The Garden of Evening Mists

Malaysian author Tan Twan Eng, born in Penang, Malaysia, divides his time between Kuala Lumpur and Cape Town. THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS is his second novel: his debut was the highly respected and awarded THE GIFT OF RAIN. Eng’s sensitivity to his readers is evident in an author’s note at book’s end: ’With the exception of the obvious historical figures, all characters in the novel sprang from my imagination. The visit of Sir Gerald Templer and his wife to Majuba Tea Estate and Yugiri is fictional. The Malayan Emergency ended in July 1960, twelve years after it began. With the combined efforts of local security forces, civilians and troops from the Commonwealth, Malaya was one of the few countries in the world to defeat a communist insurgency. Noel Barber in his book The War of the Running Dogs called it “the world’s first struggle against guerrilla Communism. I am grateful to Tristan Beauchamp Russell for describing to me what life on his tea estate in Cameron Highlands was like during the Malayan Emergency.’ In keeping with the eloquent tonality of his first novel, Eng opens this book with a stunningly seductive aperitif: ‘On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the emperor of Japan. Not many people would have known of him before the war, but I did. He had left his home on the rim of the sunrise to come to the central highlands of Malaya. I was seventeen years old when my sister first told me about him. A decade would pass before I traveled up to the mountains to see him. He did not apologize for what his countrymen had done to my sister and me. Not on that rain-scratched morning when we first met, nor at any other time. What words could have healed my pain, returned my sister to me? None. And he understood that. Not many people did.' Eng’s novel unveils an aspect of world history and wars about which few of us are familiar – the Japanese occupation of Malaya, post war the Malayan Emergency, and the rise of the independent Malaya. The novel is breathtaking not only in the themes but also in the eloquence of Eng’s writing. A detailed synopsis is helpful to the first time Eng reader - “Newly retired Supreme Court Judge Teoh Yun Ling returns to the Cameron Highlands of Malaya, where she had spent a few months several years earlier. Oncoming aphasia is forcing her to deal with unsettled business from her youth while she is still able to remember. She starts writing her memoir and agrees to meet with Japanese professor Yoshikawa Tatsuji. Tatsuji is interested in the life and works of artist Nakamura Aritomo, who used to be the Japanese Emperor's gardener but moved to this area to build his own garden. During the Japanese occupation of Malaya, Yun Ling was in a Japanese civilian internment camp with her sister, Yun Hong. Yun Hong did not make it out alive, and after the war was over, Yun Ling decided to fulfil a promise made to her sister: to build a Japanese garden in their home in Kuala Lumpur. She travelled to the highlands to visit family friend Magnus Pretorius, an ex-patriate South African tea farmer who knew Aritomo. Aritomo refused to work for Yun Ling but agreed to take her on as an apprentice, so she could later build her own garden. Despite her resentment against the Japanese, Yun Ling agreed to work for Aritomo and later became his lover. During the conversations with Tatsuji, it comes out that Aritomo was involved in a covert Japanese program during the war, to hide looted treasures from occupied territories. The rumors of this so-called "Golden Lily" program were widespread, and Magnus was killed trying to save his family from the Communist guerillas who came looking for the gold. Aritomo never talked about the treasure to Yun Ling, but gradually it becomes clear that he might have left a clue to its location. Before he disappeared into the jungle, he made a horimono tattoo on her back. It now appears this tattoo might contain a map to the location of the treasure. Yun Ling decides that, before she dies, she must ensure that no one will be able to get their hands on her body or the map. In the meantime, she sets out to restore Aritomo's dilapidated garden.’ The book is cinematic and yet often so mist shrouded that film may not be able to convey all levels of meaning. This is one of the great novels of the past decade and deserves wide readership. Grady Harp, October 17

This is a tale of war and loss. The central character is a Chinese Malaysian daughter of a wealthy rubber trader. She and her sister are taken as teenagers in the 1940s to a Japanese labor camp, where she is initially forced into a brutal mining operation and her sister becomes a “comfort woman” for Japanese guards. Eventually, her knowledge of English allows her to become a translator for one of the Japanese officials of the camp and she is allowed to escape the destruction of the camp and murder of all its remaining prisoners at the end of the war, the sole survivor. The second part of her story is her plan to build a Japanese garden in honor of her sister. To that end, she moves to a tea plantation to become an apprentice and eventual lover of a man who is a prominent artist and was once a gardener to the Japanese emperor. This is the period of the communist insurgency in Malaya, another time of great strife and brutality. After the disappearance of her Japanese lover she goes to England to get a law degree and follow a career as an important judge in independent Malaysia. As she reaches her 60s, she is diagnosed with a neurological condition that will rob her of memory and functions. So she returns to the tea plantation to write about her experiences and honor her Japanese mentor by rebuilding his garden and studying his other artistic efforts. The above is a linear narrative of her story, but the novel does not unfold as a linear narrative. Instead, it progresses as a memory narrative, in fits and starts, jumping from one period to another. This approach provides a source of power to the story, but makes it a more difficult read, as the transitions are often abrupt and unanticipated. It is not a story for a casual read. This is the second novel by this author that I have read, both about the Japanese occupation of Malaya and its consequences. This book is more lyrical and mysterious and well worth reading for both its historical value and its unfolding of the various Asian mentalities, always a source of mystery to Americans. There have been a lot of novels recently concerned with WWII occupations, describing their brutality and psychology. A central issue has been how the Germans and Japanese, people associated with cultures of beauty and order, could have been involved in such cruelty. Aside from the “master race” argument, there have been few concrete answers, but the question is well worth continuing consideration to avoid its repetition.

Review by: Elise Hadden, Under the Heather Books [...] Summary As you settle into the first page of The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng and his majestic prose will gently transport you into a painfully beautiful past. It’s Malaya, 1949. After studying law at Cambridge and time spent helping to prosecute Japanese war criminals, Yun Ling Teoh, herself the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed plantations of Northern Malaya where she grew up as a child. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the Emperor of Japan. As the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to Aritomo and his art while, outside the garden, the threat of murder and kidnapping from the guerrillas of the jungle hinterland increases with each passing day. But the Garden of Evening Mists is also a place of mystery. Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? Why is it that Yun Ling’s friend and host, Magnus Praetorius, seems almost immune from the depredations of the Communists? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all? —Goodreads description, edited and abbreviated P.S. Don’t forget to check out more beautiful quotes from this book in this Thursday Quotables! “Below these words was the garden’s name in English: EVENING MISTS. I felt I was about to enter a place that existed only in the overlapping of air and water, light and time.” What I Liked The prose in this novel is perhaps the most beautiful I have ever encountered. Tan Twan Eng gives us writing that is poetic, lyrical, and laced with a rare subtle strength. The depictions of the scenery are brilliantly evocative, and I felt an intimate understanding of the landscape. His characterization was spectacular, mysterious and commanding. Now, to dive beyond the style of writing and into the subject matter. All I can say is a gigantic, resounding, earthshattering WOW. This book tackled a dizzying array of emotional and political aspects of the Pacific War. As Yun Ling struggles with forgiveness, grief, and memory, the complexities of this devastating war are carefully resurrected. Aritomo, the master gardener, is ripe with beautiful bits of wisdom and yet remains an enigma. Tan Twan Eng weaves through an exploration of the power of memory and forgetting, as well as the elaborate world of Japanese art and horimono, with such penetrating insight that the reader cannot help but be irrevocably changed. “That point in time just as the last leaf is about to drop, as the remaining petal is about to fall; that moment captures everything beautiful and sorrowful about life. Mono no aware, the Japanese call it.” What I Didn’t Like I have a headache from the strain of trying to find something to criticize in this book. I listened to it as an audiobook, narrated by Anna Bentinck. Although I ended up enjoying her narration very much, I do wish I had a hard copy. Her attempts at mimicking male Japanese voices and female Chinese ones were…painful. So, my only complaint is that the narrator doesn’t have the voice range of Mel Blanc. I’d say that’s a good sign. “Before me lies a voyage of a million miles, and my memory is the moonlight I will borrow to illuminate my way.” My Recommendation This book is not for the faint of heart. It tackles terrifying and sometimes gruesome scenes. However, Tan Twan Eng frosts even the most offensive of the events in a veil of pensive reflection. He transforms this vicarious trauma into something hurts in all the right places, illuminating the unfathomable and confronting the unjust. While reading, I felt I was in a floating world, caressed by dew and mountain breezes even as I gazed with perfect clarity on the tortured world below. It’s a breathtaking and powerful depiction of the depths of love, pain, and the capacity to forgive. However, if you like fast-paced novels with a lot of action, this certainly is not the book for you. Although many exciting things happen, the pace is slow, like swimming through water thick with reeds. It’s heavy on the physical descriptions, heavy on internal narration and emotions, and very light on urgency. I was l to the story while on a roadtrip and my poor fiance was bored out of his mind. “The palest ink will endure beyond the memories of man.”

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.

Whilst I must acknowledge The garden of Evening Mists is well written and probably deserves the Man Booker Prize, it was not the book for me. I enjoyed (to an extent)the history and descriptions of the Japanese garden, the history of tattooing and woodblock art.I was familiar with the Japanese occupation of Malaya as I had relatives who fought in that area and indeed died later on in Japanese POW camps. I am glad a book has been written about a place and time in history that should never be forgotten.There is nothing left to the imagination regarding good old blood and guts brutalities though and that leaves one with a sense of darkness and forboding and down right depression. There is plenty of food for thought in this book, especially regarding the relationship between the main character Yun Ling and the Japanese gardener, Aritomo. She is accepted as apprentice gardener to Aritomo as well as becoming his lover. This after she and her beloved sister were incarcerated in a Japanese POW camp in the jungles of Malaya for three brutal years.Her sister does not make it out of the camp and she vows to create a Japanese garden in memory of her.The story is strong in the suggestion of the capacity of the human will to survive and above all else to forgive. The plot is well devised and it runs along smoothly but I found the characters lacked real warmth and emotion.This spoiled it for me.Having said this, the book carries a punch and I don,t regret that I have read it.

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng Paperback and Kindle Mnemosyne Greek Goddess of Remembering The novel begins with a quote from Richard Holmes: There is a goddess of memory, Mnemosyne; but none of Forgetting ... twin sisters, twin powers. this sums up the story: Remembering and eventually Forgetting. Tan Twan Eng has chosen a difficult and unusual relationship of hate and love between his characters. To this day an older generation of Malaysians bear a grudge towards and a deep hatred of the Japanese. This is not totally unwarranted. The Japanese army and government in the country in the name of the Imperial army carried out unwarranted cruelty towards the Malaysian civilian population during their short occupation of the country, 1941 to 1945. The Garden of Evening Mists set in the lush and cool tea plantation of the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia is her story told by Judge Teoh Yun Ling. `In the shallow, a grey heron cocked its head at me, one leg poised in the air, like the hand of a pianist who had forgotten the notes to his music. It dropped its leg a second later and speared its beak into the water.' The sad and painful story told by her when she retires early from her position as a judge. She is diagnosed dementia and eventual total forgetfulness. `Something seemed to detach from inside me and crumble away, leaving me less complete than before.' Tan Twan Eng's prose often poetic tells the story of two sisters imprisoned by the Japanese during the World War II occupation of Malaysia. Teoh Yun Ling reveals how at nineteen she escapes but her older sister Teoh Yun Hong, an artist and an admirer of Japanese gardens dies in prison. Teoh Yun Ling trains as a lawyer. She visits her parent's tea planter friends in the Cameron Highlands where she meets Aritomo Nakamura, an imperial Japanese gardener in exile. He has made his home in seclusion in a remote part of the hills on the side of the jungle. She becomes his apprentice in the zen garden in order to eventually build a garden in memory of her sister. During her apprenticeship she comes to learn much about gardening, the art of archery and tea ceremony. She learns martial arts and about the Japanese tattoo culture. The author also gives us an insight into the Communist guerrilla warfare and the communists of Malaysia before independence from Britain. With her learning partially done Teoh Yun Ling leaves to follow her pursuit as lawyer and eventually becomes a judge. She comes back to the old sanctuary, Yugiri, the garden that now has fallen into neglect. She begins to restore it and at the same time tries to see if she can find the map where her sister had died, a map in a secret tattoo. The novel contains many beautiful passages and the structure of the story is complex. The author skilfully feeds in, little by little, the background story of the two sisters in the prison camp and violent behaviour of the Japanese. It is not until two-thirds into the book that we get to learn the full story of the sisters. The idea of impermanence and memory and forgetfulness is beautifully women into the novel. I am a great fan of Tan Twan Eng. If the reader does not savour the novel slowly much of the beauty of the passages will be lost, and attention must be given to abrupt transitions. For me Teoh Yun Ling lacked some of qualities of the softer side of a female. And I also felt some of the tea story could have been left out and the garden descriptions could be reduced. The surprise of the tattoo map, the horimono, towards the end of the story could prove a little disturbing. I thoroughly recommend this book and for me it also warrants a second reading. I first met author Tan Twan Eng at Hong Kong International Literary Festival in 2008. Meeting him at the Penang Arts and Literary Festival in Nov 2012 was extra special as Penang is where we are both from.

