Across The Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn

Across The Nightingale Floor
Lian Hearn
Riverhead Books
Copyright: 2002
978-1573222259

The amazon.com product description:

One Boy, One Journey, One Dark Destiny In his palace at Inuyama, Lord lida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, and no assassin can cross it. But 16-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by lida's warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe - preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self - that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart and death at his fingertips...Across the Nightingale Floor, Book 1 in the Tales of the Otori trilogy, is a stunningly powerful novel. An epic story for readers young and old. Set in a mythical, feudal, Japanese land, a world both beautiful and cruel, the intense love story of two young people takes place against a background of warring clans, secret alliances, high honour and lightning swordplay.

Across The Nightingale Floor is the first book in the Tales of the Otori, a series of novels set in a fantasy world based closely on feudal Japan. It's close enough that as the books continue, I'm finding more and more paralels with the non-fiction I've read. To date the setting, it seems to be somewhere between that of James Clavell's novel Shogun (in some aspects of the story) and other aspects are closer by far to that of David Mitchell's novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Probably Lian Hearn had intended this series to be set in a fantasy time somewhere inbetween the two.

The original recommendation for this series came from one of my What Would You Recommend? posts, but I was reminded about it last week when a friend of a friend also recommended the series to me. That was what sent me to the library last week to get these, and I'm really glad I did. I finished this book the same day I borrowed it and was on to the second one right away: Grass For His Pillow.

Takeo is an interesting character to say the least. Raised in one way of life, only to find himself thrust into a second, and from there, into yet another - both times through events of great personal tragedy. It is also through Takeo that we are introduced to the magics of this world - for it is the magics that really set this series apart from "real" Japan. These are the magics of the Tribe, a secretive, ruthless people who make their livings in any way they can - including assasination.

It's the characters that make the book though. Within pages I found myself connecting to them and wishing that everything would turn out right for once. Some of them are truely the shaping force for the whole series.

Interestingly, there are several editions of these books that are listed as being Teen books, while others are classed as regular fiction. If anything, I'd say fiction or perhaps fantasy categories suit this series the best. There are some things in here that I don't quite think are teen-suitable.

Overall, I really liked Across the Nightingale Floor and its sequels.

Library Loot - August 4th

Library Loot is a weekly event that celebrates libraries and the resource they are for book bloggers. This week it's hosted by Claire of The Captive Reader for the first time. Congratulations!

I have to admit, I haven't been much of a library user lately. Shame! Shame! But then, that's what I get for working in a bookstore. The books are right there, calling out for me to buy them.

Anyway, I finally got back to the library yesterday. Took out the entire Otori series by Lian Hearn. I know it was recommended over on my What Would You Recommend post on Japan some weeks back, so I thought I'd give it a try. Loving the books so far.

My bag of loot:

Across The Nightingale Floor
Lian Hearn

The amazon.com product description:

One Boy, One Journey, One Dark Destiny In his palace at Inuyama, Lord lida Sadamu, warlord of the Tohan clan, surveys his famous nightingale floor. Its surface sings at the tread of every human foot, and no assassin can cross it. But 16-year-old Otori Takeo, his family murdered by lida's warriors, has the magical skills of the Tribe - preternatural hearing, invisibility, a second self - that enable him to enter the lair of the Tohan. He has love in his heart and death at his fingertips...Across the Nightingale Floor, Book 1 in the Tales of the Otori trilogy, is a stunningly powerful novel. An epic story for readers young and old. Set in a mythical, feudal, Japanese land, a world both beautiful and cruel, the intense love story of two young people takes place against a background of warring clans, secret alliances, high honour and lightning swordplay.

I've already finished this one and I absolutely loved it. Had to start the second one right away. Thank goodness I got them all from the library at once.

Grass For His Pillow
Lian Hearn

The Amazon.com product description:

Praised for its epic scope and descriptive detail, Across the Nightingale Floor, the first book of the Tales of the Otori, was an international bestseller and critical success, named by the London Times as "the most compelling novel to have been published this year." With Grass for His Pillow, Book Two of the Tales of the Otori, we return to the medieval Japan of Hearn's creation-a land of harsh beauty and deceptive appearances. 

