LONGLISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2012 Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambrige and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in Kuala Lumpur, in memory of her sister who died in the camp. Aritomo refuses, but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice 'until the monsoon comes'. Then she can design a garden for herself. As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to her sensei and his art while, outside the garden, the threat of murder and kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day. But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Ling's friend and host Magnus Praetorius, seems to almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? What is the legend of 'Yamashita's Gold' and does it have any basis in fact? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all?
The Garden of Evening Mists
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 Trade In this Item for up to £0.55
Trade in The Garden of Evening Mists for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.55, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Card, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more
|
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
Just as elegantly planted as his Man Booker-long listed debut The Gift of Rain, and even more tantalisingly evocative. --Boyd Tonkin, The Independent
Delicately complex; effortless elegance --Ruth Browne, Cape Times
Delicately complex; effortless elegance --Ruth Browne, Cape Times
Book Description
Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Browse and search another edition of this book.
Browse and search another edition of this book.
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 39 people found the following review helpful
By Columba
Format:Paperback
I found this second novel by Tan Twan Eng both absorbing and extraordinarily enriching. His hero is a woman. He writes in the first person singular and is obviously very much in touch with the female aspect of his psyche which adds to the authenticity of his plot.
I loved his first novel, 'The Gift of Rain,' and this one has an even greater profundity. I like especially the way in which he connects the past memories of his hero, Judge Teoh Yun Ling, with her present existence.
The real subject of the story is a Japanese Gardener, Nakamura Aritomo. He had once been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Yun Ling's story is intimately connected with Aritomo and the unique relationship between the two. There are several interesting characters and each plays a vital part in the unfolding of the story.
On the very first page Tan Twan Eng writes,
- "Thirty-six years after that morning, I hear his voice again, hollow and resonant. Memories I had locked away began to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep these broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance."
That's a marvellous paragraph and immediately hooked me on the story. Its a beautiful book full of wonderful and moving images as well as being an intriguing read.
I loved his first novel, 'The Gift of Rain,' and this one has an even greater profundity. I like especially the way in which he connects the past memories of his hero, Judge Teoh Yun Ling, with her present existence.
The real subject of the story is a Japanese Gardener, Nakamura Aritomo. He had once been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan. Yun Ling's story is intimately connected with Aritomo and the unique relationship between the two. There are several interesting characters and each plays a vital part in the unfolding of the story.
On the very first page Tan Twan Eng writes,
- "Thirty-six years after that morning, I hear his voice again, hollow and resonant. Memories I had locked away began to break free, like shards of ice fracturing off an arctic shelf. In sleep these broken floes drift towards the morning light of remembrance."
That's a marvellous paragraph and immediately hooked me on the story. Its a beautiful book full of wonderful and moving images as well as being an intriguing read.
65 of 68 people found the following review helpful
By Caroline
Format:Paperback
Having so enjoyed his first book, I started reading this one with great anticipation. I was not disappointed. His main character, a woman judge who has been tortured by the Japanese when they invaded Penang, approaches the former gardener to the Emperor of Japan, wanting him to make her a Japanese garden in memory of her sister.
His writing is magical and he paints vivid pictures of the Malaysian jungle near Cameron Heights. His introduces a longstanding family friend who is a survivor of the Boer War. Like the Judge he has experienced loss as his family was put in a concentration camp by the British. The battle for independence and the fight against communism also adds further depth to this fascinating story, which is wonderfully crafted throughout.
A must read.
His writing is magical and he paints vivid pictures of the Malaysian jungle near Cameron Heights. His introduces a longstanding family friend who is a survivor of the Boer War. Like the Judge he has experienced loss as his family was put in a concentration camp by the British. The battle for independence and the fight against communism also adds further depth to this fascinating story, which is wonderfully crafted throughout.
A must read.
30 of 32 people found the following review helpful
By antony mair
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
In this wonderful book we are plunged into the Far East, and the conflicts between Malays, Chinese and Japanese. Against a background of total savagery in and after the Second World War there is a tale of love and forgiveness that unfolds with the slow inevitability of the garden that is the centrepiece of the book. The two central characters - a former gardener to the Emperor of Japan and the Malayan Chinese prosecutor of Japanese war criminals, who subsequently becomes a judge - are portrayed with astonishing sensitivity, as is the setting in the Cameron Highlands. I loved every single minute of it, and now know where I want to go on my next holiday!
