The Samurai's Garden

I finished The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama today. I don't think I ever posted the description, so in case you're interested, here it is:


"On the eve of the Second World War, a young Chinese man is sent to his family's summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis. He will rest, swim in the salubrious sea, and paint in the brilliant shoreside light. It will be quiet and solitary.

But he meets four local residents - a beautiful Japanese girl and three older people. What then ensues is a tale that readers will find at once classical yet utterly unique. Young Stephen has his own adventure, but it is the unfolding story of Matsu, Sachi and Kenzo that seizes your attention and will stay with you forever."



While this book was good, I think I should have trusted my first instinct and waited to read it. I just wasn't quite in the right mood for it. I think after the last few books I've read, it might have been smarter to break up the sequence with something a little lighter. Instead, it felt a little too much the same. I didn't love the diary style writing of the book, it seemed unecessary. The sequence of dates associated with each "entry" didn't really add anything to the story. I definitely think her story telling is superb, but if push comes to shove I think I'd choose Amy Tan (author of The Joy Luck Club, The Bonesetters Daughter, The Hundred Secret Senses... there are many others but these are the only ones I've read) the next time I want a novel with a main character that's Chinese with a story that explores Asian culture. That said, I did get sucked into the story of Sachi and Matsu and her style of writing is very polished and beautiful. I think I was just more in the mood for something with a little wit.

My recent amazon.com purchase, Midnight in Manhattan by Francesca Delbanco should be arriving any day now and might be just what I need. I'm hoping that it's out of print because it revealed the secrets of the universe and had to be contained and not because it sucked and no one bought it. I really liked her other book Ask Me Anything, so I have high hopes. I'm not going to lie though, the cover design I saw online is serving as just the tinniest of red flags. But maybe I'm just super sensitive to "red flags" after missing the ones associated with Modoc (quote by Betty White on the back cover, and you may remember this gem: "treasured by animal lovers everywhere" in the description). We shall see. As I just noticed online, it appears that Midnight in Manhattan as two different cover designs. Neither are bad, but one is definitely more in line with my expectations. Perhaps I will view the cover design as an omen. If I get the slightly more classy cover, then the book will be good. If I get the illustrated cover, anything goes. I'll let you know which one it is when it arrives.

The Namesake

As predicted, I loved The Namesake. I plowed through it, starting it Tuesday night and finishing it today over lunch. It was so sad, but so beautiful. For those not familiar with the book, here is the description off the back jacket:

"Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. The name they bestow on their firstborn, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in the new world -- conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours and wrenching love affairs."

I particularly liked the way the book explored relationships. Some of the relationship nuances are specific to the emmigrant experience, but many of them seemed universal to me; the guilt that adult children feel about their relationships with their parents, the death of a parent, finding and losing love. For some reason, I had it in my head that the author, Jhumpa Lahiri was a young prodigy and I kept being amazed at the way someone her age understood the depth of emotion involved in things like the end of a marriage or the death of a spouse. Why did I think she was so young? I feel certain that someone told me she was only like 22 when her book of short stories came out in 2002, but then I looked her up online and she's in her 40s. Instead of feeling disappointed, I actually felt reassured by this discovery. I find that the older I get, the less impressed and more annoyed and depressed I am by prodigies. I have officially passed the age of being a prodigy at *anything*. As a result, when a 19 year old gets a novel published I'm forced to remember what I was doing when I was 19. After I wrote that I actually just sat staring at the computer for like 10 minutes trying to remember even *one* productive thing I did when I was 19. Or even one funny thing I did when I was 19. Mostly I just remember eating a lot of Stove Top Stuffing and sleeping in.

Anyways, I really recommend this book if you haven't already read it. I was planning to start The Samurai's Garden next, but something about it feels like the wrong choice. I want to read it, but I think I might need to insert something else first. I have a feeling a visit to the bookstore is in my near future.

Put Down your Drawbridge!

A coworker loaned me 3 books today so it looks as though my vacation reading might be decided for me. She loaned me The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama, The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri, and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.

I'm tempted to try The Pillars of the Earth first since it's mammoth and there would be very little risk of me finishing it and running out of reading material while on vacation. I read Jhumpa Lahiri's short stories (Interpreter of Maladies) and loved them, so I'm excited about The Namesake. I normally hate short stories, so the fact that I loved hers' says quite a lot. I remember she managed to cram in so much character development and drama into such a small number of pages that I couldn't wait for her to write a novel. I read Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama a long time ago and remember liking it. But I don't know anything about Ken Follett.

A little known fact about me is that I secretly love books with medieval themes. The Pillars of the Earth is described on the book jacket as, "A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England." I've taken quite a long hiatus from historical/medieval fiction (in part due to my shame surrounding said love for medieval literature), so this book might be right up my moat. The plot sounds vaguely Dan-Brownish, but whatever. If I'm completely honest with myself I have to admit that I kind of liked The Da Vinci Code. And it's possible that I may have also read Angels and Demons. Whatever. Stop looking at me like that!

I'm a little over halfway through with The Inheritance of Loss. The jury's still out on whether I love it or not. I'll let you know soon.

PS - I've decided to start listing book titles in purple font. Does this help readability or not?