Looking Back - Dreaming Water

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

Dreaming Water by Gail Tsukiyama

Fiction

2002

Finished on April 20, 2002

Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Bestselling author Gail Tsukiyama is known for her poignant, subtle insights into the most complicated of relationships. Dreaming Water is an exploration of two of the richest and most layered human connections that mother and daughter and lifelong friends.

Hana is suffering from Werner's syndrome, a disease that makes a person age at twice the rate of one that is healthy. At thirty-eight Hana has the appearance of an eighty-year-old. Cate, her mother, is caring for her while struggling with her grief at losing her husband, Max, and with the knowledge that Hana's disease is getting worse by the day.

Hana and Cate's days are quiet and ordered. Cate escapes to her beloved garden and Hana reads and writes letters. Each find themselves drawn into their pasts, remembering the joyous and challenging events that have shaped spending the day at Max's favorite beach, overcoming their neighbors' prejudices that Max is Japanese-American and Cate is Italian-American, and coping with the heartbreak of discovering Hana's disease.

Dreaming Water is about a mother's courage, a daughter's strength, and a friend's love. It is about the importance of human dignity and the importance of all the small moments that create a life worth living.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

This was a very easy, quick read, but the subject matter is quite sad. At times I thought it read like a memoir. Beautiful, engaging prose. Informative, yet a simple story spanning two days with numerous flashbacks and memories.

My Current Thoughts:

I enjoyed this one, but didn't keep a copy. The Samurai's Garden was more impressive.

The Samurai's Garden - Updated

 

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Fiction

1994 St. Martin's Griffin

First Reading: January 13, 2002

Second Reading: Mary 10, 2024

Original Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

New Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

Critics nationwide have praised Gail Tsukiyama for her vivid characters and crystalline prose. They have acclaimed the exquisite beauty of her serene settings. But more than anything, readers have celebrated finding themselves in the hands of a strong storyteller with the wisdom and warm heart of an ancient soul.

On the eve of the Second World War, a young Chinese man is sent to his family's summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis. He will rest, swim in the salubrious sea, and paint in the brilliant shoreside light. It will be quiet and solitary. 

But he also meets four local residents--a beautiful Japanese girl and three older people. What then ensues is a tale that readers will find at once classical yet utterly unique. Young Stephen has his own adventure, but it is the unfolding story of Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo that seizes your attention and will stay with you forever.

Tsukiyama, with lines as clean, simple, telling, and dazzling as the best of Oriental art, has created a small, moving masterpiece.

Update:

After posting about The Samurai's Garden last year, I was eager to give it another read, and it finally made its way to my nightstand this past month. I'd forgotten so much about the story and thoroughly enjoyed it this second time around. This novel would make such a lovely movie. 

My Original Thoughts (2002):

The perfect indication of a great book is one that you hug to your chest and whisper, "Great book!" upon completion. It's also the type of book you are tempted to read again the minute you've finished. This is one of those books! Beautifully written. Lyrical. Touching. Simply lovely. I didn't want it to end, so I read slowly, savoring each sentence. Closed the book with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. I want to read everything else that Tsukiyama has written. I'll give this as a gift to my book-loving friends and relatives. 

Honor, duty, loyalty. Unspoken love. Zen-like. A soothing, calm book. Beautifully "painted" images. 

My Current Thoughts:

I read this with two online book groups (The Book Spot and On the Porch Swing) and as I recall, everyone loved the book. I plan to read it again this summer while on our trip to Canada.

Looking Back - The Samurai's Garden

Looking Back... In an effort to transfer my book journal entries over to this blog, I'm going to attempt to post (in chronological order) an entry every Friday. I may or may not add extra commentary to what I jotted down in these journals.

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Fiction

1994 St. Martin's Griffin

Finished on January 13, 2002

Rating: 5/5 (Outstanding!)

Publisher's Blurb:

Critics nationwide have praised Gail Tsukiyama for her vivid characters and crystalline prose. They have acclaimed the exquisite beauty of her serene settings. But more than anything, readers have celebrated finding themselves in the hands of a strong storyteller with the wisdom and warm heart of an ancient soul.

On the eve of the Second World War, a young Chinese man is sent to his family's summer home in Japan to recover from tuberculosis. He will rest, swim in the salubrious sea, and paint in the brilliant shoreside light. It will be quiet and solitary. 

But as he meets four local residents--a beautiful Japanese girl and three older people. What then ensues is a tale that readers will find at once classical yet utterly unique. Young Stephen has his own adventure, but it is the unfolding story of Matsu, Sachi, and Kenzo that seizes your attention and will stay with you forever.

Tsukiyama, with lines as clean, simple, telling, and dazzling as the best of Oriental art, has created a small, moving masterpiece.

My Original Thoughts (2002):

Read with On the Porch Swing online book group. The perfect indication of a great book is one that you hug to your chest and whisper, "Great book!" upon completion. It's also the type of book you are tempted to read again the minute you've finished. This is one of those books! Beautifully written. Lyrical. Touching. Simply lovely. I didn't want it to end, so I read slowly, savoring each sentence. Closed the book with tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. I want to read everything else that Tsukiyama has written. I'll give this as a gift to my book-loving friends and relatives. 

Honor, duty, loyalty. Unspoken love. Zen-like. A soothing, calm book. Beautifully "painted" images. 

