Review of The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng
I have to preface this review by saying that The Garden of Evening Mists is by far one of the “slowest” books I’ve ever read. As many reviews have mentioned, Tan attempts to “capture stillness on paper” in the same manner as Aritomo, and I would honestly consider his endeavor a success. The novel is practically a carefully pruned garden itself, with lovely, meditative prose and poignant themes that meld into one another, almost an act of “borrowed scenery” amongst the end-of-empire narrative. Even as someone who typically devours books at lightning pace, I was drawn to return to Yugiri for just a few minutes each day, eager to place myself in its quiet, reflective tone.
A quick synopsis: Malaya, 1951. Yun Ling, our protagonist, is the scarred lone survivor of a Japanese prison camp during WWII, before eventually becoming a judge presiding over war crime cases. After years of not returning to Yugiri, aka the titular “Garden of Evening Mists,” Yun Ling reflects on the past, on her experience in the Cameron Highlands after the wartime camp, and on her memories of Aritomo, the exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan.
To start off with, I was surprised by how much I didn’t know about the state of Southeast Asia during WWII, so a lot of the information presented in the novel was new to me — the CTs, how diverse Malaya was, the extent of Japanese imperialism. I’m glad Tan doesn’t spoon-feed this information, instead putting us in the perspective of a woman at the heart of rampant political change. I would say that most of the “plot” of the books revolves around these historic events and how they impacted Yun Ling, and a lot of the tension between characters is formed through these complex external forces. For instance, the fact that Yun Ling is a Chinese woman from the Straits affects how certain characters perceive her, but this doesn’t completely inform her character, instead only adding on to her cultural identity and personal experiences as a Japanese prisoner. Every character is given a rather fleshed out background in terms of where they stand politically due to the stations they’re born into. Thus, these political events are what make the book have such an “end of empire” narrative, and they’re crucial to understanding the internal conflicts that inevitably emerge from these interactions. Moreover, the themes are further enriched through the backgrounds and historical factors mentioned, and Tan builds upon each of these facets to show surprising nuance even at the quietest of moments.
Following this, the balance and interplay of contrasting themes is the true emotional core of The Garden of Evening Mists. While character tensions through external factors such as violence are partially what drives the book forward, for the most part, the story forces you to stop and contemplate. There are multiple sentences dedicated to just appreciating a moment in nature, from the last rays of sun gleaming across the mountain’s surface, to watching a pair of herons cutting through the air. These scenes of thoughtful meditation allow you to ruminate on the myriad of juxtaposed themes Tan brings to the surface—memory and forgetting, war and forgiveness, art as loss and new meaning. While you’re reading, these themes glide over one another seamlessly, and, like the way Aritomo describes the seasons, are akin to layers of silk that are more beautiful when interposed over one another. There isn’t a single, easy answer for any of the themes, and I’d argue that many things are left unresolved and unsaid. However, it is through the exploration of these contrasting ideas that the humanity of the characters best shine through, even if they never explicitly verbalize their feelings. Furthermore. allusions to both Western and Eastern mythology tie in nicely with the grounded historical perspective to place the time and setting of this novel somewhere very real (WWII), but also far removed and almost mystical (the isolated Yugiri, shielded by mist). And the ending nicely takes all of this build up, these disparate threads of dissonant emotions and loyalties, and illuminates a story and path you didn’t realize was unfolding before you. Like shakkei, the book shows you its inherent beauty not through its direct plot or characterization, but through how everything intermingles amongst one another and eventually takes shape into a story that built itself amongst seemingly disparate events.
In these past couple of days, as I reflected over this story, I became increasingly impressed by Tan’s ability to commit to capturing stillness. There is admittedly not much momentum in the book, and this, alongside the occasional sentence that seems just a bit pretentious, are what I would consider to be my main criticisms. However, I think these criticisms are also mitigated by how my “slow” reading experience was one that nicely fit into this stillness, since it let the messages and themes sink in more deeply. I am absolutely enamored by how Tan used literature as a means of conveying a technique utilized in another form of art, and I think the story he is trying to tell is strengthened by doing so. In the same vein, I am interested in seeing how the movie adaptation performs and in what ways it integrates this concept to another medium.
Overall, The Garden of Evening Mists was an incredible read, and arguably my favorite of the year so far despite my misgivings concerning pace. For this, maybe it’s just another example of “the right book for the right time” as a defining point in my reading since I’m definitely someone that plays into the “rat race” at times when it comes to consuming media or productivity. Typically, I want to do as much as possible as fast as possible. What The Garden of Evening Mists forced me to do was slow down, place myself in distant temples, caves, gardens, and simply — exist.
