Historical fiction about the aftermath of World War II in Malaysia. I originally picked this up because a rec list mentioned the lush descriptions, and I was briefly in Cameron Highlands in 2018 and thought going back for a virtual visit sounded amazing. I got what I was looking for and a whole lot more besides. It was completely lovely--nuanced, complicated, hopeful, and also devastating.

The Garden of Evening Mists weaves back and forth between past and a late '90s present. In the "present" strand, Judge Teoh Yun Ling has just retired after receiving a serious medical diagnosis and heads back to Cameron Highlands for the first time in 40 years to meet with an art historian interested in the work of her late mentor Nakamura Aritomo, a famous gardener and woodblock print artist. In the "past" strand, it's 1949, and Yun Ling attempts to commission Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister who died in a wartime slave labor camp. Aritomo refuses the commission but offers Yun Ling an apprenticeship so that she can create her own garden. 

That's the plot. In practice, this means that the book is about 50% gorgeous descriptions of gardens, tea plantations, and jungles and about 50% flawed, complicated, traumatized people attempting to heal and have relationships with other flawed, complicated, traumatized people. It's thoughtful and moving but also very heavy. 

It snuck up on me and wove a quiet, hypnotic spell. It took me almost a week to read the first half and then I rushed through the second half in just a few days. Tan Twan Eng has such compassion for his characters, even as he refuses to let them off the hook for anything. He's also uncommonly good at writing women; I rolled my eyes a bit about the reveal of Yun Ling's romantic past (and maintain that the book would have been stronger and more interesting without that element), but I found her voice and character completely believable, both as a woman about my age and as a much older woman. I have complicated feelings about the ending, but again, it felt completely in character.

I’m SO happy I’m back in a historical fiction mood! I’ve been mainly reading contemporary for over a month now, not being in the right headspace to situate myself in a different time period. But Tan Twan Eng made it so easy to get lost in the world he conjures up, 1940s and 1950s Malaysia, spanning the Second World War and Malayan Emergency.

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In the ‘present day’ storyline, Yun Ling is struggling to come to terms with her aphasia. She’s determined to set down her past before she’s unable, coming face to face with the trauma she endured as a prisoner of war during the Japanese Occupation of then Malaya. She also recounts the time after, apprenticed to a famous Japanese gardener in the countryside.

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This is a book for people who love to get swept away in the prose. The sentences are beautifully crafted, the author lingers over the descriptions of the jungle, tea estates and gardens. It’s incredibly evocative but I can also imagine it being tiresome for folk who like a little more action in their reads.

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Like with any good historical fiction, I learned a lot about the Occupation and the subsequent Emergency, as well as the arts of Japanese gardens and horimono. It’s difficult to read at times given the horrors Yun Ling and her sister suffered as prisoners of war, but I don’t think it descends into trauma porn. Tan Twan Eng approaches the topics sensitively, reminding us that we must learn from the past.

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My only complaint is I wasn’t convinced by the romance in it. However, it plays only a small part and the novel has so much more to offer besides that.

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Definitely will be picking up The Gift of Rain!