The Garden of Evening Mists in Around the World

Jul 31, 2014 Nick rated it it was amazing

The garden of the title is aptly named because the novel is set in a world where nothing is what it appears to be. What is most important stays out of view or is hidden in the dense foreground; the novel’s characters frequently reveal less than they conceal. That is wise of them, because this past, as viewed through the prism of retired Judge Teoh Yun Ling’s fading memory, is a lethal place. Where Judge Teoh chooses to spend her remaining lucidity is that garden, where she sought in the years af The garden of the title is aptly named because the novel is set in a world where nothing is what it appears to be. What is most important stays out of view or is hidden in the dense foreground; the novel’s characters frequently reveal less than they conceal. That is wise of them, because this past, as viewed through the prism of retired Judge Teoh Yun Ling’s fading memory, is a lethal place. Where Judge Teoh chooses to spend her remaining lucidity is that garden, where she sought in the years after World War II to honor a sister who died in the Japanese labor camp she escaped—not incidentally by becoming a translator for the Japanese, a cushioned post among the brutalized and debilitated prisoners. Even post-war Malaya, when much of the action takes place, remained dangerous–after years of war, as the country that would become Malaysia negotiated for independence from the British Empire, it also was fighting off a Marxist insurgency. The jungle that hemmed the garden and the neighboring tea plantation hid secrets—the rebels, the corpses of those who got lost or were abducted, perhaps the gold that the Japanese confiscated, the location of the labor camp itself and the bodies of the prisoners, all under the watchful eyes of the orang asli, the original forest people. And yet it was the kind of place where the tea planter, who had fought the British in the Boer Wars, could entertain the former gardener of the Japanese Emperor, the younger Judge Teoh, who is Straights Chinese, and even British colonial officials. (Even if assassination and curfew limited how long the parties lasted). The older Judge Teoh narrates from a different kind of frontier—she is struggling to capture her memories on paper before they disappear into the jungle of age. This is in the end a novel about the boundaries that humans try to impose on the landscape and on experience itself and how variable and impermanent those borders are—between peace and violence, truth and telling, love and betrayal, memory and forgetting (both the eroding kind and the deliberately erased). The author of this novel has a rare gift for asking a multitude of questions and letting them resonate before leaving them unanswered. That works because the story is rich with detail, the narrative voice credible, impassioned and raw. The complexity of the writing should now be evident; as for its quality, I find it astonishing that any writer could write a moving sub-plot about a kamikaze pilot while in no way minimizing the arrogant and utter brutality of the Japanese empire and military. Yet in this novel, that is precisely one, but only one, of Tan Twan Eng’s achievements. ...more

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Feb 10, 2024 Kim rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, asia, historical-fiction, favourites, booker, 2024-favourites, 2024-top-ten-books

“Are all of us the same, I wonder, navigating our lives by interpreting the silences between words spoken, analysing the returning echoes of our memory in order to chart the terrain, in order to make sense of the world around us?”

I wish I'd read this when it first came out and then I could gage better if this would have given me more new information. I'm pretty sure I knew about the slave labour camps during the Japanese occupation and I think I knew a little about Japanese gardens and comfort w ...more

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May 31, 2013 mussolet rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: rating-5stars-fiction-nf, region-asia, language-english, 2021-sorted, 2024-shelf-challenge, fav-read-2013, country-japan, fav-alltime

I tend to favour well-written novels over well-plotted ones, those with interesting themes or those with great characters. Luckily enough, the "The Garden of Evening Mists" falls into all of these categories.

I knew right from page one that I was in for a poetic treat:

"Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance."

Aritomo, the former gardener of the Emperor of Jap I tend to favour well-written novels over well-plotted ones, those with interesting themes or those with great characters. Luckily enough, the "The Garden of Evening Mists" falls into all of these categories.

I knew right from page one that I was in for a poetic treat:

"Memories I had locked away have begun to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep, these broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance."

Aritomo, the former gardener of the Emperor of Japan, is a master of Zen arts. When he takes Yun Ling on as an apprentice, he doesn't just educate her on gardening matters, but he helps her to work on her inner strengths as well. In most cases, when such a topic is covered in a novel, it reads like a self-help guide. Not so much here; every advice is given because it is required in a certain situation, and the reader can see the consequences and work out the deeper meaning for himself.

The garden and its surrounding area are described in a calm, unhurried way that only enhances their beauty. Against such a backdrop, Yun Ling's and her country's violent past are difficult to understand, and when she distances herself from it, the reader can feel her troubles.

“For what is a person without memories? A ghost, trapped between worlds, without an identity, with no future, no past.”

