usbsticky's review
2.0
This book is the winner of the Christopher Doheny award, which from the website: "recognizes excellence in fiction or nonfiction on the topic of serious physical illness by a writer who has personally dealt or is dealing with life-threatening illness..." which is as good a description of the book as any. It's a very artsy book where the beauty of the book is in the writing. I didn't like it, which doesn't mean this isn't a good book, it just meant that I wasn't in the mood for it. It's slow paced but that's the pace which it is meant to be read at. I got this book as a free review copy.
lazygal's review
1.0
Usually, quiet books are a pleasant change from the dystopias and murder mysteries, but this was too quiet. Perhaps it was the constantly changing points-of-view? Whatever, this was a DNF.
ARC provided by publisher.
ARC provided by publisher.
angelayoung's review
5.0
This book is a poem: it's distilled like a poem and you have to - or I had to - stop and think about what I'd just read from time to time - just as I do when I'm reading a poem. And, just like a poem, it resonates long after it's finished. It is a beautiful, beautifully-written prose-poem and even though I've never been to a Japanese island, this novel took me to one and showed it to me.
There are written Japanese characters between the sections and at first I worried that I wouldn't know what they meant, until I realised they were the same two characters and that their meaning is explained in the epigraphs. But even after I realised that, because I couldn't 'read' the characters myself I gave them my own meanings: to me they look like a bench sitting beside a tangled tree: a place of rest beside something natural but crazed and wind-blown - and although my invented meanings have nothing to do, as far as I know, with the characters' pictorial derivations, my meaning seemed to suit the story of Fog Island Mountains as I read, a story which is, essentially, the story of a man diagnosed with terminal cancer set against a gathering typhoon that threatens the whole island: the story of the reactions to that man's diagnosis and to the coming typhoon from the man's doctor, his wife, his children, his own reactions and those of the Japanese villagers among whom he - a South African - has lived all his adult life.
The story is - mostly - narrated by an old woman, a storyteller, who often uses the first person plural to tell her readers what's happening and this use of 'we' drew me into the story just as if I were one of the villagers myself, and it showed me what I was looking at - that's what it feels like, as if you're looking at, being shown scenes, as well as reading about them, just as a poem conjures scenes before your eyes. And this felt alien to me, in a very good way, as if I had been given the gift of reading in Japanese when I can't: the gift of seeing beyond paper screens (the double-spacing between the paragraphs had the same alien, something-other - but not actually alienating - effect). They worked as a constant reminder that I was reading about people from a culture that I know nothing about, but was not having any trouble synthesising and absorbing as I read.
Very early on in the novel Alec Chester, the protagonist, calls his cancer 'this everywhere' and I am still haunted by that ... it's such an evocative description of something that cannot be got hold of nor got rid of - and as the stages of the typhoon and the stages of his illness and peoples' reactions to them both progress, I kept thinking everywhere and now I would like this novel to find its way out into the world, everywhere. It deserves the widest possible audience for its eloquence and its honesty; its treatment of the dying days of one man and - through the other characters' reactions - our own attitudes and fears about the day that will eventually become a day of our own. Oh and there's a kitsune too. But you'll have to read Fog Island Mountains to find out what that is ... .
There are written Japanese characters between the sections and at first I worried that I wouldn't know what they meant, until I realised they were the same two characters and that their meaning is explained in the epigraphs. But even after I realised that, because I couldn't 'read' the characters myself I gave them my own meanings: to me they look like a bench sitting beside a tangled tree: a place of rest beside something natural but crazed and wind-blown - and although my invented meanings have nothing to do, as far as I know, with the characters' pictorial derivations, my meaning seemed to suit the story of Fog Island Mountains as I read, a story which is, essentially, the story of a man diagnosed with terminal cancer set against a gathering typhoon that threatens the whole island: the story of the reactions to that man's diagnosis and to the coming typhoon from the man's doctor, his wife, his children, his own reactions and those of the Japanese villagers among whom he - a South African - has lived all his adult life.
The story is - mostly - narrated by an old woman, a storyteller, who often uses the first person plural to tell her readers what's happening and this use of 'we' drew me into the story just as if I were one of the villagers myself, and it showed me what I was looking at - that's what it feels like, as if you're looking at, being shown scenes, as well as reading about them, just as a poem conjures scenes before your eyes. And this felt alien to me, in a very good way, as if I had been given the gift of reading in Japanese when I can't: the gift of seeing beyond paper screens (the double-spacing between the paragraphs had the same alien, something-other - but not actually alienating - effect). They worked as a constant reminder that I was reading about people from a culture that I know nothing about, but was not having any trouble synthesising and absorbing as I read.
