The Garden of Evening Mists

another wonderfully sad, quiet, thoughtful book. The characters are believable, the mystery remains for the reader to resolve in their own mind, and aging gracefully is an art that this book excels in describing. I encourage anyone past 30 to read it :) it is a slow steady read, like the mists that gradually cover many memories.

An extraordinary and magical weaving of time and place; character and culture. I did not want this story to end but the end was impicit in its beginning. Original and intense, a tale of love and war, of passion and secrets. Highly recommend

Metaphors, metaphors. I thought that they had all been written. Never have I seen so many so beautifully written as in this story. A fantastic read if only for the beautiful nuances of the writing. It is writing that deserves attention. A paraphrased example: The sparrows flew from the grass to the bare branches of the tree as if they were fallen leaves returning.

I love historical fiction, especially that which brings me something brand new to research and understand. In addition, the use of descriptive language was stunning but not pompous. This was very close to a five star for me. It missed only because I wanted a little quicker plot, even though I fully realize the author wanted the ebb and flow that mimics a Japanese garden, one of the main ideas in the book. For many years in my neighborhood there was a woman who was held with her birth family in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. She was considered to be a very cold, emotionless woman. All three of her children committed suicide. As I read parts of this book I gained tremendous insight into her life experience and how it must have colored her emotional filter.
There were so many aspects of this book I enjoyed: the tea trade, Japanese tattoos, complex relationships, looted riches just to name a few. When I read a book in very few sittings, I give it high reviews, indeed.

what a charming and thought provoking tale! fascinating and confronting the reader with thoughts about mindless prejudices and helping to open the reader's mind to accept that one cannot continue to live with preconceived ideas. Excellent read

This book was definitely not your usual plot or setting. It leads the reader through Malaysia beginning in the early 20th century and through the treachery of Japanese invaders and occupies. The major character is a testament to dignity and survival. The language is beautiful and allows the reader to be present to view and experience art through nature and in a most unique form

I was riveted to the story from beginning to end. A very interesting time involving people from many continents thrown together during a turbulent
time in history. I loved the atmosphere and the eastern way of looking at gardening and philosophy of gardening. I really enjoyed the mood running through the entire tale.

This was a wonderfully written and lyrical book. Not sure about the historical reality, as I know much of the history there being Indian and having relatives that lived there during and still there 4 generations later. Being a gardener and always in awe of the depth and simplicity of Japanese gardening I give this a 10+.

I thought mostly of our Jewish souls suffering before reading The Garden of Evening Mists. Also I 've always enjoyed the insertions of Spanish and Hebrew or Yiddish words in writings
So it was great to learn some Chinese etc. Great feeling of mysticism. The tattooing, well I don't believe in it.
I'd recommend to any book club group.

I learned about this book from a fellow traveler in NZ. Intrigued by the fact that he found the book as interesting as the exotic local, I bought one when we got back to MN. It is now my favorite book and Tan Twan Eng is my favorite author. Among the people I heard back from after sending them my recommendation, it is now their favorite book and he is now their favorite author. It is a rare writer that commands the female and male voices with equal aplomb.

I found this book most engrossing because of the sensitivity shown by the main characters. The book was wholly believable and was important in what it didn't say as well as what it did leaving much to the imagination. Now that I have read this book I definitely want to check out other books by this author.

I thought the book was well written. However, the style of writing caused me to often have to read several sentences before I was able to tell which era the writer was referring to. I am not versed in the history of the Japanese conquests and the brutality which they inflicted, so that was very interesting, if not heartbreaking. I think this would be a good book group book as I found I had many questions which I would love to discuss.
I have to admit, this book was a lot of work. Was it worth it? You tell me.

A delightful read and inspiring in terms of creating a beautiful garden. Although the subject matter concerning concentration camps was immensely sad, the author has used art and the symbolism within the garden to create the idea of growth and ever evolving adaption and change. This inspires a sense of hope and that even despite overwhelming deprivation and cruelty adjustment and acceptance is possible. I decided to visit the beautiful Japanese Garden in Adelaide shortly after reading the book as I felt a need to contemplate the story somewhere beautiful.

I have never read a more moving book. Finished 2 weeks ago and have started again in case I missed something. Being from Australia and having an uncle who was a prisoner of the war it's made me want to delve more into history. I now look at every flower - shrub and tree in my small garden differently. What made me chose that plant? Why did I place it in that spot? Thank you Mr Eng for this magical story.

This was the most beautifully written and provocative of the approximately 40 novels I read in the last year or so. It caused me to think at length about the conflicting natures of love, friendship, duty and loyalty to country. Also, like many other excellent novels that aren't necessarily easy to read, certainly not beach reading, it made me think about man's capacity for cruelty to man, especially in times of war, and about the nature of redemption.