Eng deserves Booker recognition. As a writer with profound ideas and observations about life and death, Eng's latest is not only a worthwhile read, but one that will not be soon forgotten. I found myself wishing the book would never end. The writing is so beautiful and thought-provoking that I often stopped to savor a special line or image. The writing is evocative without the usually attendant lack of characterization. Eng's exceptional use of subtext could teach many contemporary writers (who seem to have forgotten the art of the unsaid), the power and resonance of subtext. The setting of the novel is exotic and functions almost as another character in the novel. Historically, I found myself wishing I knew more about English history, specifically the Boer War and the Japanese occupation of Malay, but this did not affect my enjoyment of the novel. Rather, it inspired me to read more and learn more about British colonial relations. My only criticism of the novel (and the reason I suspect it did not win the Booker but was rather short-listed) was that the narrative drive of the story gets side-tracked by a secondary character's story. I found myself asking myself 'Where is this story going?' Yet, since the new narrative thread was still interesting, I did not mind the intrusion. Still, the Professor's 'story' did detract from the overall story and seemed out-of-place with the overall narrative. Eng does tie things together by novel end (by engaging the reader's intelligence rather than by wrapping things up so neatly that the reader rolls her eyes). I heartily recommend this novel. It is a fresh read about a subject rarely if ever explored, written by a subtle, brilliant intelligence. I detected some Buddhist influence in the novel which I also thoroughly enjoyed. This is a novel I will not soon forget and doubt you will either. I plan on reading Eng's earlier work as his is an intelligence I cherish. Those who liked "Remains of the Day" will love this book also. One final note, while I am not into gardening, Eng's descriptions of the Garden inspired me to view nature and gardens in a new light. Some readers might have trouble with the time changes from present day to past, but the space divisions in the novel make the time changes clear. Enjoy and Relish! '

In the quiet mist of the Cameron Highlands of Cambodia among the tea plantations sits a Japanese garden created by Arimoto, who was once the gardener for the Japanese Emperor. The mist serves as a shroud quietly enveloping and obscuring all who seek sanctuary there. That is the setting for Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists. This book which made the Man Booker Prize shortlist has an air of quiet mystery. It is 1951 and Malaysia has undergone the painful period of World War II, only to be thrust into the "Malayan Emergency" with fighting against communist insurgents. While the way of life and the jungle may seem quiet it hides the struggle for Malaysia. Into this comes, Yun Ling Teoh a young female lawyer who is the only survivor of a Japanese prison camp. She wishes to recruit Arimoto to make a Japanese Garden for the memory of her sister who died in the camp. This is an intricate tale told in the present of the 1980's when Yun Ling Teoh retires from judgeship, the Malaysia of the 1950's and World War II. There are layers of conflicting emotions of guilt, betrayal, sacrifice, revenge and love, healing and remorse, which are never completely revealed. I love a book that leaves parts of the story obscured and this is one such. It is also one in which there are many moral dilemmas which are never righteously spelled out. The writing is lovely and the reader almost feels as if the book is being read in the meditative Japanese garden beside the jungle. Here is Yun Ling Teoh's first encounter with Arimoto: "Raising his bow, the man drew back the bowstring, his arms stretching in opposite directions until he reached a point where he seemed to be floating just above the floorboards. he stood with his tautened bow, an expression of complete peace spreading across his face. Time had stopped: there was no beginning, there was no end. He released the arrow. The bowstring sliced a sharp sound from the air. The man remained unmoving, one arm still extended, keeping the center of the bow where he gripped it level with his eyes. He looked at the target for a moment longer before lowering the bow. The arrow had struck well away from the center. I took the tree low steps up to the platform, the gleaming cypressed floorboards creaking beneath my feet. "Mr. Nakamura?" I said. "Nakamura Aritomo? We were supposed to meet later today--" "Take of your shoes!" he said. "You bring the problems of the world inside." I was intrigued by the meditative feel of Tan Twan Eng's writing, the heart wrenching story and the elusive main characters. I also loved learning about the history of Malaysia during World War II and the "Malayan Emergency." I am quite pleased to recommend this book.

