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"Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice "until the monsoon comes." Then she can design a garden for herself. As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all around them a communist guerilla war rages. But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?"--P. [4] of cover.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
This story begins on the last day of Teoh Yun Ling's career as a Supreme Court justice in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur in the mid 1980s. Yun Ling has had, by every measure, a remarkable and successful life despite extreme hardship and loss. She was born to privilege, as a member of a
After she completes her law studies in England, she returns to Malaysia to practice, serving as a prosecutor for the Malayan government in the trials of captured Japanese Army soldiers. Her sister's death continues to haunt her, and she decides to honor her sister's memory by building a Japanese garden, as Yun Hong loved them dearly. In 1951 she returns to the home of a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, a South African tea planter in Cameron Highlands in the Malayan state of Pahang, whose friend Nakamura Aritomo is a highly regarded gardener—and the former chief gardener to Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Yun Ling struggles to overcome her deep hatred of the Japanese, and works under Aritomo as an apprentice, helping him to rebuild his own garden while learning the craft from him.
However, the tranquil mountainous setting also hosts the Malayan National Liberation Army, a group of communist guerrilla soldiers who are at war with the colonial government during the Malayan Emergency. Colonists such as Pretorius are frequent targets of the guerrillas, subject to robbery, assault and murder, but Yun Ling is also at great risk, as she also prosecuted captured guerrillas after the war trials had concluded, and the communists in the area are aware of her presence there.
As Yun Ling becomes closer to Aritomo, she learns more about the hidden roles he assumed during the Japanese occupation, as she seeks to discover what happened to the other prisoners in the camp, and to achieve closure and inner peace with herself, her family and with him.
The novel is filled with numerous additional characters, story lines and themes, which delicately intersect and overlap each other. Certain seemingly insignificant events in the early and middle sections of the book become clearer as the book progresses, as Eng masterfully creates a story that requires close attention from the reader, similar to that which is necessary to understand and appreciate the finer aspects of a Japanese garden.
The Garden of Evening Mists is an almost indescribably beautiful, rich and rewarding novel with multiple layers that are expertly weaved into a coherent work of art. Tan Twan Eng deserves to be commended for this astonishing work, which would be a worthy winner of this year's Booker Prize.
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wealthy Straits Chinese family, but at the age of 17 she and her older sister Yun Hong were captured by Japanese soldiers and taken to a prison camp hidden within the jungle of the Malayan Peninsula. The prisoners were brutally tortured there, and only one survived at the end of the war: Yun Ling.After she completes her law studies in England, she returns to Malaysia to practice, serving as a prosecutor for the Malayan government in the trials of captured Japanese Army soldiers. Her sister's death continues to haunt her, and she decides to honor her sister's memory by building a Japanese garden, as Yun Hong loved them dearly. In 1951 she returns to the home of a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, a South African tea planter in Cameron Highlands in the Malayan state of Pahang, whose friend Nakamura Aritomo is a highly regarded gardener—and the former chief gardener to Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Yun Ling struggles to overcome her deep hatred of the Japanese, and works under Aritomo as an apprentice, helping him to rebuild his own garden while learning the craft from him.
However, the tranquil mountainous setting also hosts the Malayan National Liberation Army, a group of communist guerrilla soldiers who are at war with the colonial government during the Malayan Emergency. Colonists such as Pretorius are frequent targets of the guerrillas, subject to robbery, assault and murder, but Yun Ling is also at great risk, as she also prosecuted captured guerrillas after the war trials had concluded, and the communists in the area are aware of her presence there.
As Yun Ling becomes closer to Aritomo, she learns more about the hidden roles he assumed during the Japanese occupation, as she seeks to discover what happened to the other prisoners in the camp, and to achieve closure and inner peace with herself, her family and with him.
The novel is filled with numerous additional characters, story lines and themes, which delicately intersect and overlap each other. Certain seemingly insignificant events in the early and middle sections of the book become clearer as the book progresses, as Eng masterfully creates a story that requires close attention from the reader, similar to that which is necessary to understand and appreciate the finer aspects of a Japanese garden.
The Garden of Evening Mists is an almost indescribably beautiful, rich and rewarding novel with multiple layers that are expertly weaved into a coherent work of art. Tan Twan Eng deserves to be commended for this astonishing work, which would be a worthy winner of this year's Booker Prize.
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LibraryThing member labfs39
Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again.
There are moments when, remembering
Yun Ling Teoh is a successful judge, retiring because of a well-kept secret: a medical problem is causing deteriorating memory loss. In an attempt to help herself remember her life while she still can, Yun Ling decides to begin a journal recording her life. She begins by returning to the Garden of Evening Mists, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and the home of her now deceased mentor, Aritomo. Theirs was a complex relationship and the plot of the novel unfolds these complexities and secrets in a steady, yet convoluted way. Much like a path in the famous garden with quiet surprises in unexpected places.
There is so much to discuss in this book, and I could have gone in many directions. Discussing the fascinating history of Malaysia and the Japanese invasion during WWII, leading to decades of lingering hatred and distrust. The wonderful art so lovingly depicted in the book: the art and soul of Japanese gardens, the taboos around body tattooing and the secret methods of the masters, the art of wood prints. The author's writing itself is one of the arts that make this novel so beautiful. Or I could have discussed race and class relations, the guerilla war, or the survivor story and its role in the novel. But then I came across the passage I quote at the top of the review, and I knew that this was really the heart of the story, at least for me: the elusive quality of memory, the tension between the desire to forget (so rarely bestowed when wanted) and the unremitting loss of memory due to illness or age.
Since we as readers know from the beginning that Yun Ling's memories are being eaten away by disease, we must accept that she is an unreliable narrator. Is she really the only survivor of a Japanese work camp? Was her relationship with Aritomo as she writes? She never learns all of his secrets, do we ever learn all of hers? But even if all of the memories she relates are true (and I hope they are, because this fictional space the author creates is so compelling), how does time effect the way in which those stories are remembered? Malayan Chinese of her generation have layers of memories of the Japanese and their emotional responses to them. A survivor must learn to live with her memories and in doing so, remember her experiences in a way that validates her survival. We all remember history passing by in our own ways; and even our own lives, something we should know the truth of in exacting detail, is subject to haze and gaps and smoothed over areas. Our experience of memory is something that makes us humans unique. It is a gift and a curse. And then our memory is gone and a slice of truth is gone with it.
There are moments when, remembering
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what happened, I am unable to continue writing. What troubles me more than anything, however, and the instances when I cannot recall with certainty what has taken place. I have spent most of the my life trying to forget, and now all I want is to remember. I cannot remember what my sister looked like; I do not even have a picture of her. And my conversation with Aritomo by Usugumo Pond, on that night of the meteor shower..did it take place on the day of Templer's visit or did it occur on a different evening entirely: Time is eating away my memory. Time, and this illness, this trespasser in my brain.Yun Ling Teoh is a successful judge, retiring because of a well-kept secret: a medical problem is causing deteriorating memory loss. In an attempt to help herself remember her life while she still can, Yun Ling decides to begin a journal recording her life. She begins by returning to the Garden of Evening Mists, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and the home of her now deceased mentor, Aritomo. Theirs was a complex relationship and the plot of the novel unfolds these complexities and secrets in a steady, yet convoluted way. Much like a path in the famous garden with quiet surprises in unexpected places.
There is so much to discuss in this book, and I could have gone in many directions. Discussing the fascinating history of Malaysia and the Japanese invasion during WWII, leading to decades of lingering hatred and distrust. The wonderful art so lovingly depicted in the book: the art and soul of Japanese gardens, the taboos around body tattooing and the secret methods of the masters, the art of wood prints. The author's writing itself is one of the arts that make this novel so beautiful. Or I could have discussed race and class relations, the guerilla war, or the survivor story and its role in the novel. But then I came across the passage I quote at the top of the review, and I knew that this was really the heart of the story, at least for me: the elusive quality of memory, the tension between the desire to forget (so rarely bestowed when wanted) and the unremitting loss of memory due to illness or age.
Since we as readers know from the beginning that Yun Ling's memories are being eaten away by disease, we must accept that she is an unreliable narrator. Is she really the only survivor of a Japanese work camp? Was her relationship with Aritomo as she writes? She never learns all of his secrets, do we ever learn all of hers? But even if all of the memories she relates are true (and I hope they are, because this fictional space the author creates is so compelling), how does time effect the way in which those stories are remembered? Malayan Chinese of her generation have layers of memories of the Japanese and their emotional responses to them. A survivor must learn to live with her memories and in doing so, remember her experiences in a way that validates her survival. We all remember history passing by in our own ways; and even our own lives, something we should know the truth of in exacting detail, is subject to haze and gaps and smoothed over areas. Our experience of memory is something that makes us humans unique. It is a gift and a curse. And then our memory is gone and a slice of truth is gone with it.
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LibraryThing member Smiler69
The Garden of Evening Mists is a novel I discovered last year thanks to several members of LT who wrote glowing reviews about it, and while I don't know if I can do as good a job as they did in conveying why I was prompted to give it a rare 5-star rating, I can say this is a novel I would
In 1951, Yun Ling found herself to be the sole survivor of a Japanese internment camp and decided she wanted to create a Japanese garden in memory of her sister, who kept them both alive by retreating to an imaginary garden through the worst of the treatment they suffered while in captivity. We are not to learn till late in the story what circumstances led to the death of this beloved sister, but we know Yun Ling has decided to devote the rest of her life to honouring her memory. There is a Japanese gardener, Aritomo, living in the Highlands; he is the exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan, whom Yun Ling approaches to ask him to create a garden for her sister. This she does despite her strong reservations; she has developed a visceral hatred for the Japanese after the treatment she suffered during the internment in camps which, according to what we know and what is told in the course of the novel, had a lot in common with the dehumanizing brutality the Nazi Germans showed in the concentration camps of Europe.
We learn that Aritomo didn't accept to create this memorial garden, but offered instead to take her on as his apprentice, and Yun Ling accepted in hopes she would later be equipped to create that garden herself. The novel travels back and forth in time, from the present—with the aging Yun Ling telling her story and trying to get the long-neglected garden back into its original shape—to 1951, the year she worked on Aritomo's 'Garden of Evening Mists'. During that time, Communist rebels were terrorizing the land, and Yun Ling's life was endangered as she had pronounced judgments to convict and deport some of these rebels. Eventually, she takes us back to the internment camp during the war, whose location has always remained a mystery, and where we know Yun Ling lost two fingers and her beloved sister. The Yun Ling of 1951 and the narrator of the 'present' incarnation (sometime in the 80s) is embittered by her experiences in the war and weighed down by hatred for her former tormentors, but her daily contact with the garden and Aritomo, and her wish to leave behind a legacy in her sister's name, help her to revisit her past and try to cast it in a new light.
There are mysteries and complexities at the heart of the novel which are only revealed when Yun Ling the author is ready to unearth them. It is a visually lush experience, with exquisite writing which had me rewinding the audiobook constantly, just for the pleasure of 'rereading' sections filled with gorgeous imagery. In some rare cases when I've listened to an audiobook, I feel compelled to also buy the book in a print edition, and this is one such case. That being said, I was completely satisfied with the audiobook and found the narration by Anna Bentinck truly excellent. She has a facility with accents, which she renders in a subtle way, and also adjusted her voice so that it was easy to follow whether we were hearing the older, or the younger Yun Ling, situating us in time with no further markers. But I want to get a paperback copy of this novel so I can do something I never allow myself usually, which is to underline all the little moments of pure poetry so I may savour them at my own pace. This novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012 would definitely have deserved to win, and might have done so if it hadn't had the bad luck of being nominated in the same year as Hilary Mantel's equally excellent Bring Up the Bodies. I'll be looking out for whatever else Tan Twan Eng puts his hand to.
I should add that reading this story not very long after finishing Snow Falling on Cedars and watching the movie version of that novel last week, formed an interesting change of perspective; where Gutterson’s novel dealt with the discrimination Japanese Americans suffered during WWII and it’s aftermath, this book showed us the kinds of horrors the Japanese army inflicted on it’s victims during the same war. However, Tan Twan Eng, far from dwelling solely on these shameful events, also shows us a Japanese culture, and individuals within that culture, who are capable of great acts of beauty, and of mercy.
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unreservedly recommend to everyone, except readers who prefer to avoid difficult, disturbing topics, as a good portion of it deals with the brutality the Malayans had to suffer under the Japanese invasion during WWII. A fascinating story and exquisite writing carried me away and I both badly wanted to devour the whole thing in one fell swoop, while at the same time not wanting it to end. The story is told by Yun Ling Teoh, a woman of Chinese descent, born in Malaysia. When we meet her at the very start of the novel, she is poised to go into retirement two years early from her position as a justice of the peace. She is secretly suffering from a mysterious brain condition which threatens to strip her of the capacity for expressing herself or understanding language, and this prompts her to write her life story before she loses the ability to convey her memories. To take on this task, she has returned to a former residence in the Cameron Highlands, where the Garden of Evening Mists of the title lays in need of much repair.In 1951, Yun Ling found herself to be the sole survivor of a Japanese internment camp and decided she wanted to create a Japanese garden in memory of her sister, who kept them both alive by retreating to an imaginary garden through the worst of the treatment they suffered while in captivity. We are not to learn till late in the story what circumstances led to the death of this beloved sister, but we know Yun Ling has decided to devote the rest of her life to honouring her memory. There is a Japanese gardener, Aritomo, living in the Highlands; he is the exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan, whom Yun Ling approaches to ask him to create a garden for her sister. This she does despite her strong reservations; she has developed a visceral hatred for the Japanese after the treatment she suffered during the internment in camps which, according to what we know and what is told in the course of the novel, had a lot in common with the dehumanizing brutality the Nazi Germans showed in the concentration camps of Europe.
We learn that Aritomo didn't accept to create this memorial garden, but offered instead to take her on as his apprentice, and Yun Ling accepted in hopes she would later be equipped to create that garden herself. The novel travels back and forth in time, from the present—with the aging Yun Ling telling her story and trying to get the long-neglected garden back into its original shape—to 1951, the year she worked on Aritomo's 'Garden of Evening Mists'. During that time, Communist rebels were terrorizing the land, and Yun Ling's life was endangered as she had pronounced judgments to convict and deport some of these rebels. Eventually, she takes us back to the internment camp during the war, whose location has always remained a mystery, and where we know Yun Ling lost two fingers and her beloved sister. The Yun Ling of 1951 and the narrator of the 'present' incarnation (sometime in the 80s) is embittered by her experiences in the war and weighed down by hatred for her former tormentors, but her daily contact with the garden and Aritomo, and her wish to leave behind a legacy in her sister's name, help her to revisit her past and try to cast it in a new light.
There are mysteries and complexities at the heart of the novel which are only revealed when Yun Ling the author is ready to unearth them. It is a visually lush experience, with exquisite writing which had me rewinding the audiobook constantly, just for the pleasure of 'rereading' sections filled with gorgeous imagery. In some rare cases when I've listened to an audiobook, I feel compelled to also buy the book in a print edition, and this is one such case. That being said, I was completely satisfied with the audiobook and found the narration by Anna Bentinck truly excellent. She has a facility with accents, which she renders in a subtle way, and also adjusted her voice so that it was easy to follow whether we were hearing the older, or the younger Yun Ling, situating us in time with no further markers. But I want to get a paperback copy of this novel so I can do something I never allow myself usually, which is to underline all the little moments of pure poetry so I may savour them at my own pace. This novel, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012 would definitely have deserved to win, and might have done so if it hadn't had the bad luck of being nominated in the same year as Hilary Mantel's equally excellent Bring Up the Bodies. I'll be looking out for whatever else Tan Twan Eng puts his hand to.
I should add that reading this story not very long after finishing Snow Falling on Cedars and watching the movie version of that novel last week, formed an interesting change of perspective; where Gutterson’s novel dealt with the discrimination Japanese Americans suffered during WWII and it’s aftermath, this book showed us the kinds of horrors the Japanese army inflicted on it’s victims during the same war. However, Tan Twan Eng, far from dwelling solely on these shameful events, also shows us a Japanese culture, and individuals within that culture, who are capable of great acts of beauty, and of mercy.
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LibraryThing member jnwelch
"On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan." So begins The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, the author of the excellent Gift of Rain. Teoh Yun Ling is a "Straits Chinese" who grew up in Malaya (Malaysia). Thanks to her sister Yun Hong,
After the war Yun Ling returns to the hilltop where she grew up, and wishes to create a Japanese garden like the ones she and her sister once loved. But to do so would require the help of a skilled Japanese gardener and "They'd have to hang their emperor first before I'd ask for help from any of them." Nonetheless, to fulfill a promise to herself, she has to approach Nakamura Aritomo, the Emperor's former gardener mentioned at the opening of the book. He is creating a beautiful Japanese garden nearby, named Yuguri. He resists her initially. "The girl who had once walked the gardens of Kyoto with her sister, that girl, is she still there?" Eventually Yung Ling becomes his apprentice. To him she brings an understanding of Japan's atrocities in the war, and their devastating effects on their victims. To her he brings an understanding of the tranquility, peace and beauty of the Japanese arts, especially the art of gardening embodied by Yuguri.
This potent mix informs the whole book, and their relationship deepens over time. Meanwhile, "CTs", terrorists, are still rampaging the Malaysian countryside, killing and stealing. Only in Yuguri do Yun Ling and Aritomo feel safe from the chaos around them. And even that is not immune to the times.
"'A garden borrows from the earth, the sky and everything around it, but you borrow from time,' I said slowly. 'Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of your reach.'
His eyes turned bleak. I had overstepped the bounds between us. 'It is the same with you,' he said a moment later. 'Your old life, too, is gone. You are here, borrowing from your sister's dreams, searching for what you have lost.'"
There are many moments of great beauty in this book, and many moments of great depth. I loved this one from a conversation between the two of them, in which they've digressed to thinking of the timeless Garden of Eden from quite different perspectives (Aritomo's is unexpected and perfectly in character). In the end he observes, "When the first man and the first woman were banished from their home, Time also was set loose upon the world." I'll be thinking about that one for a long time to come.
Some have found the author's voice too unprepossessing in this novel, but for me it suited the story well. His handling of cultural, interpersonal, and personal complexities is as masterful as Aritomo's command of the subtleties of the Japanese garden. In the end, Yun Ling keeps two out of three life-directing promises she made herself. Her decisions regarding the third are as haunting and complex as her life's story, and Aritomo's. This is an unforgettable offering from one of our most talented writers.
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she came to love Japanese gardens. An idyllic existence is interrupted by WWII, and the overrunning of Malaysia by the Japanese. Yun Ling and her sister are then taken to a prison camp, and life will never be the same.After the war Yun Ling returns to the hilltop where she grew up, and wishes to create a Japanese garden like the ones she and her sister once loved. But to do so would require the help of a skilled Japanese gardener and "They'd have to hang their emperor first before I'd ask for help from any of them." Nonetheless, to fulfill a promise to herself, she has to approach Nakamura Aritomo, the Emperor's former gardener mentioned at the opening of the book. He is creating a beautiful Japanese garden nearby, named Yuguri. He resists her initially. "The girl who had once walked the gardens of Kyoto with her sister, that girl, is she still there?" Eventually Yung Ling becomes his apprentice. To him she brings an understanding of Japan's atrocities in the war, and their devastating effects on their victims. To her he brings an understanding of the tranquility, peace and beauty of the Japanese arts, especially the art of gardening embodied by Yuguri.
This potent mix informs the whole book, and their relationship deepens over time. Meanwhile, "CTs", terrorists, are still rampaging the Malaysian countryside, killing and stealing. Only in Yuguri do Yun Ling and Aritomo feel safe from the chaos around them. And even that is not immune to the times.
"'A garden borrows from the earth, the sky and everything around it, but you borrow from time,' I said slowly. 'Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of your reach.'
His eyes turned bleak. I had overstepped the bounds between us. 'It is the same with you,' he said a moment later. 'Your old life, too, is gone. You are here, borrowing from your sister's dreams, searching for what you have lost.'"
There are many moments of great beauty in this book, and many moments of great depth. I loved this one from a conversation between the two of them, in which they've digressed to thinking of the timeless Garden of Eden from quite different perspectives (Aritomo's is unexpected and perfectly in character). In the end he observes, "When the first man and the first woman were banished from their home, Time also was set loose upon the world." I'll be thinking about that one for a long time to come.
Some have found the author's voice too unprepossessing in this novel, but for me it suited the story well. His handling of cultural, interpersonal, and personal complexities is as masterful as Aritomo's command of the subtleties of the Japanese garden. In the end, Yun Ling keeps two out of three life-directing promises she made herself. Her decisions regarding the third are as haunting and complex as her life's story, and Aritomo's. This is an unforgettable offering from one of our most talented writers.
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LibraryThing member SandDune
Teoh Yun Ling takes early retirement from her position as a Supreme Court Judge in the Malaysia of the 1980's to return to the garden of Yugiri in the Cameron Highlands: a place which had a pivotal role in her life but one that she had not visited for the last thirty-six years. A demanding and
The book focuses on Yun Long's first visit to the Cameron Highlands in 1951, when she first visited the garden of Yugiri. Created by Nakamura Arimoto, a Japanese man who was once a gardener to the Emperor, it is a traditional Japanese garden created in the Highlands of Malaya. Yun Ling travels to the Highlands to ask Aritomo to design a garden in memory of her dead sister, who had been a lover of Japanese gardens, but her hatred of the Japanese make their first dealings very difficult. Initially turning down her request, Aritomo then proposes that Yun Ling become his apprentice until the monsoon starts so that she will be able to develop her garden herself. And this is what she does, living alone despite the threat of the communist insurgency which is raging in the Malayan countryside. And as the older Yun Ling looks back upon her time in the garden so many years ago, she starts to remember and to consider the true meaning of the events in her life, both from the time spent in the garden, and from her time as a prisoner of the Japanese.
This is a beautiful book, which has a very appropriate epigraph:
There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death
and it is the human desire to both remember and to forget that is at the heart of this book.
I found great interest in the setting as well as the story, as it dealt with a location and period that I knew little about: Malaya (as it then was) during and after the Second World War. While I suppose I was reasonably familiar with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese and its aftermath for the British prisoners of war, including women and children, I'd never really considered the situation for non-British inhabitants of the area. And I certainly knew nothing of the communist insurgency after the war. (Mr SandDune of course did, and proceeded to give me a brief description of it, and its knock-on effect on the Vietnamese War)
So my first five star read of the year: one which I think I could read again and again and continue to see connections which I had missed at first. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone who hasn't already read it.
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often abrasive woman, used to keeping lawyers in order from her position on the bench, Yun Ling is not easy to warm to: her one close friend is Frederik Pretorius, the South-African owner of the neighbouring Majuba Tea Estate. And it is to him that she discloses the true reason for her early retirement: she has been diagnosed with an incurable degenerative disease which means that soon she will start to lose her memories and the very faculty for language itself. Faced with the prospect of forgetting everything that makes her what she is, events that she has tried for most of the life to suppress come to the surface, in particular her time in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War, a camp in which her older sister died, and from which Yun Ling was the only survivor.The book focuses on Yun Long's first visit to the Cameron Highlands in 1951, when she first visited the garden of Yugiri. Created by Nakamura Arimoto, a Japanese man who was once a gardener to the Emperor, it is a traditional Japanese garden created in the Highlands of Malaya. Yun Ling travels to the Highlands to ask Aritomo to design a garden in memory of her dead sister, who had been a lover of Japanese gardens, but her hatred of the Japanese make their first dealings very difficult. Initially turning down her request, Aritomo then proposes that Yun Ling become his apprentice until the monsoon starts so that she will be able to develop her garden herself. And this is what she does, living alone despite the threat of the communist insurgency which is raging in the Malayan countryside. And as the older Yun Ling looks back upon her time in the garden so many years ago, she starts to remember and to consider the true meaning of the events in her life, both from the time spent in the garden, and from her time as a prisoner of the Japanese.
This is a beautiful book, which has a very appropriate epigraph:
There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death
and it is the human desire to both remember and to forget that is at the heart of this book.
I found great interest in the setting as well as the story, as it dealt with a location and period that I knew little about: Malaya (as it then was) during and after the Second World War. While I suppose I was reasonably familiar with the fall of Singapore to the Japanese and its aftermath for the British prisoners of war, including women and children, I'd never really considered the situation for non-British inhabitants of the area. And I certainly knew nothing of the communist insurgency after the war. (Mr SandDune of course did, and proceeded to give me a brief description of it, and its knock-on effect on the Vietnamese War)
So my first five star read of the year: one which I think I could read again and again and continue to see connections which I had missed at first. I'd strongly recommend this to anyone who hasn't already read it.
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LibraryThing member EBT1002
Another five-star read. Set in Malaya/Malaysia at a number of different points in time, this is the story of Teoh Yun Ling, who "never changed the order of [her] name" and had "never taken on an English name just to make it easier for anyone." The sole survivor of a Japanese war camp, she comes to
The novel is also a beautiful exploration of the nature of memory. Yun Ling has been diagnosed with a degenerative disease that will eventually deprive her of her memory. Her fear is palpable. The urgency with which she works to resolve some of the questions that have plagued her since her narrow escape from the panicked mass murder executed on her sister and others in the war camp is only slightly tempered by a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable. Some of Tan Twan Eng's loveliest passages are those regarding memory:
"Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again."
And later, when a friend asks her whether she remembers the paper lanterns Aritomo made for another friend:
"She empties out a sigh from deep within her. 'My memory is like the moon tonight, full and bright, so bright you can see all its scars.'
Beautiful.
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the Cameron Highlands in search of solitude, solace, and an opportunity to create the Japanese garden dreamed of by her perished and beloved sister. Her relationship with Aritomo, the former gardener of the emperor of Japan, is a beautiful illustration of the healing power of one relationship. In one relationship history, culture, identity, and devastating trauma can lose ground against the intimacy, compassion, deep authenticity, and forgiveness. In one relationship fractured memory can come together into a mended but imperfect vessel of deeper truths than the reality of one or a hundred horrific events. Sound hokey? Not in the least. This novel is beautifully written. It highlights the tremendous capacity of the human spirit for healing without a moment's flinching away from the brutal physical, emotional, and spiritual assaults we will unleash on one another. The novel is also a beautiful exploration of the nature of memory. Yun Ling has been diagnosed with a degenerative disease that will eventually deprive her of her memory. Her fear is palpable. The urgency with which she works to resolve some of the questions that have plagued her since her narrow escape from the panicked mass murder executed on her sister and others in the war camp is only slightly tempered by a peaceful acceptance of the inevitable. Some of Tan Twan Eng's loveliest passages are those regarding memory:
"Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again."
And later, when a friend asks her whether she remembers the paper lanterns Aritomo made for another friend:
"She empties out a sigh from deep within her. 'My memory is like the moon tonight, full and bright, so bright you can see all its scars.'
Beautiful.
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LibraryThing member brenzi
What a joy for the reader to unfold layer upon layer of narrative in this Booker-nominated novel. Set in the Cameron Highlands, outside of Kuala Lumpur, it is told by Yun Ling Teoh, sole survivor of a Japanese prison camp during WWII. In 1951, she returns to the area and, in an ironic twist,
In evocative prose, Eng takes us back and forth in time, as the garden takes its place at the center of the novel and comes to represent memories, which make up the main theme of the book. Fast forward thirty years, and Yun Ling has been struck by a neurological disorder that is destroying her memory. And there are many mysteries she
would like to solve before her memory is gone completely. She still does not know who Aritomo really is and why he was exiled from Japan? Why was her friend Magnus always so sure of his safety as the Communists targeted other neighbors? What is the story behind “Yamashita’s Gold” and is it fact or fiction? And is she hiding something herself? How did she become the lone survivor of a prison camp that no one will acknowledge existed?
But time and again it’s Eng’s superlative prose that makes the narrative sing:
”Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?” (Page 307)
Lovely, isn’t it? Highly recommended.
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becomes an apprentice to a famed Japanese gardener Aritomo, exiled gardener to the Emperor Hirohito. Before the monsoons come, she helps to reconstruct his garden, Yugiri, and despite her hatred of the Japanese, is increasingly drawn to the inscrutable gardener. She expects that she will be able to construct a Japanese garden in memory of her sister, who died in the prison camp. All this takes place as the Communist terrorists are posing a threat to all those living in the highlands.In evocative prose, Eng takes us back and forth in time, as the garden takes its place at the center of the novel and comes to represent memories, which make up the main theme of the book. Fast forward thirty years, and Yun Ling has been struck by a neurological disorder that is destroying her memory. And there are many mysteries she
would like to solve before her memory is gone completely. She still does not know who Aritomo really is and why he was exiled from Japan? Why was her friend Magnus always so sure of his safety as the Communists targeted other neighbors? What is the story behind “Yamashita’s Gold” and is it fact or fiction? And is she hiding something herself? How did she become the lone survivor of a prison camp that no one will acknowledge existed?