Brilliance Of The Moon
Lian Hearn

The Amazon.com product description:

A beautiful, haunting evocation of the medieval Japan of Lian Hearn's imagination, this thrilling follow-up to Grass for His Pillow and Across the Nightingale Floor delves deeper into the complex loyalties that bind its characters from birth. Filled with adventure and surprising twists of plot and fortune, this final volume travels beyond the Three Countries, to the outside influences that threaten to intrude upon this isolated realm.

The Harsh Cry Of The Heron
Lian Hearn

The amazon.com product description:

The epic conclusion to the bestselling Tales of the Otori-"one of the most thrilling new series of our time."*
The Harsh Cry of the Heron is the rich and stirring finale to a series whose imaginative vision has enthralled millions of readers worldwide, and an extraordinary novel that stands as a thrilling achievement in its own right.
A dazzling epic of warfare and sacrifice, passionate revenge, treacherous betrayal, and unconquerable love, The Harsh Cry of the Heron takes the storytelling achievement of Hearn's fantastic medieval Japanese world to startling new heights of drama and action. Fifteen years of peace and prosperity under the rule of Lord Otori Takeo and his wife Kaede is threatened by a rogue network of assassins, the resurgence of old rivalries, the arrival of foreigners bearing new weapons and religion, and an unfulfilled prophecy that Lord Takeo will die at the hand of a member of his own family.
The Harsh Cry of the Heron is the ultimate conclusion to the Tales of the Otori series that both completes the characters' lives and brilliantly illuminates unexpected aspects of the entire Otori saga. 

Heaven's Net Is Wide
Lian Hearn

The amazon.com product description:

The new beginning and the grand finale of the celebrated Tales of the Otori is “rivetingly elegant” (Washington Post).

Heaven’s Net Is Wide is the prequel that reveals the full story of Lord Otori Shigeru—the figure who has presided in both life and death over the entire series, the man who represents the true spirit of the Otori Clan. The first and the last tale, it introduces readers to the strange and beautiful world of the Otori and closes the circle where it opened in Across the Nightingale Floor. Set in a mythical, medieval Japan, this epic historical fantasy of revenge and betrayal, honor and loyalty, beauty, passion, and the overwhelming power of love, has enthralled millions of readers the world over—and now, with the cycle complete, its audience will only continue to grow.

Geisha: The Secret History Of A Vanishing World - Lesley Downer

Geisha: The Secret History Of A Vanishing World
Lesley Downer
Headline Books
Copyright: 2001
978-0747264262

The Amazon.com product description:

Ever since Westerners arrived in Japan, we have been intrigued by geisha. This fascination has spawned a wealth of fictional creations from Madame Butterfly to Arthur Golden's "Memoirs of a Geisha". The reality of the geisha's existence has rarely been described. Contrary to popular opinion, geisha are not prostitutes but literally "arts people". Their accomplishments might include singing, dancing or playing a musical instrument but, above all, they are masters of the art of conversation, soothing worries of highly paid businessmen who can afford their attentions. The real secret history of the geisha is explored here.

 Bought and read as part of my latest enthusiasm of reading about the Orient. An enthusiasm I'll admit I've had at a lower level for a while - thus the reviews of Memoirs of a Geisha and Geisha: A Life last year.

Lesley Downer has a very easy style of writing: she captured my interest right away and kept me reading late into the night when I first got the book a couple of weeks ago, and then again when I picked it up once more last week. She's mixed in accounts of her own experiences in the pleasure quarters as she tried to learn about the Geisha and their lives. This is all blended in with the history she discovered, descriptions of their lives today, brief histories of various famous Geisha throughout Japanese history and guesses about the future of their traditions.

Definitely an eye-opening book that is also a faster read than it appears to be at first glance. If you liked Arthur Golden's novel, I'd bet you'd find Geisha: The Secret History Of A Vanishing World to be an interesting read as well.

Lesley Downer has also written fiction set in Japan as well, most notably (and recently) The Last Concubine, which I'd also like to read.

