Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden
Review: Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden
Reading fiction is not my thing. Sure, a good fictional work is often more than good. For me, this almost always means that the book isn’t just a good story, but is using the story to ask us a bigger philosophical question, or impart a greater truth of life to us (I’m thinking here of books like Orwell’s 1984, Kerouac’sDharma Bums, even Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamozov- that’s my kind of fiction!). In this same vein, there’s Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden. Not only does this story confront us with the many challenges and intricate hardships of personal loneliness, but it also shines a warm and blinding light on some of the amazing (and in fact super-human) traits that we sometimes must summon to overcome such sorrows. The three main characters of the story, young Stephan, solemn Matsu, and fragile Sachi, all seem to bring their own unique strengths to the fore in order to achieve happiness in their own lives while doing their best to bring the same to each other. Through all the incredible ways that they each have found to enjoy the lives they live despite the hardships and sufferings they endure, it seems in the end they all manage to keep each other inspired through the shear strength of their love for each other. The setting for Samurai’s Garden is rural Japan, as the Japanese Army invades China near the beginning of World War II. The bare bones of the story is that of a college-aged boy who lives primarily with his Chinese mother and siblings in Hong Kong while his Japanese father is in Tokyo for business. When the boy, Stephan, falls very sick, he is sent to stay at his grandparents summer home in rural Japan, where he will be cared for by the servant and caretaker of the house, Matsu. As we learn more of each of the three main actors, we learn that each are afflicted by a sense of loneliness that in one way or another overcomes their lives. The character who seems to have been dealt the most
Reading fiction is not my thing. Sure, a good fictional work is often more than good. For me, this almost always means that the book isn’t just a good story, but is using the story to ask us a bigger philosophical question, or impart a greater truth of life to us (I’m thinking here of books like Orwell’s 1984, Kerouac’sDharma Bums, even Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamozov- that’s my kind of fiction!). In this same vein, there’s Gail Tsukiyama’s The Samurai’s Garden. Not only does this story confront us with the many challenges and intricate hardships of personal loneliness, but it also shines a warm and blinding light on some of the amazing (and in fact super-human) traits that we sometimes must summon to overcome such sorrows. The three main characters of the story, young Stephan, solemn Matsu, and fragile Sachi, all seem to bring their own unique strengths to the fore in order to achieve happiness in their own lives while doing their best to bring the same to each other. Through all the incredible ways that they each have found to enjoy the lives they live despite the hardships and sufferings they endure, it seems in the end they all manage to keep each other inspired through the shear strength of their love for each other. The setting for Samurai’s Garden is rural Japan, as the Japanese Army invades China near the beginning of World War II. The bare bones of the story is that of a college-aged boy who lives primarily with his Chinese mother and siblings in Hong Kong while his Japanese father is in Tokyo for business. When the boy, Stephan, falls very sick, he is sent to stay at his grandparents summer home in rural Japan, where he will be cared for by the servant and caretaker of the house, Matsu. As we learn more of each of the three main actors, we learn that each are afflicted by a sense of loneliness that in one way or another overcomes their lives. The character who seems to have been dealt the most