But time and again it’s Eng’s superlative prose that makes the narrative sing:
”Bats are flooding out from the hundreds of caves that perforate these mountainsides. I watch them plunge into the mists without any hesitation, trusting in the echoes and silences in which they fly. Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analyzing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?” (Page 307)
Lovely, isn’t it? Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member writestuff
The imminent rain in the air smelt crisp and metallic, as though it had been seared by the lightning buried in the clouds. The scent reminded me of the time in the camp, when my mind had latched onto the smallest, most inconsequential thing to distract myself: a butterfly wafting from a patch of
Teoh Yun Ling has retired from her profession as a judge and returned to the mountains of Malaya forty years after having been imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII. On the edge of the rain forest, beneath the mists of the mountain, and beside the rolling hills of a tea plantation she writes a story before her memory fades because Yun Ling has been diagnosed with a devastating illness, primary progressive aphasia, which will steal her memories and her language. Yun Ling’s story is a complex one. It is the story of captivity at the hands of brutal soldiers and the loss of her sister. It is about her desire to honor her sister’s memory with a garden crafted by the former gardener of the Emperor of Japan, a man named Nakamura Aritomo who is dignified, talented and mysterious. It is about the year she spends with Aritomo as his apprentice, physically laboring in his amazing garden as their relationship grows more intimate. It is about the impact of war – first the war in the Pacific, and then the Malayan Emergency. But most importantly, it is about finding oneself again, teasing through memories long buried and discovering the secrets that lie just below the surface.
He turned to me, touching the side of his head lightly. At that moment it struck me that he was similar to the boulders on which we had spent the entire morning working. Only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest was buried deep within, hidden from view. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 99 -
Tan Twan Eng’s second novel is an alluring one, filled with exquisite description of the Malayan countryside against the backdrop of violence.
The days here opened from beyond one set of mountains and ended behind another, and I came to think of Yugiri as a place lodged somewhere in a crease between daybreak and sunset. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 109 -
Yun Ling’s inner struggle to come to terms with the trauma (both physical and emotional) which she endured at the hands of the Japanese is illuminated through a narrative which moves back and forth in time between the 1940s when Yun Ling is a child, to 1950 when she returns to Malaya as a young adult, and many years later when Yun Ling is an older woman. Yun Ling’s voice carries the reader through several important historical events:
-The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 2, 1945)
-The Japanese Invasion of Malaya (also called the Battle of Kota Bharu) which began December 8, 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor (this is the period of time when Yun Ling is captured and held as a prisoner by the Japanese).
-The Malayan Emergency which was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army (the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party) from 1948 to 1960.
The central themes in the novel is that of memory – how memory can be healing and how it can change with time. Yun Ling’s memories of her time in captivity are ones she has worked most of her life to forget. But now she is facing the loss of all her memories, and she is struggling to remember.
I have become a collapsing star, pulling everything around it, even the light, into an ever-expanding void. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 33 -
Eng uses the garden with its hidden secrets and surprising twists and views, as a metaphor for memory. Aritomo uses the concept of shakkei – a way of borrowing the landscape and other elements to enhance the beauty of the garden – and Yun Ling makes the connection between this style of gardening to that of memory:
‘A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time,’ I said slowly. ‘Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of your reach.’ – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 153 -
This idea of memory as elusive and related to the natural world permeates the novel.
Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 309 -
Other themes explored in the book are recovery from trauma, nationalism, and the impact of war on individuals.
Eng’s prose is often dreamlike and elegant. His shifts in narrative allow for the reader to discover Yun Ling’s inner journey and adds complexity to the other characters who are uncovered gradually through Yun Ling’s memories of them and the events which unfurl.
The Garden of Evening Mists is a quiet novel at times with the action being more about Yun Ling’s inner growth and dawning perceptions of Aritomo. But there are also some graphic descriptions of the violence which rocked this region. When Yun Ling takes the reader back to the years of her captivity, I found it hard to catch my breath.
Eng’s writing is gorgeous. He demonstrates a deep understanding about how events shape our lives and how the natural world is intricately enmeshed with who we are as humans. He also understands the complexity of people – the multiple layers which make up our lives and the hidden secrets we all carry.
The Garden of Evening Mists is a literary treat. Readers who love literary fiction will find themselves pulled into this introspective and exquisitely written novel.
Highly recommended.
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scrub, a spiderweb tethered to twigs by strands of silk, sieving the wind for insects. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 100 -Teoh Yun Ling has retired from her profession as a judge and returned to the mountains of Malaya forty years after having been imprisoned by the Japanese during WWII. On the edge of the rain forest, beneath the mists of the mountain, and beside the rolling hills of a tea plantation she writes a story before her memory fades because Yun Ling has been diagnosed with a devastating illness, primary progressive aphasia, which will steal her memories and her language. Yun Ling’s story is a complex one. It is the story of captivity at the hands of brutal soldiers and the loss of her sister. It is about her desire to honor her sister’s memory with a garden crafted by the former gardener of the Emperor of Japan, a man named Nakamura Aritomo who is dignified, talented and mysterious. It is about the year she spends with Aritomo as his apprentice, physically laboring in his amazing garden as their relationship grows more intimate. It is about the impact of war – first the war in the Pacific, and then the Malayan Emergency. But most importantly, it is about finding oneself again, teasing through memories long buried and discovering the secrets that lie just below the surface.
He turned to me, touching the side of his head lightly. At that moment it struck me that he was similar to the boulders on which we had spent the entire morning working. Only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest was buried deep within, hidden from view. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 99 -
Tan Twan Eng’s second novel is an alluring one, filled with exquisite description of the Malayan countryside against the backdrop of violence.
The days here opened from beyond one set of mountains and ended behind another, and I came to think of Yugiri as a place lodged somewhere in a crease between daybreak and sunset. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 109 -
Yun Ling’s inner struggle to come to terms with the trauma (both physical and emotional) which she endured at the hands of the Japanese is illuminated through a narrative which moves back and forth in time between the 1940s when Yun Ling is a child, to 1950 when she returns to Malaya as a young adult, and many years later when Yun Ling is an older woman. Yun Ling’s voice carries the reader through several important historical events:
-The Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 2, 1945)
-The Japanese Invasion of Malaya (also called the Battle of Kota Bharu) which began December 8, 1941 before the attack on Pearl Harbor (this is the period of time when Yun Ling is captured and held as a prisoner by the Japanese).
-The Malayan Emergency which was a guerrilla war fought between Commonwealth armed forces and the Malayan National Liberation Army (the military arm of the Malayan Communist Party) from 1948 to 1960.
The central themes in the novel is that of memory – how memory can be healing and how it can change with time. Yun Ling’s memories of her time in captivity are ones she has worked most of her life to forget. But now she is facing the loss of all her memories, and she is struggling to remember.
I have become a collapsing star, pulling everything around it, even the light, into an ever-expanding void. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 33 -
Eng uses the garden with its hidden secrets and surprising twists and views, as a metaphor for memory. Aritomo uses the concept of shakkei – a way of borrowing the landscape and other elements to enhance the beauty of the garden – and Yun Ling makes the connection between this style of gardening to that of memory:
‘A garden borrows from the earth, the sky, and everything around it, but you borrow from time,’ I said slowly. ‘Your memories are a form of shakkei too. You bring them in to make your life here feel less empty. Like the mountains and the clouds over your garden, you can see them, but they will always be out of your reach.’ – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 153 -
This idea of memory as elusive and related to the natural world permeates the novel.
Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again. – from The Garden of Evening Mists, page 309 -
Other themes explored in the book are recovery from trauma, nationalism, and the impact of war on individuals.
Eng’s prose is often dreamlike and elegant. His shifts in narrative allow for the reader to discover Yun Ling’s inner journey and adds complexity to the other characters who are uncovered gradually through Yun Ling’s memories of them and the events which unfurl.
The Garden of Evening Mists is a quiet novel at times with the action being more about Yun Ling’s inner growth and dawning perceptions of Aritomo. But there are also some graphic descriptions of the violence which rocked this region. When Yun Ling takes the reader back to the years of her captivity, I found it hard to catch my breath.
Eng’s writing is gorgeous. He demonstrates a deep understanding about how events shape our lives and how the natural world is intricately enmeshed with who we are as humans. He also understands the complexity of people – the multiple layers which make up our lives and the hidden secrets we all carry.
The Garden of Evening Mists is a literary treat. Readers who love literary fiction will find themselves pulled into this introspective and exquisitely written novel.
Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member BooksCooksLooks
This book was a marvel. The mists were certainly multi-layered and they would obscure and then reveal bits and pieces of information at different times. It was a story that was hard to read, from a time hard to understand about actions hard to fathom. And yet I was left somehow uplifted at the end.
I have not read much WWII history and certainly not any from this viewpoint; Yun Ling Teoh is a woman of Chinese descent but British upbringing living in Malaya at the outbreak of the war. Japan has invaded Malaya and has rounded up the influential members of the community and shipped them off to slave camps. Yun Ling Teoh and her sister are taken deep into the rain forest. Yun Ling Teoh is the only one from her camp to survive. She harbors a deep hatred for the Japanese as a result.
This does not stop her from forming a relationship with the Emperor's former gardener, Aritomo. She desires to build a garden in memory of her sister who loved Japanese gardens. Aritomo lives next door to a family friend. She becomes quite close to him and ends up inheriting his estate but learns she did not know him as well as she thought she did.
