Sunday, November 3, 2019

The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Book Blurb:

The daughter of a Chinese mother and a Japanese father, Tsukiyama uses the Japanese invasion of China during the late 1930s as a somber backdrop for her unusual story about a 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen who is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soulmate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

My Thoughts:

This book interested me as my grandson is currently in Japan for the next 2 years.  I wanted to learn some historical type events, a little more about the culture and just generally read a good book taking place in Japan.

I really enjoyed the book and found some sad moments as Sachi and Matsu's story is revealed.  The leprosy in Japan was something I had not read or heard about before. Matsu is a generally good person and he was very likeable because of his caring ways.  Stephan was a very interesting character torn between two homes as War touched their lives.  His feelings towards his father and the situation there are moving and touching.

I am quite happy to have read this interesting book and recommend it as a very good book to invest your time to read.

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