The package arrived on time, book is new and clean. It's a very interesting read. Can recommend.

I loved this book. It was so beautifully written; It was a discovery into the history of Penang and the suffering its people.

THE GARDEN OF EVENING MISTS BY TAN TWAN ENG ‘The Garden Of Evening Mists’ is a truly wonderful novel. Similar to the brilliance of ‘The Gift Of Rain’ penned by this unique author, this story of Judge Teoh; Yun Ling will stay with me forever. Yun Ling has returned after almost four decades, to a place of mystique and intrigue. She has recently resigned from her 14 year job in the Supreme Court based in Kuala Lumpur, just two years short of when she was due to retire. Her mind has been invaded now by a trespasser; aphasia, so Yun Ling decides she must write everything down before it is too late; “My memories will be like a sand-bar, cut off from the shore by the incoming tide” ‘Without memory a ghost trapped between worlds, without identity, no future, no past” And so begins her recollection of her time spent with Aritomo in Yugiri; The Garden Of Evening Mists…. Yun Ling has known great suffering and pain in her life and her hatred for the Japanese invaders who imprisoned her and her sister is sustained throughout her life. Yugiri is the place she returns to where she first met with Aritomo, ‘the emperor’s gardener.’ Despite her disdain of the Japanese; she seeks the brilliance of Aritomo to build a very special garden in memory of her lost sister. He declines her request and instead he asks Yun Ling to become his apprentice. She begins her apprenticeship with Aritomo and she observes him: “He was similar to the boulders….only a small portion was revealed to the world, the rest buried deep within, hidden from view.” Aritomo speaks often through metaphor. His appreciation for nature enables him to continuously draw a parallel between life struggling inside and outside the garden. “We are like every single plant and stone and view in the garden; the distance between one another carefully measured” Close by, on the Majuba Tea Estate, friends are treasured, and over the years Yun Ling and Aritomo spend many evenings enjoying the hospitality of their neighbours; Magnus and Emily. Frederik who is a relative of Magnus, grows very fond of Yun Ling and his devotion to her never waivers. The stories told from the different characters about their experiences in time of war and emergency truly enlighten the reader enabling many perspectives to be considered and ultimately judged…. The mysteries of this intriguing novel are slowly revealed and just like the Horimono Artist or Horoshi; the author has left significant space for reader intelligence to be complete. Tan Twan Eng is an incredible sensitive author and this book is graced with so many wonderful quotes I cannot wait to reread it again and again. It is an emotionally charged, intelligent read. The book is significantly informative and deals so beautifully with the complex world of human relationships. The novel casts dark shadows on the treachery and cruelty of nations at war and then brings redemption in the incredible resilience of the human heart and spirit. This is a book I would highly recommend and I would score this book 10+ out of a possible 10.

Good book

Tan Twan Eng's, The Garden of Evening Mists, is as hauntingly beautiful as the opaque and delicate mist. It's multi dimensional characters are etched with finesse, with each, holding their stories, competently. War, it's aftermath of pain, anger, hatred, the entrenched biases of the conquerors and oppressed; The delicate beauty, flow, planning and structure of a Japanese garden, the goddesses of memory and forgetting; The power, skill and speech of the art and the artist, language of tattoos, sketches, archery; The guilt of abandonment and escape, the compromise for fulfillment of promises; Tan Twan Eng's world stitches them all in a gripping account, set in the expanse of the lush, sprawling tea gardens in Malay, contextualising the Japanese occupation of Malay and the Malayan emergency. The protagonists are distinctive, representative of the ethos of the times of it's setting. A must read!