I can't begin to sum up this many layered, well written novel in a simple review. I don't think I can even begin to truly appreciate it with only one reading. Tan Twan Eng packs so many little details into his story that don't seem important but you realize many chapters later that they were. The book moves back and forth in time as Yun Ling Teoh relates her past in the guise of writing her memoirs but the movement through time is seamless and the reader never feels confused in time.
I cannot recommend this book enough. I am going to put The Gift of Rain on my list as I now want to visit Tan Twan Eng's first book. I am sure it will be as good as The Garden as Evening Mists - a garden I didn't want to leave.
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In spite of the horrors of war, slavery and life changing medical diagnoses.I have not read much WWII history and certainly not any from this viewpoint; Yun Ling Teoh is a woman of Chinese descent but British upbringing living in Malaya at the outbreak of the war. Japan has invaded Malaya and has rounded up the influential members of the community and shipped them off to slave camps. Yun Ling Teoh and her sister are taken deep into the rain forest. Yun Ling Teoh is the only one from her camp to survive. She harbors a deep hatred for the Japanese as a result.
This does not stop her from forming a relationship with the Emperor's former gardener, Aritomo. She desires to build a garden in memory of her sister who loved Japanese gardens. Aritomo lives next door to a family friend. She becomes quite close to him and ends up inheriting his estate but learns she did not know him as well as she thought she did.
I can't begin to sum up this many layered, well written novel in a simple review. I don't think I can even begin to truly appreciate it with only one reading. Tan Twan Eng packs so many little details into his story that don't seem important but you realize many chapters later that they were. The book moves back and forth in time as Yun Ling Teoh relates her past in the guise of writing her memoirs but the movement through time is seamless and the reader never feels confused in time.
I cannot recommend this book enough. I am going to put The Gift of Rain on my list as I now want to visit Tan Twan Eng's first book. I am sure it will be as good as The Garden as Evening Mists - a garden I didn't want to leave.
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LibraryThing member cbl_tn
Recently retired judge Yun Ling Teoh returns to Malaysia's Cameron Highlands and the garden that helped her recover from her experience as a Japanese prisoner of war. In the early 1950s, Yun Ling went to Yugiri to ask its Japanese gardener to create a memorial garden for her sister who died during
Yun Ling (and readers) wrestle with uncomfortable attitudes and feelings. All of Yun Ling's relationships with family, friends, and lovers are complicated by ethnic differences, political allegiances, the atrocities of war, and shifts in power and control. While World War II is over, Malaya is in the midst of a guerrilla war between the government and the Communist party.
This isn't a book to rush through. It's a book to savor. Yun Ling has reached a contemplative period of her life. The remote mountain setting and the themes of gardening, art, tradition, and religion that run through the book made me want to linger in its pages. I think this book will stick with me for a long time because of its unique location, setting, and themes. Highly recommended.
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the war. Despite her anger toward the Japanese for the suffering she endured during the war, she stayed on as Aritomo's apprentice. Their mutual respect grew into something more, complicated by each one's deeply held secrets. Revisiting memories from that period of her life leads Yun Ling to recognize truths that had been hidden from her for decades.Yun Ling (and readers) wrestle with uncomfortable attitudes and feelings. All of Yun Ling's relationships with family, friends, and lovers are complicated by ethnic differences, political allegiances, the atrocities of war, and shifts in power and control. While World War II is over, Malaya is in the midst of a guerrilla war between the government and the Communist party.
This isn't a book to rush through. It's a book to savor. Yun Ling has reached a contemplative period of her life. The remote mountain setting and the themes of gardening, art, tradition, and religion that run through the book made me want to linger in its pages. I think this book will stick with me for a long time because of its unique location, setting, and themes. Highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng is a beautifully written novel that the author wisely allows to unfold slowly as the main character comes to terms with her painful history and looks forward to her uncertain future. Supreme Court judge Teoh Yun Ling has retired from the bench and
When she first arrived in the Cameron Highlands it was 1951 and there was a great deal of turmoil and communist guerrilla activity in the area. She stays with friends at a large tea growing estate, but her mission is clear. She survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp and her beloved sister did not. Even hating all things Japanese, she wishes to hire the gardener to design a Japanese garden in her sister’s honor. Instead of agreeing, he in turn offers to teach her how to build the garden herself and for the next couple of years she works as his assistant and becomes his lover, and eventually his canvas.
While the story was intriguing and wonderfully written, I found this book was a little to ponderous, the dialogue too structured, and the characters too reflective for me to totally embrace this story. I had previously read the author’s The Gift of Rain and found it far more accessible. The exotic setting and mystical aspects of the art and culture that the author built The Garden of Evening Mists around helped to make this both dark and atmospheric yet I was always very aware of how carefully the book was constructed.
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returned to the Cameron Highlands. She reflects upon her personal history in a series of flashbacks and we slowly are made aware of the interesting relationship she had with Nakamura Aritomo, the Japanese gardener who came to the Malaysian highlands and built Yugiri, the garden of evening mists. When she first arrived in the Cameron Highlands it was 1951 and there was a great deal of turmoil and communist guerrilla activity in the area. She stays with friends at a large tea growing estate, but her mission is clear. She survived a Japanese prisoner of war camp and her beloved sister did not. Even hating all things Japanese, she wishes to hire the gardener to design a Japanese garden in her sister’s honor. Instead of agreeing, he in turn offers to teach her how to build the garden herself and for the next couple of years she works as his assistant and becomes his lover, and eventually his canvas.
While the story was intriguing and wonderfully written, I found this book was a little to ponderous, the dialogue too structured, and the characters too reflective for me to totally embrace this story. I had previously read the author’s The Gift of Rain and found it far more accessible. The exotic setting and mystical aspects of the art and culture that the author built The Garden of Evening Mists around helped to make this both dark and atmospheric yet I was always very aware of how carefully the book was constructed.
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LibraryThing member baswood
A brutal story of murder rape and revenge, characterised by embittered exiles in war torn Asia, or a beautiful story of memory, loss and rediscovery, through the making of a Japanese garden under the tutelage of an artist and master with a foot in the Floating World. When I chose this book for my
The hero of this story is the tired old trope of an inscrutable master from an eastern culture who takes under his wing a pupil who learns to appreciate beauty and love(sex) through his harsh but patient tutelage. Aritomo is the Japanese master gardener and tattoo artist that floats through this novel and seems to have a presence that can charm all around him (even the communist insurgents that are killing nearly everybody else). His pupil is Yun Ling a survivor of a Japanese internment death camp and it is she who tells the (her) story in the first person. It is no surprise that the author Tan Twan Eng is male, because Yun Ling is so totally unconvincing, however Tan Twan Eng covers his tracks brilliantly by having her suffer from a disease that is eating away at her memory while she tells her story.
Yes we are in fantasy land here, but I think Tan Twan Eng wants us to believe his story, because he anchors it with real events for example the killing of Sir Henry Gurney in 1951, the British colonial administrator who was ambushed by communist insurgents in Malaya. Historical fiction given a veneer of realism that I find just a little false.
OK these are just my thoughts on an extensively reviewed novel here on LT. Read other reviews for an appreciation of a beautifully written book that is imaginative and well paced. Themes of loss and memory, of coming to terms with a violent past and a present that seems to be shifting away from under us are thought provoking and well explored. The book has a seductive quality and I loved the descriptions of the making of the garden, but for goodness sake don’t take it all too seriously. 3.5 stars.
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book club to read I was influenced by reviews that describe the book as haunting, exquisite, lyrical and a magical experience and so I was a little unprepared for the violence that permeates this story; it made me wonder if modern day readers are so inured by violence on their TV screens that it fades into the background when it is thrust into their consciousness by a novel such as The Garden of Evening Mists.The hero of this story is the tired old trope of an inscrutable master from an eastern culture who takes under his wing a pupil who learns to appreciate beauty and love(sex) through his harsh but patient tutelage. Aritomo is the Japanese master gardener and tattoo artist that floats through this novel and seems to have a presence that can charm all around him (even the communist insurgents that are killing nearly everybody else). His pupil is Yun Ling a survivor of a Japanese internment death camp and it is she who tells the (her) story in the first person. It is no surprise that the author Tan Twan Eng is male, because Yun Ling is so totally unconvincing, however Tan Twan Eng covers his tracks brilliantly by having her suffer from a disease that is eating away at her memory while she tells her story.
Yes we are in fantasy land here, but I think Tan Twan Eng wants us to believe his story, because he anchors it with real events for example the killing of Sir Henry Gurney in 1951, the British colonial administrator who was ambushed by communist insurgents in Malaya. Historical fiction given a veneer of realism that I find just a little false.
OK these are just my thoughts on an extensively reviewed novel here on LT. Read other reviews for an appreciation of a beautifully written book that is imaginative and well paced. Themes of loss and memory, of coming to terms with a violent past and a present that seems to be shifting away from under us are thought provoking and well explored. The book has a seductive quality and I loved the descriptions of the making of the garden, but for goodness sake don’t take it all too seriously. 3.5 stars.
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LibraryThing member The_Hibernator
Having suffered through a Japanese slave-camp during WWII, Yun Ling Teoh, a young Chinese-descent lawyer in Malaysia, carries around a lot of anger against the Japanese. However, she'd made a promise to her deceased sister that she would build a Japanese garden, so she reluctantly visits Aritomo -
How can I express what an amazing book this was? Sure, it had a couple of slowish spots (it WAS, after all, a book about gardening) but the story is magical. The historical and cultural backdrop is intriguing (I learned a lot while reading, but didn't feel like I was being "taught"). Because the book takes place in two different times (current day and shortly after WWII), the story unfolds gracefully - allowing the reader to learn the story of Aritomo and Yun Ling at just the right rate...but yet somehow the time also blends together giving an impression of continuity that is particular to Eastern philosophy. On top of that, the more I learned about the story, the more fascinated I was by the two characters. This book is definitely worth your time.
