Tag Archives: books

The Street of a Thousand Blossoms

This beautiful novel by Gail Tsukiyama chronicles the life of two brotheres, Kenji and Hiroshi, who become teenagers in Tokyo during the 1940s. Orphaned and raised by their grandparents, they live through the war, the occupation, and the years of Westernization that follow.

While more and more Japanese women start wearing Western dress and many old customs are put aside by the younger generations, both brothers end up choosing careers steeped in tradition: Kenji becomes a maker of masks for the Noh theater and Hiroshi becomes one of the nation’s top sumo wrestlers.

Though this book is definitely a historical novel, the historical facts aren’t the meat of the text–they simply comprise the cocoon in which her characters develop, struggle and grow. The portraits Tsukiyama paints are many: the boys’ grandmother Fumiko, who silently endures the grief of the occupation, losing her closest friend and trying to stretch their meager supplies of food; the boys’ grandfather who is slowly becoming blind; the owner of the sumo stable where Hiroshi trains, who loses his wife during the fire bombhing of Tokyo; the master mask-maker Akira who becomes Kenji’s sensei and teaches him the art of carving the wood and bringing the faces of the Noh theater to life, a man who is tempted by the comforts of marriage to a young widow he cares for, knowing all the while that his true love lies elsewhere.

(Side note: “Bow to you sensei!“)

(Sorry guys–Napoleon Dynamite moment. Don’t mean to ruin the mood, but it had to come out.)

As Kenji and Hiroshi’s careers bloom, their lives become a balancing act between tradition and change. They both lose women they love–through accident and through neglect–they both struggle to find happiness and meaning–in short, they both live.

Gail Tsukiyama’s writing style is clear and direct, making her novels almost effortless to read. And yet no richness is lost because of this–through her straightforward narration, all the subtleties of each character emerge nonetheless. Midway through the novel, Hiroshi’s grandmother says “Don’t you think every face tells its own story?” Hiroshi answers “Like a book?” His grandmother responds “More like a poem. If you study it long enough, you’ll soon find its meaning.” That’s exactly what Gail Tsukiyama does–she paints simple portraits of people, brushing traits here and there like a painter on a canvas–and as the book progresses and you gaze at these characters as they move through the story, the meaning behind the painting emerges in all its layers and complexity.

Pick up this book at your library, on your e-reader, or whatever your method may be–I think you guys will really enjoy this one. And if you like it, Gail Tsukiyama has written a ton of other great novels as well–“Women of the Silk” and “The Language of Threads” (both of which I loved), “The Samurai’s Garden” (awesome), etc. She’s worth checking out!

Behind the Scenes at the Museum

I’ve been a little afraid of writing this book review. Why? Because I love the book so much, and I don’t think I can convey how awesome it is without reproducing the entire thing here for you to simply read directly.

The front of my edition calls it “darkly comic” and that is oh-so-accurate. To that I would add evocative, beautiful, poignant, understated, humorous, heartbreaking, original.

I first read this book by accident. I had just won a prize for the best short story in my grade–I think I was in 9th grade at the time. The prize was a gift certificate for 12,000 pesetas (about $120) at a bookstore. So I went, and I shopped with a spontaneity that only free money could allow. I bought this book because the title and cover drew me in (it was called “Entre bastidores” in the Spanish translation) and fell in love with it.

Then I went to college, and spotted the book in its original English at the college bookstore. It was used, and cheap–I snatched it up. And I fell in love with it again. I recently re-read it, and realized that I needed to blog about it immediately.

The narrator, Ruby Lennox, starts speaking at the moment of her conception, with the exclamation “I exist!” The writing is realistic and revelatory of human nature in its details, but it blends in almost magical elements seamlessly, such as the case of Ruby being able to speak to us from the womb. Don’t get me wrong–this book isn’t part of the South American magical realism genre–it’s something totally different. In its own class, in my opinion.

In between Ruby’s accounts of daily life in York living above the pet shop with a philandering father and a mother who takes out her rage by cleaning obsessively, there are chapters that spin off into the past. Ruby may come across an old button that’s been kicking around in the attic, or her mother may use a particular expression that her own mother used, and with these tidbits as springboards, an omniscient narrator segues into a tale about one of Ruby’s ancestors. Like her great grandmother, who ran off with a traveling photographer one hot and dusty night. Or her grandmother, losing her lovers to the war and alienating her sister. Her aunt, who hopped on a boat to America with her fatherless baby. Her own mother, trying desperately to be interesting, beautiful, and plucky, but ending up in a marriage that has her butting her head up against the walls of her own soul.

As Ruby grows up with her two older sisters–the know-it-all, melancholy Patricia and the bossy and attention-getting Gillian–she realizes little by little that there’s a family mystery she has been exluded from. Shadowy memories and evasive answers eventually drive her to find out what exactly she has lost.

When I finish this book, my heart aches. It ached so much this time around that I went and wrote a song, which maybe one day I’ll share with you here. Kate Atkinson is an incredible writer, and this book is one of my favorites of all times.

If you like her style, her novel “Human Croquet” is also fabulous, with the narrator/main character slipping in and out of time. In all her works, Kate Atkinson gravitates towards the themes of motherhood, the loss of loved ones, the bond of sisters, and the mystery of memory. I hope you enjoy her work as much as I do!