My Current Thoughts:

I read this with two online book groups (The Book Spot and On the Porch Swing) and as I recall, everyone loved the book. I plan to read it again this summer while on our trip to Canada.

The Language of Threads

The Language of Threads by Gail Tsukiyama
Fiction (Historical)
1999 St. Martin's Press
Finished on 12/21/09
Rating: 4/5 (Very Good)



Publisher's Description

In her acclaimed debut novel, Women of the Silk, Gail Tsukiyama told the moving story of Pei, brought to work in the silk house as a girl, grown into a quiet but determined young woman whose life is subject to cruel twists of fate, including the loss of her closest friend, Lin. Now we finally learn what happened to Pei, as she leaves the silk house for Hong Kong in the 1930s, arriving with a young orphan, Ji Shen, in her care. Her first job, in the home of a wealthy family, ends in disgrace, but soon Pei and Ji Shen find a new life in the home of Mrs. Finch, a British expatriate who welcomes them as the daughters she never had. Their new family is torn apart, however, by war and the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong. As Mrs. Finch is forced into a prison camp and Ji Shen tries to navigate the perilous waters of the gang-run black market, Pei is once again forced to make her own way, struggling to survive and to keep her extended family alive as well.

In this dramatic story of hardship and survival, Tsukiyama brings her trademark grace and storytelling flair to paint a moving, unforgettable portrait of women fighting the forces of war and time to make a life for themselves.

Well no wonder I was a bit hazy on the details of Women of the Silk. As I was reading this sequel, I couldn't understand why I wasn't remembering as much of Tsukiyama's debut novel as I should've been. I thought I had read it earlier in the year, but, no. It's been almost 3 years! Seriously, where does the time go? I really should have paid heed to the following, which I wrote in my review for Women of the Silk:

...But it wasn’t such a bad experience that I won’t go on and read the sequel, The Language of Threads, especially since I already own a copy. And, I doubt I’ll wait too long to get to it; I don’t want to forget too many of the details from Women of the Silk.

As it turns out, in spite of forgetting several details of the previous book, I thoroughly enjoyed this richly textured story of Pei and Ji Shen's experience in Hong Kong during World War II. The narrative voice alternates between Pei, Ji Shen and Mrs. Finch, bringing to life Tsukiyama's well-drawn characters with their steadfast determination, loyalty, love and friendship. As with Tsukiyama's later work (and one of my all-time favorite books ever), The Samurai's Garden, this earlier novel is a subtle and contemplative evocation of loss and survival.

For those who enjoy historical fiction, particularly novels that offer strong female characters, The Language of Threads won't disappoint. I enjoy reading about World War II, and especially liked learning more about the situation in Hong Kong and how it affected the expatriates and Chinese.

While I didn't intend to re-read Women of the Silk (and, therefore, gave away my copy), I do plan to keep The Language of Threads. When I'm ready to read it again, I'll see about getting the audio version of Women of the Silk to listen to in advance. Until then, I can keep reading about Hong Kong and Japan (again, focusing around WWII), as Tsukiyama continues with this subject in her subsequent novels, Night of Many Dreams and The Street of a Thousand Blossoms.

If you're interested in learning more about the author, I recommend visiting Bookreporter.com. Click here to go directly to her bio, article and two past interviews.

Women of the Silk

Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama
Contemporary Fiction
Finished on 3/12/07
Rating: 3/5 (Above Average)
2007 TBR Challenge #3



Publisher’s Description:

Gail Tsukiyama lends her voice to a landscape of exceptional beauty in Women of the Silk, and she peoples it with figures of women striding together toward a dream of autonomy and self-determination – women, Tsukiyama tells us, who Do Not Go Down to the Family; Women Who Braid Their Own Hair. This is the story of Pei and Lin, of their struggle for economic independence through what was known simply as “the silk work” in 1926, in a small village in rural China.

It is the story of the evolution of a sisterhood, and of a community of women who turn each of their misfortunes into a point of embarkation and an opportunity for a better, truer life. Pei and Lin set out to spin silk and succeed in spinning the power structure of an entire town into a form so new that they are able to organize the first workers’ union and lead the first strike the village has ever seen. By the novel’s end they seem to be spinning not silk, but whole worlds, from the precious threads of tenacity, good faith, and abiding courage. Though it confronts the failure of human hope and kindness in a tumultuous and disillusioned time, Tsukiyama’s tale is ultimately of friendship, kinship, and love, rendered with exquisite grace, and with all the fluent, resounding dignity of legend or song.


This is the fourth novel of Tsukiyama’s I’ve read, and like all but The Samurai’s Garden (which I gave a perfect 10 in 2002), it was just barely better than a lukewarm experience. I enjoyed most of it, but something (dramatic tension, perhaps?) was missing. If I had enjoyed all her other books, I’d be quick to say that the cause of my disappointment was simply that this was her debut novel (and possibly not as polished as her others). But it wasn’t such a bad experience that I won’t go on and read the sequel, The Language of Threads, especially since I already own a copy. And, I doubt I’ll wait too long to get to it; I don’t want to forget too many of the details from Women of the Silk. It’s definitely not one I would want to re-read. I’m still debating whether it’s one I even want to hang on to.

If you’ve never had the opportunity to read anything by Gail Tsukiyama, I strongly advise that you begin with The Samurai’s Garden. It’s simply one of the most lyrical novels I’ve ever read.

For a more glowing response to Women of the Silk, read Jana Siciliano’s lovely review here.