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the only Japanese gardener in Malaysia. Aritomo refuses to design a garden for Yun Ling, but he offers to take her on as his apprentice so that she may design one herself. Yun Ling learns to let go of her anger as her friendship with Aritomo grows. But Aritomo has his own secrets. How can I express what an amazing book this was? Sure, it had a couple of slowish spots (it WAS, after all, a book about gardening) but the story is magical. The historical and cultural backdrop is intriguing (I learned a lot while reading, but didn't feel like I was being "taught"). Because the book takes place in two different times (current day and shortly after WWII), the story unfolds gracefully - allowing the reader to learn the story of Aritomo and Yun Ling at just the right rate...but yet somehow the time also blends together giving an impression of continuity that is particular to Eastern philosophy. On top of that, the more I learned about the story, the more fascinated I was by the two characters. This book is definitely worth your time.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
Beautifully written novel set in Malaysia. In the 1980s, Judge Teoh Yun Ling is retiring from her position on the Malaysian Supreme Court. She has been diagnosed with aphasia, a neurological condition which will impair her ability to read, write, and understand language. She sits down to write
“Once I lose all ability to communicate with the world outside myself, nothing will be left but what I remember. My memories will be like a sandbar, cut off from the shore by the incoming tide. In time they will become submerged, inaccessible to me. The prospect terrified me. For what is a person without memories? A ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity, with no future, no past.”
She experienced many traumas in an internment camp during the Japanese Occupation of Malaysia in WWII and held deep-seated resentment against the Japanese. In the 1950s, she became an apprentice to a Japanese gardener, Nakamura Aritomo, formerly employed by Emperor Hirohito. He moved from Japan to Malaysia and designed Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists.
“The sounds of the world outside faded away, absorbed into the leaves. I stood there, not moving. For a moment I felt that nothing had changed since I was last here, almost thirty-five years before – the scent of pine resin sticking to the air, the bamboo creaking and knocking in the breeze, the broken mosaic of sunlight scattered over the ground.”
It provides a glimpse into the history of Malaysia, covering portions of both WWII and the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), a time of insurrection that preceded independence. I have not read many books set in Malaysia am not that familiar with its culture and history, so I found these details fascinating. It also includes elements of Japanese culture, such as the art of designing Japanese gardens, the art of horimono (an elaborate tattooing process), and a mindful approach to archery.
The book has an intriguing plot and realistic characters. It contains a balanced mix of harshness and gentleness; violence and serenity; remembering and forgetting. It is intricate and nuanced. Ultimately it is about overcoming past discord and trauma to achieve reconciliation and healing. I took my time reading it, savoring the written word and the ambiance it evoked.
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about her life before she can no longer remember. “Once I lose all ability to communicate with the world outside myself, nothing will be left but what I remember. My memories will be like a sandbar, cut off from the shore by the incoming tide. In time they will become submerged, inaccessible to me. The prospect terrified me. For what is a person without memories? A ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity, with no future, no past.”
She experienced many traumas in an internment camp during the Japanese Occupation of Malaysia in WWII and held deep-seated resentment against the Japanese. In the 1950s, she became an apprentice to a Japanese gardener, Nakamura Aritomo, formerly employed by Emperor Hirohito. He moved from Japan to Malaysia and designed Yugiri, the Garden of Evening Mists.
“The sounds of the world outside faded away, absorbed into the leaves. I stood there, not moving. For a moment I felt that nothing had changed since I was last here, almost thirty-five years before – the scent of pine resin sticking to the air, the bamboo creaking and knocking in the breeze, the broken mosaic of sunlight scattered over the ground.”
It provides a glimpse into the history of Malaysia, covering portions of both WWII and the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960), a time of insurrection that preceded independence. I have not read many books set in Malaysia am not that familiar with its culture and history, so I found these details fascinating. It also includes elements of Japanese culture, such as the art of designing Japanese gardens, the art of horimono (an elaborate tattooing process), and a mindful approach to archery.
The book has an intriguing plot and realistic characters. It contains a balanced mix of harshness and gentleness; violence and serenity; remembering and forgetting. It is intricate and nuanced. Ultimately it is about overcoming past discord and trauma to achieve reconciliation and healing. I took my time reading it, savoring the written word and the ambiance it evoked.
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LibraryThing member gwendolyndawson
At the beginning of The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng, Yun Ling retires from a distinguished career as a judge. She returns to the Malaysian highlands to the home of a Japanese man who was the gardener to the Japanese emperor before moving to Malaysia before WWII. Suffering from an
Over the course of this lush and epic novel, Yun Ling remembers the Japanese occupation of Malaysia during World War II, which resulted in her and her sister’s internment in a Japanese work camp hidden deep in the jungles of Malaysia. After escaping the camp, Yun Ling stayed with her uncle on a highlands tea estate. The famous Japanese gardener, Aritomo, lived next door amid his beautiful garden. To honor her deceased sister’s love of Japanese gardening, Yun Ling asks Aritomo to design a garden in her sister’s name. Aritomo refuses the request but asks Yun Ling to become his apprentice.
In a few short paragraphs, it is utterly impossible to explain the nuances of this beautiful story. The horrors of the Japanese occupation of Malaysia during WWII, the continuing violence in Malaysia after the war at the hands of Communist Chinese terrorists (“The Malaysian Emergency”), the evolving relationships between people who used to be enemies, the peace-inspiring art of Japanese gardening, and the beauty and fragility of the natural world combine to create a novel that seems to encompass every human condition and emotion. Eng’s writing style is elegant and understated, but also very powerful. My money is on this book to win this year’s Booker Prize.
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illness that will eventually rob her of the power to write and speak, Yun Ling starts the project of recording her life history before she can no longer remember it. Over the course of this lush and epic novel, Yun Ling remembers the Japanese occupation of Malaysia during World War II, which resulted in her and her sister’s internment in a Japanese work camp hidden deep in the jungles of Malaysia. After escaping the camp, Yun Ling stayed with her uncle on a highlands tea estate. The famous Japanese gardener, Aritomo, lived next door amid his beautiful garden. To honor her deceased sister’s love of Japanese gardening, Yun Ling asks Aritomo to design a garden in her sister’s name. Aritomo refuses the request but asks Yun Ling to become his apprentice.
In a few short paragraphs, it is utterly impossible to explain the nuances of this beautiful story. The horrors of the Japanese occupation of Malaysia during WWII, the continuing violence in Malaysia after the war at the hands of Communist Chinese terrorists (“The Malaysian Emergency”), the evolving relationships between people who used to be enemies, the peace-inspiring art of Japanese gardening, and the beauty and fragility of the natural world combine to create a novel that seems to encompass every human condition and emotion. Eng’s writing style is elegant and understated, but also very powerful. My money is on this book to win this year’s Booker Prize.
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LibraryThing member japaul22
I loved, with minor reservations, this book that looks back at one woman's experience in WWII. This book takes place in Malaysia in roughly the present time (probably the 1990s if I had to guess). It is the story of Judge Yun Ling Teoh who was a prisoner of war and her relationship with Aritomo, a
I loved that I learned so much that I didn't know about Malaysia - the cultural clashes of its people, the war experience, and many customs. Because there is also a lot of Japanese culture include, I also learned a lot about it, specifically the gardening and tattoo traditions. In fact, in this book it seems that every character is a different nationality or ethnic group. That was the most fascinating part of the book for me. I had to do a lot of googling and consulting maps to get everything straight in my head. The only thing I didn't really like about this book was some of the relationships between the characters. The book was so rich in detail about culture and war history that this was easy to overlook, but I found some of the relationships unrealistic (especially the love relationship between Yun Ling and Aritomo) and the characters a bit less developed than I would have liked.
Overall, though, this is a fantastic book and the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I would recommend it.
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Japanese gardener to Emperor Hirohito transplanted to Malaya, who she met after the war ended. The plot sounds convoluted because there are three time periods that Eng describes. There is the present in which Teoh recalls her experiences and writes them down in anticipation of losing her memory to a brain dysfunction, Teoh's experience as a POW in a Japanese camp where she lost two fingers and her sister was made to prostitute herself to the camp workers (her sister and everyone else in the camp was killed there), and the 1950s where Teoh meets the Japanese gardener Aritomo and begins to confront her war experience. I loved that I learned so much that I didn't know about Malaysia - the cultural clashes of its people, the war experience, and many customs. Because there is also a lot of Japanese culture include, I also learned a lot about it, specifically the gardening and tattoo traditions. In fact, in this book it seems that every character is a different nationality or ethnic group. That was the most fascinating part of the book for me. I had to do a lot of googling and consulting maps to get everything straight in my head. The only thing I didn't really like about this book was some of the relationships between the characters. The book was so rich in detail about culture and war history that this was easy to overlook, but I found some of the relationships unrealistic (especially the love relationship between Yun Ling and Aritomo) and the characters a bit less developed than I would have liked.
Overall, though, this is a fantastic book and the pros definitely outweigh the cons. I would recommend it.
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LibraryThing member edwinbcn
The Garden of Evening Mists by the Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng has received much critical acclaim and won both the Man Asian Literary Prize (now called the "Asian Literary Prize") in 2012, and the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction. The novel is especially praised for its beautiful
Readers of The Garden of Evening Mists are confronted with an overwhelmingly beautiful style of writing, bringing to life the lush, emerald-green magic of the Malaysian forest, tea plantations and the beauty of Japanese gardens. There are rich allusions to Asian architecture, gardening and culture in general, mixing the finer sentiments of colonial history, with the harshness of the Japanese occupation, and Malaysian nationalism.
