A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
Blossoms and Shadows by Lian Hearn
3.0
‘Everyone knew that change was coming, but no-one knew what form it would take or what the world would be like afterwards.’
This novel is set in Japan, in the final years (1857-67) of the Tokugawa regime. This was a turbulent period (immediately before the Meiji Restoration of 1868) when Japan’s feudal society was under pressure both internally (as a consequence of famine, epidemic and feudal wars) and externally (from nations of the west).
The novel opens in 1857, and involves both fictional and historical characters. Our narrator is the fictional Tsuru, a young woman who is a member of a doctor’s family. Because doctors were generally an exception to the rigid class structures then in place, Tsuru had more opportunities to observe and participate in events than would usually have been the case for a woman. This makes her an interesting narrator of the events that unfold.
‘These are the men my story is about. It is they who broke down the old world and reformed the nation I now live in, with their dreams and delusions, their courage and stupidity, their unexpected successes and their painful failures.’
We first meet Tsuru on the day of her sister’s wedding, and it quickly becomes clear that Tsuru sees a different role for herself: one that is not in any sense traditional. Tsuru dreams of practising medicine, as an equal, alongside her father and then her husband. Tsuru’s story is interesting, but it is the story of Japan at this time that most held my interest.
There is a lot of historical detail in this novel and, for me at least, the characters became secondary to the events. This made reading the novel a bit of a challenge at times: there are a lot of different characters involved and it wasn’t always easy to remember where each one fitted into the narrative.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
This novel is set in Japan, in the final years (1857-67) of the Tokugawa regime. This was a turbulent period (immediately before the Meiji Restoration of 1868) when Japan’s feudal society was under pressure both internally (as a consequence of famine, epidemic and feudal wars) and externally (from nations of the west).
The novel opens in 1857, and involves both fictional and historical characters. Our narrator is the fictional Tsuru, a young woman who is a member of a doctor’s family. Because doctors were generally an exception to the rigid class structures then in place, Tsuru had more opportunities to observe and participate in events than would usually have been the case for a woman. This makes her an interesting narrator of the events that unfold.
‘These are the men my story is about. It is they who broke down the old world and reformed the nation I now live in, with their dreams and delusions, their courage and stupidity, their unexpected successes and their painful failures.’
We first meet Tsuru on the day of her sister’s wedding, and it quickly becomes clear that Tsuru sees a different role for herself: one that is not in any sense traditional. Tsuru dreams of practising medicine, as an equal, alongside her father and then her husband. Tsuru’s story is interesting, but it is the story of Japan at this time that most held my interest.
There is a lot of historical detail in this novel and, for me at least, the characters became secondary to the events. This made reading the novel a bit of a challenge at times: there are a lot of different characters involved and it wasn’t always easy to remember where each one fitted into the narrative.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith