Bokelskere.no

In many ways this book is like a japanese garden, at least the way I understand japanese gardens after reading this book. Everything has a meaning and mostly it doesn't get revealed to you before you are at the right place at the right time. You walk around a corner and suddenly a vista is revealed. Japanese gardens are also very controlled and restrained, another quality I feel it shares with the novel. There's lots of intense feelings, but it's all hidden beneath a veneer of traditions, seremonies and duty. And like the garden offers sudden insights, so does the novel give us new glimpses of both feelings and events.

As a westerner I didn't know much about Malaysia or its history before I read this book, so it was really interesting to learn both a little about World War II in Asia and about Malaysia in the early 1950's, just as their independence was getting close to being a reality. It made me curious to learn more about Malaysia.

I'm usually a fast reader and like/need to finish novels fairly quickly. This one didn't allow me to do that. It required time. Luckily I had the sense to surrender my usual impatience and allow The Garden of Evening Mists the time it needed.

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