The Gardens of Kyoto: A Novel
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | 4.97 (805 Votes) |
| Asin | : | 0684869497 |
| Format Type | : | paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 Pages |
| Publish Date | : | 2015-12-10 |
| Language | : | English |
DESCRIPTION:
Each one subtly influences her perception of her place in the world, the nature of her memories.Moving back and forth through time and place, Kate Walbert recreates a world touched by the shadows of war and a society in which women fit their desires into prescribed roles. When he dies on Iwo Jima, she turns to the legacy he left her: his diary and a book called The Gardens of Kyoto. From the National Book Award nominated, New York Times bestselling author of A Short History of Women and The Sunken Cathedral, Walbert’s beautiful and heartbreaking novel about a young woman coming of age in the long shadow of World War II—“An intricately plotted, thrillingly imagined narrativeA masterpiece” (The New York Times Book Review).Forty years after enduring the Second World War as a young woman, Ellen relates the events of this turbulent period, beginning with the death of her favorite cousin, Randall, with whom she shared Easter Sundays, childhood secrets, and, perhaps, the first taste of love. Unfolding in lyrical, seductive prose, The Gardens of Kyoto becomes a mesmerizing exploration of the interplay of love and loss.
Namely, she's looking back on the war years, from some future vantage point, recounting her experiences to her child. One will never drink too much and sit alone, wishing, in the dark." Ellen tells of meeting the father of her child, of her sister's disappearance, of a friend's abortion. Ellen, the youngest of three sisters, lives for her annual visit to see her cousin Randall. --Claire Dederer. As for the titular gardens, they make but a brief appearance, in a book Randall bequests to the narrator. These are in fact the story's recurrent motifs: vanishing women, endangered children, and men permanently damaged by war. Something in his odd-duck imaginings speaks to her, and their bond is cemented by the fact that they both have red hair. (Relationships have been built on less.) Yet this portrait of Randall is shadowed by loss; we know from the first that he will be killed in the war. One will never grow old, never age. Set in wartime Philadelphia, the story is t
Absolutely amazing. I'm an avid reader, and this book is one of the most beautiful things I've ever had the privilage to read. Both haunting and thoughtful, lyrical and down-to-earth, it manages to paint a heartbreaking story about love; both true love and love at first sight, and how the ramifications of both can affect a person for the rest of their life. The narrator spends the course of the book struggling with her love for her departed cousin and the odd love she feels towards a man who sent her letters . The Ghosts of Memory Elizabeth Hendry The Gardens of Kyoto is a beautiful, heartbreaking, lyrically-told story that I highly recommend. The narrator, Ellen is telling her story to her daughter from some future vantage point. Right from the beginning, Walbert lets us know that things aren't always as Ellen remembers them. Ellen is telling the story of when she first met her cousin Randall, and how the Oak trees lined the drive. But then, just a few paragraphs later, she thinks perhaps it may have been walnut trees. Most of the . important, beautiful and memorable The minimalistic, meditative gardens of Kyoto can be visited and contemplated nowadays because they were deliberately spared in the American attack on Japan.The gardens and their unusual history and fate are the title and recurrent motif in Kate Walbert's novel.The novel is narrated in a form of a letter, by a woman. It is an account of the past events, an explanation and an apology. Who is the intended recipient, the reader realizes soon - it is the narrator's daughter. The narrator herse