I greatly enjoyed this book, which I regarded as a close contender for winning the 2012 Booker Prize. The story is well crafted and held my attention throughout. The themes of loss, loneliness, cruelty, love and redemption were particularly well articulated; and the characters were believable, with all their frailty, strengths and weaknesses. Being South African, I identified strongly with the South African connection and found myself increasingly drawn into the lives of the protagonists. A good read, highly recommended!

Beautifully written book. At times i felt like transported to Yugiri in Csmeron Highlands. Main plot lacks a bit in terms of grip though. But if you read it continously.. this book is beatiful to read. You got to know a lot abt Japanese occupation of Malaysia , but that definitely not the take out from this book. What will remain with you after you finish it is : Aritomo and his Garden.

The writing style is so poetic, but not saccharine. Gorgeous phrases and references, I'm tempted to reread the book and highlight parts. As a garden enthusiast, don't worry - it's not for plant fiends. This is a love story of sorts and a story of war and culpability and cultural identity. Love it, the sort of page turner you lose yourself in and can't quite figure where it will go.. I'm buying his first novel right now!.

There are so many stories within this one big story! A wise Zen-like Japanese gardener, Aritomo, creates his garden, wood block prints, tattoos, archery, etc by being present with all that is, and allowing the placement of stones to "fall into place" after the first one is set. As the relationship of Aritomo & Ying Ling slowly builds(with the reader just understanding they are having sex), the tattooing of Ying Ling was unexpected, and became highly erotic.

There's almost too much historical detail, but the book was a great way to understand yet more about the aftermath of WWII and colonialism. The writing itself is lovely, pure poetry. I plan to retread this book soon.

Well written, interesting story with historical facts from a part of the world I knew nothing about. They talk about China and Japan and Malaysia during WWII as well as the BOER wars in South Africa. Great book fun to read as well

This is a finely-woven narrative about an historical subject that I knew little or, to be honest, nothing about. The writing is first-class and it kept me mesmerized throughout. As a matter of fact, I haven't finished it yet. I've got about 25 - 30 minutes left and I don't want it to end. It's that kind of book. I am going to give this book as a gift to many people. It is pass-along worthy.

This book reads like a poem. It is beautiful and I learned lots about the war on that front. The descriptions of the gardens brought them to life. One thing I would recommend is to keep a log of the characters as you read because there are so many and names a difficult to keep straight. Enjoy!

A truly lovely novel: the antinomy of the subject matter--the aesthetics of Japanese garden and the horrors of the Japanese occupation of Malaya during WWII is crafted with grace and love, melting hatred and forgiveness. Just as in the garden itself--not one extra word or unnecessary plot line. I wish such a garden existed.

The idea that two sisters in a Japanese "comfort women" camp would despise the Japanese and yet pass their time dreaming of creating a beautiful Japanese garden is arresting. The story moves seamlessly between past and present with some beautiful writing (though sometimes you find yourself noticing another gorgeous sentence). It prompts thinking about how time sweeps away even history, about forgiveness, about how one lives a life.

Having enjoyed The Garden of Evening Mists and the author's writing, I moved on to this book by the same author. Of the two, I like The Gift of Rain better but that is not to diminish this book at all. It has a gradual but multi layered development that brings you to an obvious but yet surprising ending.

This is a marvellous book. Beautifully written and immensely moving. Having lived in Japan for 26 years, I have more than a passing interest in Japanese gardens, so visited "yugiri" (evening mists) with extraordinary pleasure and nostalgia. The time shifts in the story swiftly become natural and easy; relations between past and present, Japan and the rest of Asia, can be a minefield of misunderstanding and difficulty, but the sensitivity with which the characters - with all their strengths and all their flaws - are handled is exquisite. Greatly recommended.

I loved this book. Yun Ling, the central character really came to life and made you care about her. The details, both historical and geographical, made it seem totally believable. I loved learning about details of gardening such as Borrowed Scenery. A very engaging story.

One of my favourite books this year. Beautifully crafted, a haiku in every paragraph, harrowing and yet light. I loved the lyrical prose, the twists and turns, the magic, the mountains, the love story and the garden. It inspires me to write, to sit quietly contemplating the sky, and to garden more consciously.

This wasa beautifully written book wirth courage, guilt , ambition and very deep sense of love and sometimes compassion. It also had many secrets, some disclosed and others left to the insight of the reader. there was also the sense of cruelty exacted by one nation on memers of another. The emphasis throughout was on Japanese art. The use of the heron as a symbols of freedom and help added to the story. THe magnificence of the writing kept the reader totally involved in the book throughout.

In the evening mists of our lives, before the night takes us, memories become our most treasured possessions. For some, they are the only possessions. Our greatest fear is forgetting who we are and what we have been. Teoh Yun Ling, a recently retired judge, has a disease that will steadily obliterate her ability to use and understand language, and will progressively consign her memories to dust.

Yun Ling returns to a house named Yugiri in the Cameron Highlands in Malaysia where she lived many years before with Nakamura Aritomo, a Japanese artist and gardener. The house is run down and the garden dilapidated after years of neglect, and she decides to restore them to their former state. In the process she recalls two vivid periods in her life: her internment by the Japanese during World War II and her life at Yugiri with Aritomo in the 1950s when Malaya was a British colony fighting a Communist insurgency. In each period she recalls fragments of memory, sometimes intricate and other times obscure. She is desperately trying to hold on to what she can remember, writing her memoirs before her disease causes all the words to become meaningless scrawl. She believes that the restored garden will still speak after language has forsaken her.

Yun Ling's father was a wealthy rubber merchant and the family was targeted by the Japanese when they invaded Malaya because of the father's support for the nationalist army in China. Yun Ling and her sister are sent to a prison camp in the jungle where the inmates are forced to dig a mine. The purpose of the mine is a mystery and as the war comes to a close the camp is destroyed and all its inhabitants, including the Japanese guards, are killed. Only Yun Ling escapes, aided by a Japanese agent. Yun Ling has spent the years since then searching for the camp site and the remains of her sister, all to no avail. She has harboured a deep anger about the way she was treated and about the loss of her sister, but we learn that her own actions were not always sincere or blameless.

Six years after the war, Yun Ling comes to the Cameron Highlands. Her friends, Magnus and Emily, run a tea plantation next door to Yugiri. Yun Ling wants Aritomo to build a Japanese garden as a memorial to her sister. He refuses, but takes her on as an apprentice so she can build a garden herself. All around them, the Communist insurgency is taking place, but Yugiri remains a sea of tranquillity, something that makes the Special Branch police suspicious.

Yun Ling develops a close relationship with Aritomo, despite her anger at the Japanese, and slowly learns the art of gardening and how it creates illusions in nature to transform the way we feel and perceive our world. Aritomo is also an artist, famous for both woodblock prints and tattoos. In Japan there is still much rumour and speculation about his work and Yun Ling receives a request from a professor who wants to write about Aritomo. Despite her intimacy with Aritomo, Yun Ling realises in conversations with the professor that there are many things about Aritomo she does not know or fully understand. In particular, his role during the war and the purpose of his garden in the highlands are things on which he will remain forever silent.

Frederik is the nephew of Magnus and Emily. He met Yun Ling when she first lived in Yugiri. He now runs the tea plantation and looks after Emily, in her eighties but still missing Magnus who died many years ago. As Yun Ling recalls the past and records her memoirs, she and Frederik re-examine events and speculate about Aritomo. It is clear that while Yun Ling chose Aritomo as her lover, Frederik has been in love with her for all that time. Yet the two of them have lived solitary lives, and as the night draws in they remain alone, with only memories to ponder.

This is Tan's second novel and has been shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize. His writing is beautiful and evocative, and the meditations on memory show how the past influences the way we shift from the evening mists into that good night. The novel brings to life the cruelties of war and the world of pre-independence Malaya, including some of the social divisions that beset the emerging nation, but the focus is very much on loss, especially the loss of love. How should we reconcile that before we take our final rest? An exquisite read.

I loved reading this book The words weave a beautiful picture of the landscape while dealing with the pain of war trauma and post war recovering life. Having traveled in this area, I sense a mystic aura to the land and Tan Twan Eng has captured the beauty and the harshness. His writing are so lovely!

It was a wonderful read, at times taking my breath away. Eng is a masterful writer, weaving the past and present into a suspenseful and informative read. He creates wonderful, engrossing characters.

A beautifully written book that introduced me to the history of a part of the world about which I knew little. While this is a novel, a number of the events in the book really did take place. It is sometimes painful and sorrowful, but I thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Eng paints with words. The sense of place is seamless as the reader is drawn into jungle, plantation, prison of war camps, and of course the garden which serves as metaphor and perhaps a mysterious message. I was engaged and challenged from start to finish.

Delightful throughout, allowing the reader to fold back layers and layers of insight through the turning of its pages exactly as if one was walking through the mist of the narrator's tempered memories.

This is a lovely story, beautifully written. The book was recommended to me because I love Japanese gardens, and there is much description of the gardens and the process of creating them. But the story is so much more than that. I became so involved in the lives of the main characters, I was reluctant to say good-bye when the story ended. I give this a very strong recommendation for anyone interested in gardens and/or Asia.

Enjoyed it! An interesting historical fiction based on a place in history, and the world, I was unaware of...........Malaysia during the 2nd world war. Beautiful weaving of Japanese gardening philosophy into every aspect of the story. In-depth writing development.

I have just recently retread this book, and I have to say it is beautifully written. The story has wonderful historical background and the characters are well developed. The writing is so exceptional that I actually thought to myself "this is real literature."