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob De Zoet
David Mitchell
Random House
Copyright: 2010
978-1400065455

The Amazon.com product description:

In 2007, Time magazine named him one of the most influential novelists in the world. He has twice been short-listed for the Man Booker Prize. The New York Times Book Review called him simply “a genius.” Now David Mitchell lends fresh credence to The Guardian’s claim that “each of his books seems entirely different from that which preceded it.” The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is a stunning departure for this brilliant, restless, and wildly ambitious author, a giant leap forward by even his own high standards. A bold and epic novel of a rarely visited point in history, it is a work as exquisitely rendered as it is irresistibly readable.

The year is 1799, the place Dejima in Nagasaki Harbor, the “high-walled, fan-shaped artificial island” that is the Japanese Empire’s single port and sole window onto the world, designed to keep the West at bay; the farthest outpost of the war-ravaged Dutch East Indies Company; and a de facto prison for the dozen foreigners permitted to live and work there. To this place of devious merchants, deceitful interpreters, costly courtesans, earthquakes, and typhoons comes Jacob de Zoet, a devout and resourceful young clerk who has five years in the East to earn a fortune of sufficient size to win the hand of his wealthy fiancée back in Holland.

But Jacob’s original intentions are eclipsed after a chance encounter with Orito Aibagawa, the disfigured daughter of a samurai doctor and midwife to the city’s powerful magistrate. The borders between propriety, profit, and pleasure blur until Jacob finds his vision clouded, one rash promise made and then fatefully broken. The consequences will extend beyond Jacob’s worst imaginings.  As one cynical colleague asks, “Who ain’t a gambler in the glorious Orient, with his very life?”

A magnificent mix of luminous writing, prodigious research, and heedless imagination, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is the most impressive achievement of its eminent author. 

I got sent an ARC copy of this book from Random House through work a few days before it hit the bookshelves, but I only just finished reading it yesterday. The timing was rather amusing, as I've been on a bit of a Japan and the Orient kick in my reading lately, so this was a book I was glad to start reading right away. It was also the first book by David Mitchell that I've read.

The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet is one of those books where you're best off if you have long periods of time to read it and a chance to really focus on the characters and story. Otherwise, I found at least in my case that I was trying to figure out what was going on and what relation it had to the events of the story.

I found the story to be quite interesting, if unpredictable and the characters to be well developed and 'real'. I'm saying "unpredictable" for the story because every time I thought I could predict what kind of a story this was, I found that I was quite wrong. It's been over a day now, and I'm still trying to figure out if the ending of the book is a "happy ending" or not. In some ways it reads more like a memoir than a novel, but it's also the different threads of the story.

There's the main character, Jacob, but there are also a number of other viewpoint characters as well, such as Miss Abigawa and a lot of the other minor characters of the story. There were a few times when a new character was introduced abruptly that left me wondering who they were and why they were so important to the story, at least at that point.

I would like to say that David Mitchell has written a very well researched story in The Thousand Autumns Of Jacob de Zoet, at least it feels right, but I know very little about this time-period, culture and region. However, it does match up with what I've read in the other books so far. There's certainly a wealth of little details, but they don't bog the story down any.

Overall, I have to say that this was a really good book, and one I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to any lover of historical fiction.

A Brief History Of The Samurai - Jonathan Clements

A Brief History of The Samurai
Johnathan Clements
Constable & Robinson Ltd.
Copyright 2010
9781845299477

The amazon.com product description:

From a leading expert in Japanese history, this is one of the first full histories of the art and culture of the samurai warrior. The samurai emerged as a warrior caste in medieval Japan and would have a powerful influence on the history and culture of the country for the next 500 years.

Another non-fiction book on the history of Japan. And, another quick read, as I started and finished the book yesterday. They call it a brief history, and I think it is. The book covers from some time in the 7th century up to modern day. That is, some fourteen hundred years in 320 pages, not including notes or the index. Definitely an interesting overview.

I think this makes a good book for someone who's just starting out in reading about the history. Not too detailed, but clear and understandable. The best feature for someone new to the subject is the bibliography/suggested reading section. There's plenty of material there to look up after reading this book and keep studying.

A Brief History of the Samurai is very much a "names and dates" type history book though. But then, with just over three hundred pages to cover so much time, it's hard for it to be anything else, really. And there are all the books in the further reading to take you off in other directions if that's what you want.

