Nine book club members joined in on the discussion of The Garden of Evening Mist by Tan Twan Eng. We were treated to special tea for the evening by our book club leader!
The book was well-liked and created a lot of dialogue over many aspects that we were not previously aware of. A few of us mentioned that the book was tough to get through, especially at first. Seemed like there was a lot of jumping around in the book, one member said it would have been nice to have had years noted in the beginning of the chapters. There were many words written in a foreign language so was a little hard. There were little pieces that were thrown out to us at the beginning of the book and we didn't know how that fit in until the last third of the book. One member said "he left little clues, while developing the characters" The character development was good for the ancillary characters, their stories were woven together in one way or another. "There was a lot of mystery around the characters, and not until the end of the novel was it revealed, piece by piece" one of our members said. There was a lot of description in his writing someone shared: "It might have been a little too ambitious, he put everything into the book, it might have been too much."
We talked about the depth of character development, including about Yun Ling's glove, that covered the abuse she sustained while in camp with her captors. The character development went so far to include the music that Emily & Magnus listened to at the end of the evening. There were so many aspects to building the many characters in the book.
A member stated: "It makes me humble what little I know of people in the world. I learned a lot from this book." I think that all of us agreed in that statement. One member, who was a 2nd grade teacher said they studied about Japan and loved it. We learned about Japanese gardening. We didn't know that Japan attacked this area before Pearl Harbor. We learned about Malay (Malaysia) and that Yun Ling was Straights Chinese. We learned about the Boer War, about tea, about conflicts in Malaysia. It was good to read about historical fiction in the book.
We talked about memory, survival guilt and forbidden love in this novel. Yun Ling shared her story with us, her journey. A member said "I felt a tremendous sense of sadness from what she suffered, made me like her more than what I did." We learned she did things to survive, even as a snitch in the concentration camp, which was frustrating for us to read about. She became successful in her life, becoming a judge, which she especially used to become a tribunal war judge so she could find her camp. A member said: "Yun Ling wanted to keep her secrets to herself, it was a constant battle for me to crack her open."
Memory was such a big part of the book. Magnus' garden contained two statues, the Goddess of Remembering and the Goddess of Forgetting. One member said, that her memories were so painful, she couldn't process it enough and what was taking her life, was taking her memories. She didn't have control over her own destiny, she was always surviving, even when she lived with Aritomo, having been taken by the CT. She felt survivor's remorse because of her sister, and the only one who survived the camp.
We discussed Aritomo's horimono on Yun Ling. She has scars on her back, but they were changed when he did the horimono. We wondered, did that heal her. It was interesting to find out it was a map that Aritomo mastered, a clue to the question, maybe, about where the treasure was hidden. One member said they wish they had more information at the end, many unanswered questions.
We thought the author did a great job, and was interested to learn he was an attorney. A few members had read his first book A Gift of Rain, and liked it better than this book! Many were interested to read that book.
The book was well-liked and created a lot of dialogue over many aspects that we were not previously aware of. A few of us mentioned that the book was tough to get through, especially at first. Seemed like there was a lot of jumping around in the book, one member said it would have been nice to have had years noted in the beginning of the chapters. There were many words written in a foreign language so was a little hard. There were little pieces that were thrown out to us at the beginning of the book and we didn't know how that fit in until the last third of the book. One member said "he left little clues, while developing the characters" The character development was good for the ancillary characters, their stories were woven together in one way or another. "There was a lot of mystery around the characters, and not until the end of the novel was it revealed, piece by piece" one of our members said. There was a lot of description in his writing someone shared: "It might have been a little too ambitious, he put everything into the book, it might have been too much."
We talked about the depth of character development, including about Yun Ling's glove, that covered the abuse she sustained while in camp with her captors. The character development went so far to include the music that Emily & Magnus listened to at the end of the evening. There were so many aspects to building the many characters in the book.
A member stated: "It makes me humble what little I know of people in the world. I learned a lot from this book." I think that all of us agreed in that statement. One member, who was a 2nd grade teacher said they studied about Japan and loved it. We learned about Japanese gardening. We didn't know that Japan attacked this area before Pearl Harbor. We learned about Malay (Malaysia) and that Yun Ling was Straights Chinese. We learned about the Boer War, about tea, about conflicts in Malaysia. It was good to read about historical fiction in the book.
We talked about memory, survival guilt and forbidden love in this novel. Yun Ling shared her story with us, her journey. A member said "I felt a tremendous sense of sadness from what she suffered, made me like her more than what I did." We learned she did things to survive, even as a snitch in the concentration camp, which was frustrating for us to read about. She became successful in her life, becoming a judge, which she especially used to become a tribunal war judge so she could find her camp. A member said: "Yun Ling wanted to keep her secrets to herself, it was a constant battle for me to crack her open."
Memory was such a big part of the book. Magnus' garden contained two statues, the Goddess of Remembering and the Goddess of Forgetting. One member said, that her memories were so painful, she couldn't process it enough and what was taking her life, was taking her memories. She didn't have control over her own destiny, she was always surviving, even when she lived with Aritomo, having been taken by the CT. She felt survivor's remorse because of her sister, and the only one who survived the camp.
We discussed Aritomo's horimono on Yun Ling. She has scars on her back, but they were changed when he did the horimono. We wondered, did that heal her. It was interesting to find out it was a map that Aritomo mastered, a clue to the question, maybe, about where the treasure was hidden. One member said they wish they had more information at the end, many unanswered questions.
We thought the author did a great job, and was interested to learn he was an attorney. A few members had read his first book A Gift of Rain, and liked it better than this book! Many were interested to read that book.
