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Wind and Stone

Masaaki Tachihara,

Stephen W. Kohl (Translator)

4.24 · Rating details · 34 ratings · 9 reviews

Mizue is a Japanese housewife. Kase is a garden designer hired by her husband to landscape their home. As the garden takes shape, Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire. A disturbing tale of seduction, based on Japanese aesthetics and the artistic pursuit of destructive beauty.

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Paperback, 160 pages

Published July 1st 1998 by Stone Bridge Press (first published June 1st 1992)

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Average rating 4.24 ·

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· 34 ratings · 9 reviews

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Aug 28, 2015 Praj rated it really liked it

Shelves: にほん

“You are a stone”, said Kase, smoking a cigarette after they had made love.
“I think you are the stone”, replies Mizue without opening her eyes.
“No, I’m more like the wind. I could never be a stone.”

Rapt in wonder the stone deliberates the lightness of the wind. The subtle windy caress arouses a sense of vitality. The stone sewed up in permanence yearns for an escape from its prosaic settings, rousing at the existence of the wind. The imminent chaos blowing over the passage of the wind, gusts ...more

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Jan 26, 2009 Gertrude & Victoria rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japanese-library

Wind and Stone is an intriguing, as well as, disquieting story of sexual awakening. This story might interest western readers who are unfamiliar with the Japanese Zen Garden, which is used as a metaphor for this awakening.

Tachihara Masaaki explores the depth of human psychology through man's primal desires. He brilliantly creates moods of extreme tension and restlessness in the main character of Mizue who falls for, Kase, the landscape architect and designer who is hired by her husband.

The most ...more

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Mar 10, 2021 Rita Hooks rated it it was amazing

Wind and Stone, a novel by Masaaki Tachihara, is a sensual and sensuous read for lovers and/or lovers of gardens— but then life for its characters gets complicated. Ah, the mutability of love and gardens.

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Jul 12, 2015 Stephen Douglas Rowland rated it really liked it

Honestly, I barely made it through the first half of this novel, with its dry language, heavy-handed metaphors, and awkward sensuality. But once it put its characters under a microscope and revealed more about their psychology in their impossible situation, I was hooked. It becomes dark, and very upsetting. My qualms with the language could be the result of an inadequate translation.

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Sep 03, 2020 Bill Johnston rated it liked it

Shelves: japan

A housewife with two children has an affair with the architect hired to design her new house's garden. It's full of lots of detail about Japanese gardens.

I'd like to give this book four stars for the emotions it evokes and the conflicts it creates within each of its characters. But something is missing here. The housewife, Mizue, is not sufficiently explored in the events leading up the affair. It's almost as if the author couldn't make up his mind why she did it, and wanted to get past that to ...more

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