Overall, I'd say this is a good starting point book to get a basic overview of Japanese history.

Samurai William - Giles Milton

Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan
Giles Milton
Scepter
Copyright: 2003
978-0340794685

The amazon.com product description:

In 1611 an astonishing letter arrived at the the East India Trading Company in London after a tortuous seven-year journey. Englishman William Adams was one of only twenty-four survivors of a fleet of ships bound for Asia, and he had washed up in the forbidden land of Japan. The traders were even more amazed to learn that, rather than be horrified by this strange country, Adams had fallen in love with the barbaric splendour of Japan -- and decided to settle. He had forged a close friendship with the ruthless Shogun, taken a Japanese wife and sired a new, mixed-race family. Adams' letter fired up the London merchants to plan a new expedition to the Far East, with designs to trade with the Japanese and use Adams' contacts there to forge new commercial links.

Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan was an interesting read, but not quite what I had expected it to be. I thought, from the description of the book that it would be more about the man himself, William Adams. Thing is, the description on the book itself is somewhat different from the Amazon.com description I've used above. That one is more accurate to the content of the book.

I'm not complaining though. It was quite informative, covering the whole beginnings of Western contact and trade attempts with Japan in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, beginning with the Portugese and the Spanish.

What really struck me about Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan was the level of similarity this book holds to the novel Shogun by James Clavell, which I reviewed earlier this week. I can't help but wonder if Clavell used the same figure, William Adams, as the basis for his Captain Blackthorne. The two books certainly cover the same time-period. Some of the similarities include:

1. The way he arrived in Japan
2. Both men were pilots
3. The initial treatment by the Japanese
4. Mistranslation or slanted translation by the Jesuit priests
5. Time in the Japanese prison
6. His status as Samurai
7. Closeness to the leader
8. The information that Adams/Blackthorne gives to the Samurai leaders about the intentions of the Portugese
9. Even the Japanese name he has.

Definitely an interesting book, and very informative reading about the sixteenth and seventeeth centuries in Japan. Seeing both sides of the contact, the way it's done here is almost amusing. There's sources from the Japanese perspective as also from the English - and not just from one person, but from many of them.

On the other hand, Samurai William: The Adventurer Who Unlocked Japan feels somewhat like a "popular" book. It doesn't seem to go into a lot of depth, and it's certainly a quick read.

Shogun - James Clavell

Shogun
James Clavell
Dell
Copyright: 1986
978-0440178002

The amazon.com product description:

An explorer in seventeenth-century Japan, ambitious Englishman Blackthorne encounters the powerful and power-hungry Lord Toranaga and Catholic convert Lady Mariko. Reissue.

Talk about a hard-to-find book! Someone at the used bookstore recommended this one to me, then they were sold out on it. As were the next four bookstores I tried, both used books and new. Fifth store I got lucky.

As for the book itself, it's a bit hard to describe. There are a lot of characters, each of which is involved in plots within plots, alliances and personal agendae. And you're introduced to most of them right at the beginning of the book.

James Clavell has written an amazingly detailed novel in Shogun (it's over 1150 pages long). Despite that, the story doesn't drag at all. In fact, most of the time I hated to put the book down. At least, that was the case after the first hundred pages or so. Those were a bit of a slog as I tried to figure out who all the characters were, as well as the culture.

I found that I really got to know the characters, but also that every time I thought I knew what was going on, things were changed quickly enough that maybe it was really something else being set up by a different character. Also that every time I thought that maybe something was about to go really right for Captain Blackthorne, things ended up going quite wrong.

The ending was also quite open, not tied up neatly in a "happily ever after" type ending. But then, that's quite like real life. It certainly leaves plenty of room for the characters lives to continue (or not).

Japanese history is something I know very little about, but given the detail levels in this book, it certainly looks like James Clavell has done his reasearch in writing the story. It also seems (right now at least) as though the author may have modelled his story in Shogun off of the events told by Giles Milton in Samurai William, another of the books I bought last week (and the one I just started reading last night).

I really liked the read, but I don't know if I want to read Clavell's other books any time soon.