camarua's review
4.0
'But what others see is what I am. My existence is reflected in the eyes of other people - isnt it?'
'That's what you've always been taught.'
'Is it wrong?'
'That's what you've always been taught.'
'Is it wrong?'
justabean_reads's review
3.0
A fictionalised biography of Ginko Ogino, the first female doctor of Western medicine in Japan; it follows her from the failure of her marriage at age nineteen through to her death at sixty two. I really liked this as a biography, and it certainly showed her strengths and flaws and how they grew out of each other, like how the perfectionism that got her through medical school and exams made her unsympathetic and even intolerant of those who weren't as brilliant. I enjoyed the attention to historical details, and reading about her overcoming so many roadblocks and fuck the patriarchy anyway. However, as a novel, I didn't feel it worked as well, perhaps it was cultural differences, but the whole thing was told in a slightly detached third person in a very spare style that didn't quite let me feel close to Ginko as a person. I never really related to her, and though I cheered her on, I couldn't quite sympathise with her emotionally. Still, a good book over all, and it fit nicely as a look at the next historical period in my Japanese fiction search: the Meiji Era. Trigger warning for attempted rape, multiple sexual assaults and slut shaming.
kalikabali's review
2.0
This semi-fictionalised biography of Ginko Ogina, the first woman medical doctor in Japan falls in between a historical novel and proper biography. The first half or so of the book tells us the story of the struggles of Ginko against her family and the society at large as she pursues with an admirable determination her aim to become a trained and licensed female doctor. One can empathise with her as she overcomes the physical pain and shame of being infected by gonorrhea through her husband to fight against every possible prejudice against women in 1870s Japan. But the style (it may be due to the translation) is very simplistic and you can never really get under her skin and her character remains remote and unfeeling. This is especially true of the later half which describes her at the forefront of women's right movement and her subsequent conversion to Christianity and marriage to an idealistic aspiring minister several years younger to her. And that's when the whole thing just starts spiralling downwards. It is hard to relate the woman who dealt with loneliness, disrespect and chauvinism that even leads to an abortice gang-rape to this woman who follows her husband's naive and foolhardy schemes into wilderness. The ultra-moralistic tone she adopts in the second half also makes her seem quite heartless. The abrupt way in which the last couple of decades of her life is dealt with in a few paragraphs with a brevity that reminds you of a concise precis rather than an inspiring historical novel (or even biography!)
More...