34 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
For me, Tan Twan Eng's 'The Gift Of Rain' became one of those books that enter your subconscious on some level and keeps popping back into your mind. It was partly due to the evocative descriptions, partly the complexities of the central character. So when I bought my copy of 'Garden Of Evening Mists' I thought it unlikely he could achieve the same success twice. However, Tan Twan Eng has proved himself a genuine artist once again. The narrator is intriguing all the way through to the book's ending (which, by the way, carries a surprising twist and punch unusual in a so-called 'literary' novel). There is an air of beautiful sadness to some parts of the story. Again, the descriptions of the Malayan highlands are layered with deeper nuances, just as they were when Tan Twan Eng described the island of Penang in 'Gift Of Rain'. Finally, there are timeless (and some horrible) moral dilemmas swirling round this book like the mists round the eponymous garden. Dilemmas for the characters that made this reader, at least, think about the hard choices people face in the world. Tan isn't a prolific writer and reading his novel reveals why: every word counts.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I am not a fan of Man Booker Prize books as I find them a bit highbrow. However, I loved this book and I bought it because I loved his first book. Having been born and raised in Penang myself I recognised a lot of the places mentioned in the first book. Likewise, having visited Cameron Highlands and Kuala Lumpur it was interesting reading the book. Tan Twan Eng writes beautifully and I really enoyed the book.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Judge Teoh (or Yun Ling)is a Straits Chinese Malaysian who takes early retirement due to a cranial disease eating away at her memories. This is really a plot device to start Yun Ling writing her story before she forgets it all and the book the develops into three tiers of overlapping memories - before and during the second world war (under Japanese occupation), working on a Japanese Garden for Aritomo (the former gardener of Emperor Hirohito) at the time of the Malayan emergency pre-independence, and lastly the present day.
The setting is almost all in the Cameron Highlands of the Malayan peninsula - in particular the garden of Yugiri and the adjacent tea estate of Majuba run by an eccentric South African Magnus Pretorius and his Straits Chinese wife Emily and son Frederick. The descriptions of the tropical rain forests and gardens are magnificent and the 1950s and wartime flashbacks have enough detail to appear realistic.
The cast focuses heavily on the above characters with a present day Japanese visitor (Tatsuji) providing another set of memories (as a failed kamikaze pilot) together with the key to unlock the plot and bring all the discordant pieces together.
The characterisation is generally very good though there are some rather unlikely elements of the plot which stretch the belief in the characters eg would someone with Yun Ling's background really sleep with Aritomo and then refrain for 40 years for fear of exposing a tatoo?
The writing has a mystical and slightly sentimental feel to it but is generally very good. The plot presents itself as a series of multiple memories leaving the reader struggling a little to remember where he/she is, and there are a lot of loose ends left hanging; why does Aritomo just disappear?... Read more ›
The setting is almost all in the Cameron Highlands of the Malayan peninsula - in particular the garden of Yugiri and the adjacent tea estate of Majuba run by an eccentric South African Magnus Pretorius and his Straits Chinese wife Emily and son Frederick. The descriptions of the tropical rain forests and gardens are magnificent and the 1950s and wartime flashbacks have enough detail to appear realistic.
The cast focuses heavily on the above characters with a present day Japanese visitor (Tatsuji) providing another set of memories (as a failed kamikaze pilot) together with the key to unlock the plot and bring all the discordant pieces together.
The characterisation is generally very good though there are some rather unlikely elements of the plot which stretch the belief in the characters eg would someone with Yun Ling's background really sleep with Aritomo and then refrain for 40 years for fear of exposing a tatoo?
The writing has a mystical and slightly sentimental feel to it but is generally very good. The plot presents itself as a series of multiple memories leaving the reader struggling a little to remember where he/she is, and there are a lot of loose ends left hanging; why does Aritomo just disappear?... Read more ›
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 168 reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Story
Well worth reading and worthy of all the prizes it has received. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys elegant lyrical prose
Published 2 days ago by Archibald
4.0 out of 5 stars
The mist is not just in the title
For his second novel, Tan Twan Eng returns again to his native Malaysia in the period around the Second World War. Read more
Published 3 days ago by BookWorm
5.0 out of 5 stars
Looks to be a great read
I have only just started reading it, but so far, so good. Having lived in Malaya and also having had a cousin who was in a prison of war camp, I am just off now to read it, in the... Read more
Published 3 days ago by Mrs. Gillian Reckitt
5.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful, powerful, thought provoking
This has to be one of the best books I have read for a long time. So unexpected, gently powerful the way rain can be, and covering so much in a way that leaves you thinking about... Read more
Published 5 days ago by Naomi
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book
Really enjoyed this book, especially as I lived in the East for many years - the author describes places and people beautifully.
Published 11 days ago by Mrs W L
4.0 out of 5 stars
Atmospheric
Very much a book about moods and atmosphere - which are created excellently. Slow at first, which feels appropriate, and then dramatic action revealed towards the end. Read more
Published 13 days ago by W. P. WRIDE
5.0 out of 5 stars
Poetic, poignant, different, informative, everything!
I wanted to add a review but I really can't add much that hasn't already been said below. It is one of the very best novels I have read for a long time. Read more
Published 15 days ago by mcah
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Fascinating Tale of Life 1940s Malaya
Beautifully written and very evocative of a difficult time in Malaya's history. It certainly stayed with me for some time after finishing the book.
Published 16 days ago by crieff
4.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting but very sad
The novel was slow to start but worth persevering with. It was a really interesting insight into Japanese culture and the horrors and cruelty of the second world war.
Published 16 days ago by mrs r l savidge
2.0 out of 5 stars
Mud in Malaya
And this is like treading mud. Now and then you get out and see light and jump and then down you go again. Is this really a Man Booker writer? Did this book have an editor? Read more
Published 22 days ago by London Matron
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
