On Saturday afternoon, I finished reading “The Samurai’s Garden” by Gail Tsukiyama. This book was a Christmas gift from David and Catherine.
For a brief synopsis, I have stolen part of Nancy Pearl’s review for Library Journal found at Amazon.Com:
Seventeen-year-old Stephen leaves his home in Hong Kong just as the Japanese are poised to invade China. He is sent to Tarumi, a small village in Japan, to recuperate from tuberculosis. His developing friendship with three adults and a young woman his own age brings him to the beginnings of wisdom about love, honor, and loss.
The place in Tarumi where Stephen goes to is his grandfather’s place, and is taken care of by Matsu, one of the adults that he interacts with. The other two adults are Sachi, Matsu’s sister’s childhood friend, and Kenzo, Sachi’s former fiancée and Matsu’s best friend. Stephen is Chinese, but his father is an exporter and believes to get ahead in life his children should have Western names.
The main thing that made an impression with me about this book was that there wasn’t much of a plot, yet the book was interesting. There was no real clear-cut goal, no problem to solve, but learning about the characters’ lives, and how they fit into society and how the war may effect them made an entertaining story. The writing style was simple, yet still at times eloquent. It’s that style that helped the book read so well.
I have read some of the reviews at Amazon about this book and found some interesting comments. The characters may have lacked some depth, though it is my opinion that Matsu was written that way because that is his character: the hardworking, self-sacrificing, “man-of-few-words”, and intelligent “samurai” of the story.
Author Gail Tsukiyama
Stephen is fighting the inner struggle of wanting to stay in Tarumi, wanting to be away from the tidal wave that his father has created in his relationship with Stephen’s mother, also finding a real love for the small village, and yet wants to be with his mother and sister Penelope (nicknamed Pie) with the possible impending invasion by Japanese troops. These struggles could have gone into greater depths, but there was still enough for me to get to know him well enough. He gets caught up in the past of Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo, therefore it’s an escape from the issues at hand. He also has his friendship with the young Japanese girl Keiko to take his mind off the problems in his life outside of Tarumi. Though the interest these two share in each other creates problems, though more longing from Stephen then anything.
Some other issues pointed out by reviewers, especially one, is that some of the actions of the characters are un-Japanese, especially for the time (1937-1938). Unfortunately I know little of Japanese society these days, let alone before the War, so I can’t judge. This is possibly something that should bother me, however I got caught up in the story itself. In some respects I could still see the difference between how the characters reacted in the story to how people act in society today. That was enough for my unknowledgeable mind.
The easy pace, and the nature of the story, makes this a good summer or vacation read, in my opinion. It’s short, and at times simple, though still with enough depth to entertain the more hardened reader.
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