The novel has a large number of personae, whose complex relationships are gradually revealed to the reader. The narrative structure is not entirely linear. Most of the novel is a flash back of the main character, with further reminiscences embedded. However, the narrative develops beyond the time of the flashback point at the opening of the novel. The novel has apparently two main characters, or possibly three. With the large number of personae, and the four groups of characters, i.e. Yun Ling and her sister, the Japanese, the tea planters and the Communist freedom fighters, it seems the author was unable to focus on one particular group, and ultimately his fascination seems to lie most with the Japanese, particularly in the enigmatic character of Aritomo, the gardener.
The sub-plot in the novel of the freedom fighters of the South-African Transvaal, personified in the character Magnus Pretorius, whose name so clearly points to Pretoria, and his defiance of British colonial rule in Malaysia is mirrored in the guerilla of the Communist freedom fighters striving for Malaysian independence. Pretorius personal history at the hands of the British in South Africa, and his sister's death in a concentration camp, mirrors Yun Ling's experience during the Japanese occupation. In the novel, Tan Twan Eng writes that Pretorius found his home when he discovered that Jan van Riebeeck was buried there, in Malacca, "(i)n the church grounds" of St. Paul’s (p. 51). However, there is no church on the hill named St. Paul’s in Malacca, and old Van Riebeeck is buried in the Groote Kerk, Jakarta, Indonesia, formerly Batavia.
Although Yun Ling is presented as a very strong character, her submission to Arimoto, again and again, is a key feature of the novel. Her willingness to submit to Aritomo seems much more from a belated type of Stockholm syndrome that from love, as claimed in the novel. The relationship between Yun Ling and Aritomo lack depth, and it is increasingly obvious that Aritomo simply uses Yun Ling. In a way, she has never left the camp, and the place she is looking for is written on her back. The cruel irony of the book is that Yun Ling will never know the location of the camp, because she can never find it, although she creates and carries the key to finding it.
As the novel seemingly develops around two main characters, Yun ling and Aritomo, however, Yun Ling's position is that of submission to Aritomo, likewise The Garden of Evening Mists
has two entwined main story lines, in which the story line of Aritomo takes the upper and Yun Ling's takes the lower. Thus, the tragedy of the fate of Yun Ling's sister is made subordinate to the quest for Yamashita's gold, in the plot structure of the role of the Golden Lily, which, in the novel has been transplanted from the Philippines to Malaysia.
The major importance of the Golden Lily motive in The Garden of Evening Mists turns the novel into pulp fiction on the level of The Da Vinci Code; however, the beauty of the use of languages will attract literary readers. Still, particularly the end of the novel, may disappoint literary readers, and it is quite surprising why the novel was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize for Literary fiction.
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language, but ultimately it is nothing more than an ordinary piece of pulp fiction.Readers of The Garden of Evening Mists are confronted with an overwhelmingly beautiful style of writing, bringing to life the lush, emerald-green magic of the Malaysian forest, tea plantations and the beauty of Japanese gardens. There are rich allusions to Asian architecture, gardening and culture in general, mixing the finer sentiments of colonial history, with the harshness of the Japanese occupation, and Malaysian nationalism.
The novel has a large number of personae, whose complex relationships are gradually revealed to the reader. The narrative structure is not entirely linear. Most of the novel is a flash back of the main character, with further reminiscences embedded. However, the narrative develops beyond the time of the flashback point at the opening of the novel. The novel has apparently two main characters, or possibly three. With the large number of personae, and the four groups of characters, i.e. Yun Ling and her sister, the Japanese, the tea planters and the Communist freedom fighters, it seems the author was unable to focus on one particular group, and ultimately his fascination seems to lie most with the Japanese, particularly in the enigmatic character of Aritomo, the gardener.
The sub-plot in the novel of the freedom fighters of the South-African Transvaal, personified in the character Magnus Pretorius, whose name so clearly points to Pretoria, and his defiance of British colonial rule in Malaysia is mirrored in the guerilla of the Communist freedom fighters striving for Malaysian independence. Pretorius personal history at the hands of the British in South Africa, and his sister's death in a concentration camp, mirrors Yun Ling's experience during the Japanese occupation. In the novel, Tan Twan Eng writes that Pretorius found his home when he discovered that Jan van Riebeeck was buried there, in Malacca, "(i)n the church grounds" of St. Paul’s (p. 51). However, there is no church on the hill named St. Paul’s in Malacca, and old Van Riebeeck is buried in the Groote Kerk, Jakarta, Indonesia, formerly Batavia.
Although Yun Ling is presented as a very strong character, her submission to Arimoto, again and again, is a key feature of the novel. Her willingness to submit to Aritomo seems much more from a belated type of Stockholm syndrome that from love, as claimed in the novel. The relationship between Yun Ling and Aritomo lack depth, and it is increasingly obvious that Aritomo simply uses Yun Ling. In a way, she has never left the camp, and the place she is looking for is written on her back. The cruel irony of the book is that Yun Ling will never know the location of the camp, because she can never find it, although she creates and carries the key to finding it.
As the novel seemingly develops around two main characters, Yun ling and Aritomo, however, Yun Ling's position is that of submission to Aritomo, likewise The Garden of Evening Mists
has two entwined main story lines, in which the story line of Aritomo takes the upper and Yun Ling's takes the lower. Thus, the tragedy of the fate of Yun Ling's sister is made subordinate to the quest for Yamashita's gold, in the plot structure of the role of the Golden Lily, which, in the novel has been transplanted from the Philippines to Malaysia.
The major importance of the Golden Lily motive in The Garden of Evening Mists turns the novel into pulp fiction on the level of The Da Vinci Code; however, the beauty of the use of languages will attract literary readers. Still, particularly the end of the novel, may disappoint literary readers, and it is quite surprising why the novel was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize for Literary fiction.
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LibraryThing member Petroglyph
This book was not bad at all. The first few chapters made me doubt its quality but once I got into it, I enjoyed it for what it was trying to do instead of feeling annoyed at its flaws, so I guess it won me over.
The garden of evening mists deals with Yun Ling Teoh, a retired Malaysian judge whoNazi Japanese gold.
Tan Twan Eng does a good job of bringing his readers along while he explores the themes and the relationships that such a setup provides him with. At times, though, the writing leaves something to be desired, especially in the early chapters: Eng tends to over-write his descriptive passages, in the sense that he crams in too many details and tries too hard with the unconventional verbs ("Hens trailing lines of yolky chicks"; "Lightning convulsed over the mountains"; "[the mountains] had broken out of the earth three hundred miles away"). But the novel’s qualities more than outweigh its negatives, and I found sticking with it soon rewarded the effort.
The garden of evening mists deals with Yun Ling Teoh, a retired Malaysian judge who
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retreats to her dilapidated Japanese garden somewhere in the highlands to contemplate her life and settle her affairs in anticipation of sudden early-onset aphasia. As a result, large parts of the book are about the protagonist’s earlier experiences in the region, in the 1950s, when she struck up a hesitant mentor-apprentice relationship with a wealthy Japanese man, who is ever so slowly constructing the garden the book is named after. That relation is hesitant and complicated, because it carries too many connotations of her World War 2 years spent tortured and exploited in a Japanese internment camp. These sections also contain more traditionally exciting elements, such as violent Communist militias and rumors of hidden Tan Twan Eng does a good job of bringing his readers along while he explores the themes and the relationships that such a setup provides him with. At times, though, the writing leaves something to be desired, especially in the early chapters: Eng tends to over-write his descriptive passages, in the sense that he crams in too many details and tries too hard with the unconventional verbs ("Hens trailing lines of yolky chicks"; "Lightning convulsed over the mountains"; "[the mountains] had broken out of the earth three hundred miles away"). But the novel’s qualities more than outweigh its negatives, and I found sticking with it soon rewarded the effort.
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LibraryThing member PennyAnne
I love a book that teaches me something as well as entertains and that is the primary reason I enjoy historical fiction. This book taught me about a period of history I knew very little about - the experience of Malaya during WWII at the hands of the Japanese and their experience afterwards during
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the communist insurgencies. I also learned about tea plantations, Japanese gardens, the Japanese experience of WWII and the art of horimono as well as the importance and subjectivity of memory. This book was a delight on many levels. Show Less
LibraryThing member Limelite
Yun Ling Teoh buries herself in the jungle oasis of Yugiri (the Garden of Evening Mists), the only Japanese garden in Malay, created by the one-time gardener to the emperor of Japan, the tight-lipped and reclusive Nakamura Aritomo. She arrives at the home of old family friends, Magnus and Emily
Her ambition is to create a Japanese garden of her own as a memorial to her sister who loved them, despite the fact that Yun Ling hates all things Japanese. But the surface tranquility of Aritomo’s garden and Magnus’ tea plantation is an illusion because the communist rebellion rages all around them, removed but present in their world when a leading political figure is assassinated, and later when the CTs (communist terrorists) visit their terror on the peaceful garden and plantation of her closest friends.
Over time, Aritomo’s gardening secrets (shakkei “borrowed scenery”) and personal ones, as well as the secrets of his soul emerge. Just as slowly, under Aritomo’s tutelage, and later as his lover, Yun Ling is able to acquire a new philosophy to guide her life, reconcile her past, and begin to forgive the Japanese for what they did to her and her family as she loses herself in the Art of Setting Stones.
Eng is such a seductive writer, a limpid prose stylist, a master at manipulating time with extended flashbacks, an employer of rich metaphors, and a deft artist of painting scene and creating tone that I can forgive him for writing a flat, over-refined, observational novel whose central observer, in spite of being a woman is not written in a feminine way, has few typically female responses, and who was a rather unbelievable female.
I prefer his first novel, "The Gift of Rain."
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Pretorious who own a tea plantation where it is agreed Yun Ling will live in a cottage on the grounds as she studies under Aritomo and heals from her POW experiences in a Japanese slave labor camp that no one knows existed and where her sister died.Her ambition is to create a Japanese garden of her own as a memorial to her sister who loved them, despite the fact that Yun Ling hates all things Japanese. But the surface tranquility of Aritomo’s garden and Magnus’ tea plantation is an illusion because the communist rebellion rages all around them, removed but present in their world when a leading political figure is assassinated, and later when the CTs (communist terrorists) visit their terror on the peaceful garden and plantation of her closest friends.
Over time, Aritomo’s gardening secrets (shakkei “borrowed scenery”) and personal ones, as well as the secrets of his soul emerge. Just as slowly, under Aritomo’s tutelage, and later as his lover, Yun Ling is able to acquire a new philosophy to guide her life, reconcile her past, and begin to forgive the Japanese for what they did to her and her family as she loses herself in the Art of Setting Stones.
Eng is such a seductive writer, a limpid prose stylist, a master at manipulating time with extended flashbacks, an employer of rich metaphors, and a deft artist of painting scene and creating tone that I can forgive him for writing a flat, over-refined, observational novel whose central observer, in spite of being a woman is not written in a feminine way, has few typically female responses, and who was a rather unbelievable female.
I prefer his first novel, "The Gift of Rain."
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LibraryThing member janismack
Very slow read, going back and forth between time was hard to follow, characters not sympathetic, took to long for the story to develop.
LibraryThing member jwhenderson
Thomas Mann begins his magisterial novel, Joseph and His Brothers with this line: "Very deep is the well of the past. Should we not call it bottomless?" The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng demonstrates the truth of Mann's remark. For in this beautiful and haunting novel it seems that the
The story is told by Judge Yun Ling Teoh in flashbacks as she prepare her memoirs of a life that included a brutal period during World War II when she was interned in a Japanese wartime camp. The main events of the story focus on the period just after this in 1951 when she and others in Malaya (soon to become Malaysia) are recovering from the adversity and tribulation of the wartime experience. She had been employed as a researcher for the War Crimes Tribunal in the immediate aftermath of the war, but she came to visit a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, at his tea estate in the fall of 1951. It is during this visit that she comes upon Yugiri the only Japanese garden in Malaya and meets its enigmatic creator, Aritomo. In spite of her hatred for the Japanese she agrees to allow Aritomo to teach her how to build a garden - one that she wishes to prepare as a shrine for her dead sister.
The events and developing relationships as related from the memories of Judge Teoh form an exciting and suspenseful tale. But there is always the mist of memory like an aura surrounding the events she records. The author uses two statues of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and her unnamed sister, the goddess of forgetting, as a metaphor for the aura of memory. It is at the tea estate of Magnus that she encounters these statues:
"A pair of marble statues stood on their own plinths in the center of the lawn, facing one another. On my first glance they appeared to be identical, down to the folds of their robes spilling over the plinths. . . "The one on the right is Mnemosyne. You've heard of her?"
"The goddess of memory," I said. "Who's the other woman?"
"Her twin sister of course. The goddess of Forgetting."" (pp 35-36)
The memories are always there in the story, but the story tells of danger, sinister events and an eeriness from potential danger - terrorist gangs roaming the countryside in the aftermath of war. One aspect of the novel that provides a counterbalance to the edginess of the story is the beauty of the natural surroundings. The garden of Aritomo is in the highlands and there are the mountains in the distance. "My eyes wandered from on end of the mountains to the other. "Do you think they go on forever?"
"The mountains?" Aritomo said, as though he had been asked that question before. "They fade away. Like all things."" (p 187)
Gradually the terror abates and the Emergency it caused comes to an end. Aritomo, who is as much a philosopher as an artist, responds to this with the words. "Life has been suspended , somehow, during the Emergency," Aritomo said. "I often feel I am on a ship, heading for a destination on the other side of the world. I imagine myself in that blank space, between two points of a mapmaker's calipers"
"That empty space exists only on maps, Aritomo."
"Maps, and also in memories."" (p 284)
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main character is continually dipping into the well of her own past to search for the memories that made her the aging judge that she is as the novel begins.The story is told by Judge Yun Ling Teoh in flashbacks as she prepare her memoirs of a life that included a brutal period during World War II when she was interned in a Japanese wartime camp. The main events of the story focus on the period just after this in 1951 when she and others in Malaya (soon to become Malaysia) are recovering from the adversity and tribulation of the wartime experience. She had been employed as a researcher for the War Crimes Tribunal in the immediate aftermath of the war, but she came to visit a family friend, Magnus Pretorius, at his tea estate in the fall of 1951. It is during this visit that she comes upon Yugiri the only Japanese garden in Malaya and meets its enigmatic creator, Aritomo. In spite of her hatred for the Japanese she agrees to allow Aritomo to teach her how to build a garden - one that she wishes to prepare as a shrine for her dead sister.
The events and developing relationships as related from the memories of Judge Teoh form an exciting and suspenseful tale. But there is always the mist of memory like an aura surrounding the events she records. The author uses two statues of Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory and her unnamed sister, the goddess of forgetting, as a metaphor for the aura of memory. It is at the tea estate of Magnus that she encounters these statues:
"A pair of marble statues stood on their own plinths in the center of the lawn, facing one another. On my first glance they appeared to be identical, down to the folds of their robes spilling over the plinths. . . "The one on the right is Mnemosyne. You've heard of her?"
"The goddess of memory," I said. "Who's the other woman?"
"Her twin sister of course. The goddess of Forgetting."" (pp 35-36)
The memories are always there in the story, but the story tells of danger, sinister events and an eeriness from potential danger - terrorist gangs roaming the countryside in the aftermath of war. One aspect of the novel that provides a counterbalance to the edginess of the story is the beauty of the natural surroundings. The garden of Aritomo is in the highlands and there are the mountains in the distance. "My eyes wandered from on end of the mountains to the other. "Do you think they go on forever?"
"The mountains?" Aritomo said, as though he had been asked that question before. "They fade away. Like all things."" (p 187)
Gradually the terror abates and the Emergency it caused comes to an end. Aritomo, who is as much a philosopher as an artist, responds to this with the words. "Life has been suspended , somehow, during the Emergency," Aritomo said. "I often feel I am on a ship, heading for a destination on the other side of the world. I imagine myself in that blank space, between two points of a mapmaker's calipers"
"That empty space exists only on maps, Aritomo."
"Maps, and also in memories."" (p 284)
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LibraryThing member sianpr
A beautiful book. The use of language in this story will stay with me for a long time. This is a complex and multilayered story dealing with war, relationships, gardening and coming to terms (or not) with traumatic life events.
LibraryThing member DubaiReader
"For what is a person without memories?".
I had heard so much positive feedback about this book that I was thrilled when my book group chose it as this month's read. Unfortunately I didn't really click with the narrative. I found it rather disjointed, with several names used for each character, a
The narrator is Yun Ling Teoh, who has survived as prisoner of the Jaspanese on Malaysia during WWII. She became a judge to bring justice for the many victims, but is now succuming to a degenerative disease and must leave her job. She determines to fulfil a promise she made to her older sister many years before.
Her sister loved the beautiul simplicity of Japanese gardens and so Yun Ling approaches the exiled Japanese gardener, Arimoto, to design a garden in her sister's honour. Arimoto declines the commission but offers her an apprenticeship in his own garden.
The garden was what I enjoyed most about this book, it had such a tranquil feel, I was wandering through it with the characters.
"He turned to me, touching the side of his head lightly. At that moment it struck me that he was similar to the boulders on which we had spent the entire morning working. Only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest was buried deep from view. (Loc 1429).
The other fascinating part of the book was the detail of the life in the concentration camp under the Japanese and the strange maze of tunnels that the prisoners were forever digging.
Then, of course there was the cultural aspect, the tatoos, the wood block paintings and the archery.
Thinking back, I wonder if I wouldn't enjoy this book more on a second reading, maybe one of these days I will tackle it again and upgrade my star rating.
I had heard so much positive feedback about this book that I was thrilled when my book group chose it as this month's read. Unfortunately I didn't really click with the narrative. I found it rather disjointed, with several names used for each character, a
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lack of continuity and an inconclusive ending. In spite of this I will admit to enjoying some wonderful moments within the book.The narrator is Yun Ling Teoh, who has survived as prisoner of the Jaspanese on Malaysia during WWII. She became a judge to bring justice for the many victims, but is now succuming to a degenerative disease and must leave her job. She determines to fulfil a promise she made to her older sister many years before.
Her sister loved the beautiul simplicity of Japanese gardens and so Yun Ling approaches the exiled Japanese gardener, Arimoto, to design a garden in her sister's honour. Arimoto declines the commission but offers her an apprenticeship in his own garden.
The garden was what I enjoyed most about this book, it had such a tranquil feel, I was wandering through it with the characters.
"He turned to me, touching the side of his head lightly. At that moment it struck me that he was similar to the boulders on which we had spent the entire morning working. Only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest was buried deep from view. (Loc 1429).
The other fascinating part of the book was the detail of the life in the concentration camp under the Japanese and the strange maze of tunnels that the prisoners were forever digging.
Then, of course there was the cultural aspect, the tatoos, the wood block paintings and the archery.
Thinking back, I wonder if I wouldn't enjoy this book more on a second reading, maybe one of these days I will tackle it again and upgrade my star rating.
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LibraryThing member Rosie-Anne
I was very struck by this book's examination of the power of showing respect in spite of everything. What a challenge. The author conjures a beautiful garden setting - I longed to go there.
Awards
Booker Prize (Longlist — 2012)
Dublin Literary Award (Shortlist — 2014)
The Economist Best Books (2012.24)
The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction (Winner — 2013)
Man Asian Literary Prize (Winner — 2013)