Customer Reviews

The Garden of Evening Mists

I found this second novel by Tan Twan Eng both absorbing and extraordinarily enriching. His hero is a woman. He writes in the first person singular and is obviously very much in touch with the female aspect of his psyche which adds to the authenticity of his plot.

I loved his first novel, 'The Gift of Rain,' and this one has an even greater profundity. I like especially the way in which he connects the past memories of his hero, Judge Teoh Yun Ling, with her present existence.

The real subject of the story is a Japanese Gardener, Nakamura Aritomo. He had once been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Yun Ling's story is intimately connected with Aritomo and the unique relationship between the two. There are several interesting characters and each plays a vital part in the unfolding of the story.

On the very first page Tan Twan Eng writes,

- "Thirty-six years after that morning, I hear his voice again, hollow and resonant. Memories I had locked away began to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep these broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance."

That's a marvellous paragraph and immediately hooked me on the story. Its a beautiful book full of wonderful and moving images as well as being an intriguing read.

Having so enjoyed his first book, I started reading this one with great anticipation. I was not disappointed. His main character, a woman judge who has been tortured by the Japanese when they invaded Penang, approaches the former gardener to the Emperor of Japan, wanting him to make her a Japanese garden in memory of her sister.

His writing is magical and he paints vivid pictures of the Malaysian jungle near Cameron Heights. His introduces a longstanding family friend who is a survivor of the Boer War. Like the Judge he has experienced loss as his family was put in a concentration camp by the British. The battle for independence and the fight against communism also adds further depth to this fascinating story, which is wonderfully crafted throughout.

A must read.

In this wonderful book we are plunged into the Far East, and the conflicts between Malays, Chinese and Japanese. Against a background of total savagery in and after the Second World War there is a tale of love and forgiveness that unfolds with the slow inevitability of the garden that is the centrepiece of the book. The two central characters - a former gardener to the Emperor of Japan and the Malayan Chinese prosecutor of Japanese war criminals, who subsequently becomes a judge - are portrayed with astonishing sensitivity, as is the setting in the Cameron Highlands. I loved every single minute of it, and now know where I want to go on my next holiday!

For me, Tan Twan Eng's 'The Gift Of Rain' became one of those books that enter your subconscious on some level and keeps popping back into your mind. It was partly due to the evocative descriptions, partly the complexities of the central character. So when I bought my copy of 'Garden Of Evening Mists' I thought it unlikely he could achieve the same success twice. However, Tan Twan Eng has proved himself a genuine artist once again. The narrator is intriguing all the way through to the book's ending (which, by the way, carries a surprising twist and punch unusual in a so-called 'literary' novel). There is an air of beautiful sadness to some parts of the story. Again, the descriptions of the Malayan highlands are layered with deeper nuances, just as they were when Tan Twan Eng described the island of Penang in 'Gift Of Rain'. Finally, there are timeless (and some horrible) moral dilemmas swirling round this book like the mists round the eponymous garden. Dilemmas for the characters that made this reader, at least, think about the hard choices people face in the world. Tan isn't a prolific writer and reading his novel reveals why: every word counts.

A Chinese Malayan by birth, Judge Teoh Yun Ling retires to the house at Yugiri in the Cameron Highlands and the "Garden of Evening Mists" developed by the enigmatic Nakamura Aritomo, sometime gardener to the Emperor of Japan. Since she has suffered brutal treatment and lost her sister in a Japanese camp during World War 2, one is curious to learn how she managed to form a bond with Aritomo before his death. Shifting back and forth in time, the story is an account of her recollections, revealing some kind of truth layer by layer, as she follows a friend's advice and attempts to capture her memories before the aphasia with which she has been diagnosed destroys her mind, making her a stranger even to herself.

At first, I was put off by the cumbersome opening chapter, the dwelling on small details, the slow pace and the writer's preoccupation with metaphors which, although sometimes striking, too often seem clunky and distracting, even unintentionally comical - "the waterwheel dialled ceaselessly" and so on.

Then I became hooked by Tan Twan Eng's exquisite poetical descriptions of the garden, his enlightening explanations of the principles of Japanese garden design related to a Buddhist/Taoist philosophy of the meaning of life, linked in turn to woodcuts and the art of tattooing, and by his evocation of life in 1950s Malaya with the interaction of different cultural groups, including an introduction to a neglected aspect of colonial history in the rise of communist terrorism in Malaya in the 1950s. The main characters are well-developed, complex and flawed so that you want to know why they behave as they do, what secrets they may be hiding, how a known fate came to befall them.

I began to think that perhaps this should have won "The Man Booker", or that it may be "above prizes" but in the later chapters, where Yun Ling recalls her experiences in the prison camp or recounts Professor Tatsuji's period as a kamikaze pilot, the book loses some of its originality as the pace quickens and the prose becomes more commonplace - a pale imitation of say, "Empire of the Sun".

The final revelations prove a little contrived yet would have satisfied me if the final twist had not seemed a little too implausible - there is an over-reliance on coincidence in this book. Tan Twan Eng seems to have introduced a denouement only to leave it half-knotted, although I suppose this is a point for discussion in book groups.

After a rocky start, I found this novel absorbing, often a page turner, moving blend of unflinching and sentimental, thought-provoking and very informative as regards Malayan culture understood from the inside. It was useful but disruptive to look up various terms, often employed several times before they are explained in the text, if at all, so brief footnotes would have been helpful. I am also left wondering if some of the (to me) overwritten prose may be due to Tan Twan Eng's fluency in a language other than English, in which this style is highly regarded. His style may also reflect a continued focus in Malaysian study of English literature on the work of poets like Shelley (such as "The Cloud" quoted in the novel).

I had heard so much positive feedback about this book that I was thrilled when my book group chose it as this month's read. Unfortunately I didn't really click with the narrative. I found it rather disjointed, with several names used for each character, a lack of continuity and an inconclusive ending. In spite of this I will admit to enjoying some wonderful moments within the book.

The narrator is Yun Ling Teoh, who has survived as prisoner of the Jaspanese on Malaysia during WWII. She became a judge to bring justice for the many victims, but is now succuming to a degenerative disease and must leave her job. She determines to fulfil a promise she made to her older sister many years before.
Her sister loved the beautiul simplicity of Japanese gardens and so Yun Ling approaches the exiled Japanese gardener, Arimoto, to design a garden in her sister's honour. Arimoto declines the commission but offers her an apprenticeship in his own garden.

The garden was what I enjoyed most about this book, it had such a tranquil feel, I was wandering through it with the characters.
"He turned to me, touching the side of his head lightly. At that moment it struck me that he was similar to the boulders on which we had spent the entire morning working. Only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest was buried deep from view. (Loc 1429).

The other fascinating part of the book was the detail of the life in the concentration camp under the Japanese and the strange maze of tunnels that the prisoners were forever digging.
Then, of course there was the cultural aspect, the tatoos, the wood block paintings and the archery.

Thinking back, I wonder if I wouldn't enjoy this book more on a second reading, maybe one of these days I will tackle it again and upgrade my star rating.

Tan Twan Eng's "The Garden of Evening Mists" is one of those rare books that I want to pick up and reread immediately, there is so much in this novel.

Ostensibly this is the tale of Yun Ling, a retired Malaysian judge, who returns to the highlands and to a garden she helped build after the war with the enigmatic former gardener to Emperor Hirohito, Aritomo. The garden of the title is a garden steeped in memory for her, but as the mists of memory shift, further mysterious facets of Aritomo's life are revealed. Who was he? What was his role in Malaysia? Tied to this is Yun Ling's individual journey, from Japanese prisoner of war to judge; the route of her recovery, of her making peace with her wartime experiences is inextricably linked to her learning the ancient art of Japanese gardens, learning how to look at things differently. The two stories find perfect harmony and expression in the garden as layer upon layer of detail is slowly added.

"The Garden of Evening Mists" is such a vibrant novel, with the narratives of Yun Ling and Aritomo intertwined and growing alongside those of Magnus and Emily (owners of the neighbouring tea plantation), Frederik (their heir), Yun Hong (Yun Ling's sister), Tatsuji (a Japanese academic) and those of Malaysia and Japan as they move beyond the shadows cast by the war. Within these stories also bloom tales of art, history, love, loss, honour, duty and regret within beautiful, lyrical prose.

This is a really fantastic novel. I shall be reading it again very soon, in the meantime, I recommend it whole-heartedly.

I am not a fan of Man Booker Prize books as I find them a bit highbrow. However, I loved this book and I bought it because I loved his first book. Having been born and raised in Penang myself I recognised a lot of the places mentioned in the first book. Likewise, having visited Cameron Highlands and Kuala Lumpur it was interesting reading the book. Tan Twan Eng writes beautifully and I really enoyed the book.

This story took me back to the latter stages of the "Emergency" naming many areas familiar to me although some were seen from a RAF helicopter providing support to the Army in jungle situations. I stood on the Padang in front of the Selangor Club (Dog). AsThe portrayal of a South African was so authentic I was not surprised to read Tan is living in Cape Town

In limpid lucid prose, Tan Twan Eng transports us to other worlds, other times. He conveys his story with all the subtlety and serenity of an exquisite tea ceremony.

Teoh Yun Ling, a spiky Malayan judge, retires and returns to the place where she had been happy for a short while when she was a young woman. This is Yugiri, the legendary garden and the Malayan highland home of Aritomo, a renowned Japanese gardener who used to work for the Emperor. Yugiri is the only place where she has ever found solace.

Whilst it is Yun Ling who narrates the story, it is the enigmatic figure of Aritomo around whom this story swirls. Backwards in time, back to the atrocities of war and internment. Other characters are brought into focus but as they recall their various war-time experiences, the author drifts a little from his carefully composed writing style into exposition. However, this is to an extent unavoidable if the reader is to fully comprehend the complicated background politics.

The book is essentially about painful memories, addiction to pain and memory itself. As Yun Ling's starts to fail her, she tells us: "Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again."