A woman's odyssey in XNUMXth century Japan. The strict summary of this novel is condensed in this simple phrase. The rest comes later….
Didier Decoin took the writing of this novel very seriously (As it should be, of course) More than a decade dedicated to the knowledge and approach to the Japanese culture to go equipping yourself with everything you need for a simple but profound novel. Miyuki undertakes an unexpected journey from her small town to the center of power in Japan at the time, the imperial court of Emperor Kanna.
As in so many other occasions, the important thing is the trip, Miyuki's encounter with the harshness of the time that she has to live and her temperance to overcome everything. A certain fantastic touch sometimes serves as Miyuki's own handhold to deny that atrocious world, with that I don't know what of Japanese culture that awakens morals from each scene, from each encounter. In fact, the simple sketch of Miyuki as destined to maintain the imperial ponds and convinced to undertake a journey to the death of her husband, is already metaphorical.
Choosing a path provokes encounters with the perverse of the human being but also brilliant scenes of reconciliation with existence, however irreconcilable the abuse and suffering of someone who only seeks his little happiness may seem.
Summary: Japan, year 1100. At the edge of the Kusagawa River there is a small village known beyond its borders for being in charge of supplying the ponds of the imperial city with the most beautiful carp. But this year the skilled fisherman who carries out such a task has died, and his young widow is the only one who could perhaps replace him.
Thus, recruited by the director of the Office of Ponds and Gardens, and carrying on her fragile shoulders a pole from which the baskets hang the fish stirring, Miyuki embarks on a long journey in which she must face threats and monsters -human and aquatic -, and lingering in tea inns where tea is not exactly sold. Once in the imperial court, with the same innocence with which she has known sex and deception, and dressed in twelve silk kimonos, she will be the unsuspected protagonist of the annual perfume contest organized by the emperor with the theme of "a maiden crossing a moon bridge between two mists ».
You can buy the book The pond and garden office, the new novel by Didier Decoin, here: