by Gail Tsukiyama
ages: adult
First sentence: “A white light seeped through the shoji windows and into the room, along with the morning chill.”
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The thing that kept coming to mind as I was reading this sweeping novel, was that this book is much like a picture album. The pictures go together because they’re of the same family, and because they tell a story of the passing years. But, each individual picture has a story. Sometimes those stories are interesting, sometimes they’re a little boring. Much like this book.

Tsukiyama tells the story of two brothers — Hiroshi and Kenji — over the course of nearly 30 years. When we first meet them, it’s 1939, and they are orphans living with their grandparents (their parents died in a freak boating accident). The book follows them as they grow up: through the horrors of the war years; Hiroshi’s rise as a sumotori and Kenji’s discovery and mastery of the art of theater mask making; as both brothers find (and lose) love. It’s more than a slice of life, it’s history.

But, even though it’s quite lyrical and beautifully written and incorporates Japanese incredibly seamlessly, I found myself going back and forth on this one. Some of the snapshots were fascinating. Some of the people I cared immensely about. But, sometimes I found myself unable to get into the language, or drifting off because the plot, such as it was, wasn’t grabbing me.

That said, one of the things that Tsukiyama does beautifully is give us a slice of Japan. More than the people, it was the way Tsukiyama described the land, the culture, and the people, as well as the push and pull between tradition and modernity. For that alone, the book is worth reading.