but, generally, it is highly metaphorical and it's these that are lost in translation if not adapted to english metaphors.

what i didn't enjoy about this book, besides the translation, was a third-tier character that seemed to be motivated more by a psychosis/meta-physical reality than any of the other characters. he seemed to live in this murderous dreamworld that he had created for himself. all in all, that's not a bad thing in a crime novel. it's another device that's used to propel the story along but he managed to imprint his psychosis on masako at the end. she seemed to understand him and want to be with him and it's this traitorous act that really got my goat. it went against everything that's natural about storytelling. almost absurd. the only thing that i can liken it to is the phenomenon of stockholm syndrome but it's not as if she spent days with him before she became sympathetic. it was an unfortunate way to end the story and left me feeling empty.

this is the first book that i have read in a long time that was written in first person narrative and i really enjoyed it. after thinking about it for a while, i couldn't remember the last time that i had read a book written in this style! the majority of books that i read (and my favorite style to write in) is third person omniscient. the ginger tree is a collection of journal entries and letters written by mary mackenzie, a young scottish woman who is traveling to china to marry. she has agreed to move half-way around the world (in 1903! that's a big step) to be the young bride of a military attache, richard, whom she was betrothed to in back in scotland. her journey to china and subsequent stay there are just a prelude to her having an affair with a japanese general, kurihama. she is then cast out of detached european society in peking and forced to move to tokyo under the protection of her lover. without giving away the entire story, she lives out the next 30-40 years in japan dealing with their understandably strange customs and fear of foreigners.

now i have read a TON of books about japan and books written by japanese men AND women and this is the first book that i have read that was unapologetically honest about pre-WWII japanese culture. mary often tells us exactly what she thinks about being treated in such an oddly strict manner. the japanese subjugation of women at that time (and still in some areas of japan today) was at an extreme. foreign women with strong opinions were not highly thought of. in the end, i found it hard to side with anyone, though, because i could see both sides of the story. the japanese need to preserve customs that have been around thousands of years is strong and entirely honorable. but also, the need to modernize and mesh with other cultures was paramount to the overall survival of japan. in turn, i felt like all of mary's concerns were as real and urgent as any of the other japanese characters that she interacted with (her cook, kurihama, and others). they all felt like strong characters and that's probably the only caveat i have about the book.

i would imagine that if a book is written in first person that you're supposed to feel some empathy for the main character and not necessarily the other people that float in and out of the story. they should feel more two- or one-dimensional compared to the narrator. that's one of the advantages of first person narratives. even if the narrator is an ass you can still see their point of view. imagine what lolita would sound like in third person. the empathy for humbert would be completely missing and you would be left feeling that the book was just about a pervert not about a man conflicted. maybe because of the time period of the ginger tree (early 1900s) mary is more reserved and less able to explain her feelings clearly. besides this small, little caveat of mine, i really enjoyed the read! i was engrossed in the story from beginning to end and that's what really makes a good book great.

once again, murakami delights me with his characters and really weird storylines. only in his little world can man and cat speak the same language or johnny walker jump right off the bottle of whiskey. if you've never read any of his novels then you're seriously missing out. my favorite (and in my top ten favorite books of ALL TIME) is the wind-up bird chronicles, one of the only books that has ever struck me to tears it was just that beautiful and poetic. i've read all of murakami's books and kafka on the shore is amongst some of his best work.

after about two or three chapters you get the feeling that everything that's happening is a result of an undiscovered metaphor. the scenery, the actions, even the names of the characters are metaphors for their real purpose in the story. example, oshima, a librarian who helps the main character, kafka, after running away from home discusses metaphors in great novels and is himself a metaphor (oshima means "island" in japanese and he spends much of the novel holding and withholding information; an island unto himself.)

murakami's true storytelling gift is the blending of metaphysical, surreal, and real into one plot. this story was especially strange and fresh in that it contains two journeys, kafka and an old man named nakata. generally, his stories concentrate on one main character so it was nice to see him try and wrap two into a spiraling vortex of narrative. he weaves up a complex path for them to travel down and lays hints to the foundation of it all along the way. murakami's mind astounds me. i wish i could open up his head and climb in for a while. i wonder what i would find there.

i can think of a lot of reasons why people wouldn't like murakami.. he's out there, yes. his novels border on fantasy, yes. but his writing style is very genuine and honest if nothing else. though this is one of his better books, i still don't feel that it deserves the full-on 10 rating i have given other books in the past. the characters were well developed and the story was humorous and fun but it lacked a cache of sympathy that i was looking for. when i read the wind-up bird chronicles, i was taken in by toru okada and the other people he came across, malta kano, lieutenant mamiya, etc. wind-up left a lot of questions unanswered like kafka on the shore did but for some reason wind-up felt more whole and satisfying. when i read it, i didn't care that so many mysteries were left unresolved. in fact, i wanted to read it again and again and divine the answers for myself. kafka's characters and mysteries seem more two-dimensional, just not as deep and interesting. when the story ended, it ended. i don't feel that there's all that much more to be divined from it if i read it again. i may change my opinion, though, once i do re-read it. i often do.

what i enjoy most about japanese literature—and especially kawabata-sama—is the sublety of style conveyed. the use of everyday gestures and simple situations applied to intensely emotional circumstances that neither the character nor author express openly is both profound and humbling. the tilt of a head or a complete silence can communicate so much more than is said. thousand cranes is not so much about what is written on the page as what is not written. you are left to infer much.

kikuji is invited to a tea ceremony at engakuji temple in tokyo. there he encounters his father's two old mistresses, ms. kurimoto and ms. ota, who both have separate intentions upon meeting kikuji again: kurimoto wishes to marry off kikuji; ota's intentions are less known at first greetings. taking the tea ceremony and all its accoutrements, kawabata weaves a quiet and complex story that meanders throughout kikuji's past and present life. for example, there comes a time when ms. ota passes away and her daughter brings an old teacup that she used to drink from to kikuji as a present.

"kikuji looked at the faint brown, and felt that there was a touch of red in it. where her mother's lipstick had sunk it? there was a red-black in the crackle, too. the color of faded lipstick, the color of a wilted rose, the color of old, dry blood—kikuji began to feel queasy. a nauseating sense of uncleanness and an over-powering fascination came simultaneously."

many other passages from the book tie the vessels that make and serve tea into otherworldly creatures... ones with pasts as vast as time. they become the center of attention drawing away the harsh and objective viewpoint of the reader to make the characters seem softer and more worthy of our sympathy.

the story left a lot of questions unanswered and was less satisfying than snow country (which i think is one of the best classical japanese books i have ever read.) though i feel like the symbolism of the tea ceremony is appropriate for this story, i also feel that the story was less substance than inference. when the book ended, i thought, "that's it?" i expected to have a conclusion to at least one of the plot points. hhmmm, maybe that's just me. i know that some people really go for total symbolism but i enjoy a hearty mixture of both realism and surrealism in one book. regardless, i would still recommend this book to people along with snow country.