Being from Germany, most of what I learned about WWII has involved my country. In the west we seem to be experts at analyzing that period until we've gone over everything so often that it loses its horror and becomes something of a background statistic in your head.
It is different when I read a book that describes other theatres in this tragedy. I knew next to nothing about what happened in Malaysia at the time. (Indeed, I wouldn't even know that something had happened if not for Rani Manicka's The Japanese Lover.)
Yun Ling is the sole survivor of a Japanese internment camp. She has suffered a lot, and distances herself from her own past. I don't know if this makes it easier for the reader or not, but it helps to build her character, and she has to deal with a lot throughout the course of this book. Her story is full of violence, but also full of love, learning, and mystery.

It seems strange that the thing that impresses me the most in a novel that works through so many themes would still be the writing, but that also makes me grateful. Because it means that whatever Tan Twan Eng decides to write next, I will want to read it.

“Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again."

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Review crossposted to 238 books in 238 days. ...more

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May 01, 2015 Renae rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: genre-historical, read-in-2015, setting-malaysia

“There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death.”

With this epigraph, a quote by Richard Holmes, author Tan Twan Eng captures the mood and themes of The Garden of Evening Mists, a quietly profound novel about a Straits Chinese woman whose desire to simultaneously honor her sister’s memory and move on from
“There is a goddess of Memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting. Yet there should be, as they are twin sisters, twin powers, and walk on either side of us, disputing for sovereignty over us and who we are, all the way until death.”

With this epigraph, a quote by Richard Holmes, author Tan Twan Eng captures the mood and themes of The Garden of Evening Mists, a quietly profound novel about a Straits Chinese woman whose desire to simultaneously honor her sister’s memory and move on from a traumatic past takes plagues her adult life. This war between remembering and forgetting sets Yun Ling on the path to meeting Aritomo, a reclusive Japanese man who night be the only person in Malaysia who can help her. In a narrative that slips in and out of the past, Tan unfolds the story of this growing bond between Yun Ling and Aritomo, revealing histories that both prefer to keep hidden.

The Garden of Evening Mists is not a “quick read”—the author’s pacing is deliberate and elegiac. The reader sees Yun Ling both at the end of her life and in 1951, when she’s in her thirties and just making Aritomo’s acquaintance (though she’s known of him for decades). The pieces of this protagonist’s story, narrated in first person, are a puzzle that is difficult to solve at first, but easier over time. In this way, the first portion of the book felt slow, and it took me some time to invest in the narrative, though by the midpoint I was completely absorbed in this story and the deft way Tan handled its overarching themes. Even so, this was stil a slow, contemplative read; it isn’t a pageturner and doesn’t try to be.

Though the “mystery” at the heart of this novel is Aritomo, in some ways Yun Ling Herself is just as much of an enigma. Her experiences in a Japanese concentration camp haver left her scarred, angry, and devastated. She has endured much, and her coping mechanism has been to shut down emotionally. As a protagonist, Yun Ling is often cold and hard, and this might make her difficult to connect with in some ways. Yet I do think the author did an admirable job in presenting this character, with her horrific backstory, in a way that was respectful but also readable. Yun Ling might not be the easiest narrator, but I found her voice to be subtly compelling, with an important story to share.

But if I enjoyed Tan’s characters, I loved his exquisite attention to detail in terms of place and setting. The Garden of Evening Mists takes place in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia, on a tea plantation owned by a Boer friend of Yun Ling’s family. Adjoining the plantation is Yugiri (“Evening Mists”), where Aritomo has built a traditional Japanese house and garden. Every aspect of this environment was given a personality and voice of its own, aided by the author’s gorgeous descriptions and imagery. When people talk about “setting as a character” in fiction, this is what they’re talking about.

Beyond lovely prose, there is depth and weight to this novel and its exploration of culture and history. Tan contrasts the horror of Yun Ling’s experiences in the concentration camp with her growing appreciation for Japanese art: its gardens and elaborate tattoos and woodblock prints. Is it wrong to appreciate the culture of a country that oppressed you? Can one hold both hate and appreciation towards the same country? More, Yun Ling seeks to forget her past, but how is it possible to do so?

Throughout The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng asks these questions and more as he develops the complex relationship between Yun Ling and Aritomo. This novel about the strengths and failures of memory is beautifully crafted. With a rich and dynamic Malaysia as a backdrop, The Garden of Evening Mists is a book that displays skill and nuance in every aspect of its writing. I was very pleased with this. ...more

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May 27, 2022 Shahar rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, reading-around-the-world

4,7 Beautifully told and with a great narration by Anna Bentinck.
The story is set mostly in 1951 soon to be Malaysia but has a very interesting side stories over time and continents .
I knew almost nothing of this book and what a wonderful surprise it was.
Highly recommended.
#AroundTheWorld #Malaysia

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