I want to start reading this book all over again. I didn't want it to end. Although it was about war and violence, it left me with a feeling of peace . . . .

The audio version of this book is fantastic. The narrator was wonderful and with writing as lyric as this the book really should be read aloud. It is a beautiful and devastating story that slowly unfolds with various twists and turns.

This is a gorgeously written book, the author's use of language and imagery being so precise and evocative. But it was a very slow read for me. And that's taking into account that it's as much of a character study as it is about history and setting.

The story outlines the first person account of a newly retired judge in Malaysia as she attempts to write down the most meaningful chapters of her life before her aphasia wipes out her working mind. Yun Ling Teoh, in her early 60s, is Chinese from the island of Penang, and what we know early on is that she developed a special relationship with a Japanese gardener, Aritomo, on a tea estate in the Cameron Highlands in the aftermath of WWII when she was the lone survivor of a brutal internment camp operated by the Japanese. That experience left her disfigured but, more importantly, the camp cost her the loss of her beloved sister. Now to recount her life, Yun has returned to the tea estate now (mid-1980s) and the Japanese garden she helped create.

It's the relationship between Aritomo (who at one point mysteriously vanished) and the still embittered Yun that lies at the heart of the story. That arc is an interesting one, and carries with it ideas of memory, racial enmity, forgiveness and reconciliation, all woven with lyrical metaphors and imagery and mystery. Yet for me, the pace was slower than expected, sidetracking at times not merely to illustrate principles of Japanese gardening, tattooing, archery and woodblock printing (all interesting in a way, and their point about control and restraint not entirely lost on me) but occasionally vexing. Never more so than the lengthy digression about the woodblock printing expert's love interest that had me scratching my head.

Perhaps if I'd been more sold on the premise of what brought Yun and Aritomo together in spite of their seemingly insoluble differences and suspicions, I might have been more immersed. So while I enjoyed the writing, the story also sometimes got in the way.

Wow.
This was a beautiful, beautiful book. I will definitely be looking up the author's first novel.
This book moves back and forth in time, from the Japanese occupation of what is now Malaysia, to shortly afterward, to many years later, weaving threads of narrative in and out the entire while. In fact, the novel reads as a sort of verbal Japanese garden as described in the novel--the reader gets just tiny views of the landscape of the novel, revealed bit by bit, carefully crafted by the author so that we do not view too much too soon. Exquisitely done. Perhaps the best novel I've read so far this year. I hear it's up for Man Booker; if something else beats it out, I'll definitely have to read it, as it should be pretty amazing.

This is a beautiful book that tells of the period of the Japanese invasion of China and Malaysia, to the present day. Through the construction of a garden we observe the unfolding of events that are recounted in the form of memories and discover buried secrets along with the protagonist. A book that will stay with me forever.

Bellissimo questo libro che racconta del periodo che va dall'invasione Giapponese della Cina e della Malesia, fino ai giorni nostri. Attraverso la costruzione di un giardino osserviamo lo svolgersi degli eventi che vengono raccontati sotto forma di ricordi e scopriamo segreti sepolti assieme alla protagonista. Un libro che ti resta dentro.

A beautiful book.

Multi-layered, multi-faceted examination of a complex and interesting life and its time and place: post-colonial Malaysia at a time when, seeking its own independence after years of rule by colonial powers and brutal oppression by the occupying Japanese, it is trying to suppress a rebellion of its own. The life examined is something of a microcosm of the greater Malay. The protagonist is a survivor of horrors unable to forgive, but yet an inflictor herself, enabling an oppressor. Justified by the law she serves, she comes slowly to examine that role and its victims, even as she knows she will soon forget. The Garden of Evening Mists is a tale of woe, memory, loss and, ultimately forgetting. A love story full of discovery.