Very early on in the novel Alec Chester, the protagonist, calls his cancer 'this everywhere' and I am still haunted by that ... it's such an evocative description of something that cannot be got hold of nor got rid of - and as the stages of the typhoon and the stages of his illness and peoples' reactions to them both progress, I kept thinking everywhere and now I would like this novel to find its way out into the world, everywhere. It deserves the widest possible audience for its eloquence and its honesty; its treatment of the dying days of one man and - through the other characters' reactions - our own attitudes and fears about the day that will eventually become a day of our own. Oh and there's a kitsune too. But you'll have to read Fog Island Mountains to find out what that is ... .
abookishaffair's review
4.0
"Fog Island Mountains" takes place in a small island village in Japan. The story focuses on the residents of this village and their dealings with each other as well as the world changing around them. The story is told by Azami, the descendent of a storyteller who seems to be very different from many others in the village. This story is very atmospheric and in some places, almost like dreamlike, although the subject matter is very heavy. This is a book that I know that I am going to be thinking about for a very long time.
The characters are important in this book but in some places, it almost felt like the way that the characters were written was truly the key to understanding the story fully. Aside from Azami, we also meet Alec, a South African ex-pat, and his wife, who is convinced that he is going to die from his recently diagnosed cancer so she runs away. I really wanted to understand these characters fully. They are definitely complex but I loved the way that the author was able to give us a tiny bit of insight little by little in order to give us the ability to see where they are coming from even if we don't fully understand where they are coming from.
The writing of the book was good. I also enjoyed listening to the audiobook. I think listening to this particular book on audiobook was a little difficult because the stories of the characters and their dealings with each other were so intricate but if you pay close attention, you will be engulfed by this story!
The characters are important in this book but in some places, it almost felt like the way that the characters were written was truly the key to understanding the story fully. Aside from Azami, we also meet Alec, a South African ex-pat, and his wife, who is convinced that he is going to die from his recently diagnosed cancer so she runs away. I really wanted to understand these characters fully. They are definitely complex but I loved the way that the author was able to give us a tiny bit of insight little by little in order to give us the ability to see where they are coming from even if we don't fully understand where they are coming from.
The writing of the book was good. I also enjoyed listening to the audiobook. I think listening to this particular book on audiobook was a little difficult because the stories of the characters and their dealings with each other were so intricate but if you pay close attention, you will be engulfed by this story!
rebeccahussey's review
5.0
This novel tells the tale of a couple in a small town in Japan and their attempts to deal with terrifying news: that Alec, the husband, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Alec’s wife, Kanae, responds by running away — fleeing from the situation in ways both literal and metaphorical. How can one deal with the news that one’s husband will certainly die very soon? Mirroring Alec and Kanae’s emotional turbulence is the arrival of a typhoon that shakes their town and disrupts their attempts to come to terms with their new circumstances. The story is hers and Alec’s, but it’s also their children’s story, and even more so the story of an elderly woman Azami, who is the novel’s narrator. Azami is a mysterious figure who knows everything there is to know about the town (or she seems to at least) and watches over its inhabitants as well as healing hurt animals that come into her area. She hovers over the whole novel, occasionally telling her own story but also slipping into the minds and voices of the other characters to narrate their lives. The movement between Azami’s story and those of the other characters is seamless. There is an incantatory feel to the sentences, which are often made up of phrases piled on phrases, as though casting a spell over the reader. This passage gives you a good sense of the experience of reading the book:
"It is evening now in our little town and the winds have settled, for now, for a few hours, while they regroup and gather off shore and over the ocean, preparing for their fury, but for now we are quiet, we can watch the sky and only wonder how it all will come about, and so now Alec is at his home, he has finished his afternoon classes at his little English juku, he has walked through town — past the butcher, past the new supermarket, past the garden shop, and past me where I was standing and waiting at the corner for the light to change; he even waved me a quiet hello."
From this paragraph, you can see how Azami positions herself in relation to the other characters, as a part of things, with intimate knowledge of what is happening, but still at a distance. You can also see how the prose pulls you in with its rhythms, and how this one long sentence quietly captures a full scene.
It's all beautifully done. This is a book that deserves to find many readers.
"It is evening now in our little town and the winds have settled, for now, for a few hours, while they regroup and gather off shore and over the ocean, preparing for their fury, but for now we are quiet, we can watch the sky and only wonder how it all will come about, and so now Alec is at his home, he has finished his afternoon classes at his little English juku, he has walked through town — past the butcher, past the new supermarket, past the garden shop, and past me where I was standing and waiting at the corner for the light to change; he even waved me a quiet hello."
From this paragraph, you can see how Azami positions herself in relation to the other characters, as a part of things, with intimate knowledge of what is happening, but still at a distance. You can also see how the prose pulls you in with its rhythms, and how this one long sentence quietly captures a full scene.
It's all beautifully done. This is a book that deserves to find many readers.
helenmcclory's review
Wonderfully assured, quiet, insightful novel of lives in a storm hitting a Japanese island. The story rises above the trappings of a marriage narrative through hints of folklore, subtly-rendered depictions of Japanese small town life, and all in beautifully flowing sentences.
More...