thunguyen's review against another edition
5.0
I read the whole trilogy and its sequel and then prequel. I can't remember now which book I like most of all. Maybe the first book "Across the nightingale floor"? Or the sequel in which there were so many more new characters.
I don't know how to describe these books, which genre or category they fall in. But I remember crying and feeling angry and building up my hope and worrying about what would happen next. I was properly living in that world of Takeri and Kaede for the whole time reading 5 books.
Lots of debate about should the author use Japanese terms or not. Well, I read enough Japanese mangas to be familiar with Japanese cultures and landscapes, I know many Japanese terms, and I enjoyed it that every word (except names) in these books was English not Japanese, I'm reading English literacy after all.
I don't know how to describe these books, which genre or category they fall in. But I remember crying and feeling angry and building up my hope and worrying about what would happen next. I was properly living in that world of Takeri and Kaede for the whole time reading 5 books.
Lots of debate about should the author use Japanese terms or not. Well, I read enough Japanese mangas to be familiar with Japanese cultures and landscapes, I know many Japanese terms, and I enjoyed it that every word (except names) in these books was English not Japanese, I'm reading English literacy after all.
astrono9's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
funny
relaxing
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
ceridwyn's review against another edition
2.0
I found much of the first of the Tales of the Otori series - Across the Nightingale Floor - completely compelling. Hearn sets the action in a supposedly fictionalized version of feudal Japan, however the characters and culture are so firmly placed in the world of ninja and geisha that world building doesn’t actually seem necessary (or indeed to have taken place). It is as if Hearn has set the series in feudal Japan while giving herself an out for making mistakes (of course I could just not know enough to spot the integral differences between medieval Japan and the world of the Otori).
This established setting allows Hearn to rid the first book of almost all exposition about location. This is what I found so compelling about Across the Nightingale Floor – I didn’t have to wade through long, involved description about how a place looks, but got to experience it through the characters’ reactions. I’m not at all visual so I tend to ‘flick through’ any expository writing that contains more than two sentences of description. I much prefer to understand the setting through a character’s reaction to the place - more of a kinesthetic explanation that provides a feeling - rather than knowing exactly where the pillars are in a room. Unfortunately this lack of adjective-laden description faded away by the end of the first book and by the end of the third book in the trilogy I was skipping hunks of waffle about the way various locations looked.
Throughout the trilogy Herne uses two points of view. The lead male character, Takeo, is written in the first person and, as the key active participant in the story, his chapters have an immediacy and life that is really appealing. The chapters featuring Kaede, the lead female character, are written in third person narrative. In Across the Nightingale Floor I was not immediately bothered by the huge contrast between the two styles, particularly because Kaede was an active, energetic, modern-revisionist type heroine. Swapping between perspectives was jarring to me but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment particularly.
However, as Kaede falls in love with Takeo, she becomes more and more a passive participant in the story. She is always an object of desire but in the second and third books she becomes unable to combat this in any meaningful way in plot terms. Because Kaede’s point of view chapters are written in third person I, as a reader, got further and further away from any immediate understanding of her motivation and character. Herne kept telling me what she was thinking, not showing me and this made me more and more annoyed and I ended up disliking a character I had really enjoyed in the first book of the trilogy.
I think if Herne had chosen to keep the point of view in the tight first person and had Takeo as the sole narrator the books would have been stronger and more enjoyable. By writing Kaede's chapters in the third person, the marginalization and disempowerment of her character (that could have been seen only as a result of the historical and cultural setting) were increased and given tacit approval by the author. By the end of Grass for his Pillow I was truly pissed off with this narrative technique and if I hadn’t already purchased Brilliance of the Moon I probably wouldn’t have bothered reading it.
This established setting allows Hearn to rid the first book of almost all exposition about location. This is what I found so compelling about Across the Nightingale Floor – I didn’t have to wade through long, involved description about how a place looks, but got to experience it through the characters’ reactions. I’m not at all visual so I tend to ‘flick through’ any expository writing that contains more than two sentences of description. I much prefer to understand the setting through a character’s reaction to the place - more of a kinesthetic explanation that provides a feeling - rather than knowing exactly where the pillars are in a room. Unfortunately this lack of adjective-laden description faded away by the end of the first book and by the end of the third book in the trilogy I was skipping hunks of waffle about the way various locations looked.
Throughout the trilogy Herne uses two points of view. The lead male character, Takeo, is written in the first person and, as the key active participant in the story, his chapters have an immediacy and life that is really appealing. The chapters featuring Kaede, the lead female character, are written in third person narrative. In Across the Nightingale Floor I was not immediately bothered by the huge contrast between the two styles, particularly because Kaede was an active, energetic, modern-revisionist type heroine. Swapping between perspectives was jarring to me but it didn’t lessen my enjoyment particularly.
However, as Kaede falls in love with Takeo, she becomes more and more a passive participant in the story. She is always an object of desire but in the second and third books she becomes unable to combat this in any meaningful way in plot terms. Because Kaede’s point of view chapters are written in third person I, as a reader, got further and further away from any immediate understanding of her motivation and character. Herne kept telling me what she was thinking, not showing me and this made me more and more annoyed and I ended up disliking a character I had really enjoyed in the first book of the trilogy.
I think if Herne had chosen to keep the point of view in the tight first person and had Takeo as the sole narrator the books would have been stronger and more enjoyable. By writing Kaede's chapters in the third person, the marginalization and disempowerment of her character (that could have been seen only as a result of the historical and cultural setting) were increased and given tacit approval by the author. By the end of Grass for his Pillow I was truly pissed off with this narrative technique and if I hadn’t already purchased Brilliance of the Moon I probably wouldn’t have bothered reading it.
frios_'s review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
3.75
riduidel's review against another edition
3.0
Un roman d'initiation d'une espèce d'assassin royal japonisant. C'est bien mieux écrit que l'autre, et malgré les "pouvoirs" du personnage principal, les poncifs japonais (l'honneur, le respect, la tradition, la famille) apportent du charme au lieu d'en enlever. C'est assez bon.
mphdp's review against another edition
4.0
Une série qui débute bien, c'est plein de tensions et de rebondissements avec complots entre clans sur fond d'ancienne guerre mal digérée.
Nous suivons deux adolescent.es, un garçon qui fait partie d'un groupe religieux martyrisé et une fille d'un clan guerrier se trouvant servante dans un autre clan. Iels n'ont vraiment pas une vie facile et je me suis attachée très facilement à elleux.
Nous suivons deux adolescent.es, un garçon qui fait partie d'un groupe religieux martyrisé et une fille d'un clan guerrier se trouvant servante dans un autre clan. Iels n'ont vraiment pas une vie facile et je me suis attachée très facilement à elleux.
twixester's review against another edition
3.0
Actual rating 2.5 stars!
So so divided about this ending..... sigoura itan ligo bareto to proto meros alla otan ftaneis sto telos einai poly poly pio ousiastiko me perissoteri drasi, ginontai olo kai perissotera pragmata kai meta teleionei..... kai ti telos.... to sigouro itan pos to telos einai glukopikro gia na po ta kalutera.... den ksero pisteuo pos to kalutero tha itan na eixa stamatisei sto proigoumeno... an kai eixa apories den mou arese o tropos pou luthikan kai as itan anapantexos...
So so divided about this ending..... sigoura itan ligo bareto to proto meros alla otan ftaneis sto telos einai poly poly pio ousiastiko me perissoteri drasi, ginontai olo kai perissotera pragmata kai meta teleionei..... kai ti telos.... to sigouro itan pos to telos einai glukopikro gia na po ta kalutera.... den ksero pisteuo pos to kalutero tha itan na eixa stamatisei sto proigoumeno... an kai eixa apories den mou arese o tropos pou luthikan kai as itan anapantexos...
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