Book Review THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS

The Garden of Evening Mists
by Tan Twan Eng

The Author in Penang

Tan Twan Eng is the author of two books:
The Gift of Rain -long listed for Man Booker Prize
The Garden of Evening Mists – short listed for the Man Booker Prize

Mnemosyne Greek Goddess of Remembering

The novel begins with a quote from Richard Holmes:

There is a goddess of memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting … twin sisters, twin powers. this sums up the story: Remembering and eventually Forgetting.

Tan Twan Eng has chosen a difficult and unusual relationship of hate and love between his characters. To this day an older generation of Malaysians bear a grudge towards and a deep hatred of the Japanese. This is not totally unwarranted. The Japanese army and government in the country in the name of the Imperial army carried out unwarranted cruelty towards the Malaysian civilian population during their short occupation of the country, 1941 to 1945.

The Garden of Evening Mists set in the lush and cool tea plantation of the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia is her story told by Judge Teoh Yun Ling.

‘In the shallow, a grey heron cocked its head at me, one leg poised in the air, like the hand of a pianist who had forgotten the notes to his music. It dropped its leg a second later and speared its beak into the water.’

The sad and painful story told by her when she retires early from her position as a judge. She is diagnosed dementia and eventual total forgetfulness.

‘Something seemed to detach from inside me and crumble away, leaving me less complete than before.’

Tan Twan Eng’s prose often poetic tells the story of two sisters imprisoned by the Japanese during the World War II occupation of Malaysia. Teoh Yun Ling reveals how at nineteen she escapes but her older sister Teoh Yun Hong, an artist and an admirer of Japanese gardens dies in prison. Teoh Yun Ling trains as a lawyer. She visits her parent’s tea planter friends in the Cameron Highlands where she meets Aritomo Nakamura, an imperial Japanese gardener in exile. He has made his home in seclusion in a remote part of the hills on the side of the jungle. She becomes his apprentice in the zen garden in order to eventually build a garden in memory of her sister. During her apprenticeship she comes to learn much about gardening, the art of archery and tea ceremony. She learns martial arts and about the Japanese tattoo culture. The author also gives us an insight into the Communist guerrilla warfare and the communists of Malaysia before independence from Britain.

With her learning partially done Teoh Yun Ling leaves to follow her pursuit as lawyer and eventually becomes a judge. She comes back to the old sanctuary, Yugiri, the garden that now has fallen into neglect. She begins to restore it and at the same time tries to see if she can find the map where her sister had died, a map in a secret tattoo.

The novel contains many beautiful passages and the structure of the story is complex. The author skilfully feeds in, little by little, the background story of the two sisters in the prison camp and violent behaviour of the Japanese. It is not until two-thirds into the book that we get to learn the full story of the sisters.

The idea of impermanence and memory and forgetfulness is beautifully women into the novel.

I am a great fan of Tan Twan Eng. If the reader does not savour the novel slowly much of the beauty of the passages will be lost, and attention must be given to abrupt transitions. For me Teoh Yun Ling lacked some of qualities of the softer side of a female. And I also felt some of the tea story could have been left out and the garden descriptions could be reduced. The surprise of the tattoo map, the horimono, towards the end of the story could prove a little disturbing.

I thoroughly recommend this book and for me it also warrants a second reading.

Tan Twan Eng and me, star struck.

I first met author Tan Twan Eng at Hong Kong International Literary Festival in 2008. Meeting him at the Penang Arts and Literary Festival in Nov 2012 was extra special as Penang is where we are both from.