Review: The Samurai’s Garden – Gail Tsukiyama
January 1, 2007 | Filed under Reviews
Oh, Gail Tsukiyama. Will you ever put a foot wrong? Will you ever write a novel that won’t have me tearing up at some point? Will you ever write a novel that won’t leave me unaffected in some way? From the looks of what I’ve read of your work so far, the answer to all the questions above is a resounding no, and The Samurai’s Garden certainly is no exception.
The story of a young sickly Chinese man (Stephen) recuperating in the family retreat in a quiet Japanese seaside town during the Japanese occupation of China, The Samurai’s Garden shows both the relationship between the civilian Japanese and the civilian Chinese during this time, through Stephen’s interactions with his housekeeper, a middle-aged Japanese man named Matsu, and with a local Japanese girl. However, both relationships are tempered with the war being waged in China. While a million miles away, it still has repercussions on life in Japan with Stephen, ending what could otherwise have been a beautiful relationship with Keiko, the Japanese girl.
Yet, like all Tsukiyama’s novels, this goes beyond a normal, regular plot. There’s no one story in this novel, it’s a whole series of interweaved stories joined into the one retelling of a small town’s story.
Tsukiyama again handles a delicate issue with her usual delicacy in this novel…this time, the issue being leprosy and the social stigma that lepers experience. She makes them human, she gives them human emotions, human feelings, human relationships…but separates them from humanity too, by placing them in a far-away camp for lepers.
Sachi, the leper featured in this story, shows how a once beautiful, vain and silly girl, can grow up to become a serious woman, as she loses her beauty to leprosy. Her relationship with Matsu, Stephen’s housekeeper, shows how platonic friendship can often triumph over physical relationships…a trait that many novels seem to ignore. It is her gradual friendship with Matsu, a man she barely noticed when she was young and beautiful, compared to her relationship with Kenzo, her former fiance, that is stunning. One is based purely on personality and personal characteristics, the other on nothing but physical appearance. Tsukiyama has a lot to teach us about the nature of true friendship.
This, like all other novels by Gail Tsukiyama, is a wonderful story, a mini-epic novel in its own, a coming-of-age story, a hero’s journey, but most importantly, it is a novel about friendship.
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