Pam's Book Log

26 September, 2002

Trent claims that this book has been given a lot of hype. That may be the case-- I've been rather isolated from everything the past several months-- but I had never heard of it when I picked it up from the "new fiction" table at the campus bookstore a couple weeks ago. To be honest, I just liked the cover. The first chapter caught my interest, so I bought it.

The main character is a young man who has grown up in a peaceful rural village, as part of a non-mainstream religious sect known as the Hidden. One evening, he returns home from gathering mushrooms in the forest to discover his village being massacred by the warlord Iida Sadamu. The boy runs away, pursued by soldiers, and is rescued at the last minute by a passing swordsman. The swordsman is, in fact, a lord, Otori Shigeru, who was disinherited from his rightful position as head of the Otori clan, after the Otori were defeated by the Tohan clan (of which Iida Sadamu is the leader) ten years ago.

Shigeru takes the boy, who he renames "Takeo," under his wing, with the intention of adopting him, ostensibly motivated by the fact that Takeo resembles Shigeru's younger brother, who had been recently murdered by the Tohan. As things go on, it becomes apparent that there's more to Takeo than it seems. He carries the blood and abilities of the Tribe, a secretive group of magical ninja assassins and spies, whose powers are genetically inherited. And so, in addition to learning how to be a member of the warrior class, Takeo learns how to be a ninja. His ultimate goal is to avenge the deaths of his family members and of Shigeru's by assassinating the powerful Tohan warlord, Iida.

Over the course of the novel, as Takeo and Shigeru grow closer, and together move towards the final reckoning with Iida, the young man learns and grows a great deal. He meets people from many walks of life, develops a plethora of skills and abilities (reading, writine, art, swordplay, horse riding, super-hearing, super-ninja-sneakiness, assassination skills), falls in love, and experiences bitter, bitter betrayal and loss.

The author has taken a page from Guy Gavriel Kay's playbook, using an fantasy setting which is closely based on a real-world culture. This allows her to write a story with all the flavor and sensibility of the chosen historical setting without having to respect either the actual course of history or the laws of nature. In this case, the setting is based on feudal Japan, circa the late 1500s. Iida seems to be loosely based on the warlords of that peroid (Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu) whose conquests eventually resulted in a unified Japan. The Tohan triple-oak-leaf crest is clearly based on the Tokugawa triple-hollyhock (which I know about from Lone Wolf and Cub), and his persecution of the Hidden parallels the Shoguns' aggressive persecution of Christians during that period.

Although I'm far from an expert on Japanese history, Hearn's setting strikes me as well-researched. The story feels very Japanese, with the characters who place bushido-y emphasis on obligation and honorable death, rather than traditionally Western values like independence and romantic love. The portrayal of revenge is decidedly Japanese. Rather than the wimpy Christian-influenced Western view that revenge isn't really worth it, and it's better and more fulfilling to turn the other cheek, revenge is not only a social obligation, it's good and proper and soul-fulfilling, and the bloodier, the better. (I also got that from Lone Wolf and Cub.) As a long-time reader of fantasy, I'm always happy to read a good fantasy novel which is not set in quasi-medieval Europe. (Or worse, a cheesy European-viewpoint caricature of a non-European culture.)

The protagonists are eminently likeable and sympathetic, especially Shigeru and Takeo. The one is a good, honorable man who is everything a lord should be. That's not to say he's not a cardboard cutout, he's got desires and passions which run deep. Takeo is a bit of a w&uouml;nderkind, but he is the hero in a fantasy novel, after all, and he suffers enough misery to more than make up for his extraordinary abilities. He's a very complex and conflicted character, torn between the values and lifestyles of the Hidden, those of the noble class, and those of the secretive Tribe. By the end of the novel, he has not decided who he's going to be, although he does make a decision on who he's going to be for a while.

I am, however, bummed out that I have to wait a whole year before I can read the next volume in the series. (Yeah, it's the first book in a trilogy. However, Across the Nightingale Floor is self-contained, with a complete plot and everything. I'm just wishing I could read the next one because I really want to find out what happens to Takeo next.)