Product Description
The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family’s summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu’s sec… More >>
5 Responses to “The Samurai’s Garden: A Novel”
I read “Women of the Silk” before reading this book, both for my english classes, and I found both books quite ordinary. In my opinion, Gail Tsukiyama can write successful children books as her level of intelligence and talent is not enough for intelligent and well-read readers. The characters in both novels were extremely flat as they have no flaws, which was unacceptable for a reader who can discriminate good work from bad one. Also Matsu’s character was contradicting itself as he suddenly become a very talkative person.
Shortly, if you like reading Daniel Steel, you can enjoy this book, too. But if you think your sophistication level is higher, then that’s definetely not a good choice for you.
Rating: 2 / 5
Everything in this book could have been accomplished in 100 pages. I found it very overwritten; action that should have taken 2 paragraphs are drawn out into 3 pages with a lot of repetitive description or needless reflection. I can imagine a writer struggling with a long-ish short story and then deciding to “flesh it out” into a short novel by expanding it. It feels expanded.
The “as-told-to” style of storytelling feels contrived and laborious in places. Imagine person A telling us what person B told him about what person C said to her. Ugh.
For this kind of book to be successful, we need to see the main character change during this transitional experience. Though he tells us he has learned from his experience in this small village, we don’t *see* it.
I also found the book one-dimensional — a story with one layer. The author introduces a bunch of subplots but (annoyingly) doesn’t develop them. Events take place and are described that add nothing to the story. Maybe her poetic, implied style of writing would be better suited to poetry.
Rating: 2 / 5
I loved the first thirty or so pages of this novel because it set the tone for a beautiful story, then went absolutely nowhere. World War II was the background, but other than a few radio reports and letters from home, it had no impact on the story. Other than the narrator’s girlfriend’s father rejecting him because he is Chinese, race is neglected as a theme when it could have played a much larger role in the story. Leprosy is a good plot twist because it makes us think about outer v. inner beauty. The garden was an excellent symbol of life, but it’s difficult to set a 200 page novel around a garden, especially in this novel.
I agree with another reviewer who thought this was a short story that some editor thought should become a novel. Tsukiyama should have concentrated on leprosy and the garden, and left the other elements of war and racism out completely, because they were more of a distraction than real issues in the novel.
Rating: 2 / 5
This is a well written work that maintains the readers interest, conveys thoughtful examples of love and life.
It has typical orential twists and delvers an excellent message of loves indurance and mankinds refusal to accept natures defeat.
I enjoyed it very much.
Rating: 4 / 5
The book describes a year in a young man’s life as he encounters the perplexing unfolding web of three other lives in Japan in the late 1930’s. The story has much to say between the lines if one ponders the issues. It creates a peaceful delicate atmosphere – very much like the garden of the title of the book. In my opinion it was poorly written in a sharp directed fashion from a young man’s viewpoint lacking in poetic depth and substance. I cannot recommend the book unless you have plenty of time on your hands with the ultimate goal of reading everything that ever gets published.
Rating: 2 / 5