I discovered ‘Spring Garden‘ by Tomoka Shibasaki when I was browsing in the bookshop a couple of weeks back. It was published by Pushkin Press. I love Pushkin Press. I also love Japanese literature. When the two of them came together, it was hard to resist!
Taro lives in an apartment complex in Tokyo. Most of the apartments there are empty because the landlord who owns them is planning to demolish them and so whenever a rental agreement’s time is up, he asks the tenants to leave. Finally, there are four tenants left. Taro is one of them. One day Taro notices that the woman who lives upstairs is looking at the house opposite to their apartment complex. When she notices that he is looking at her, she goes inside. Taro starts wondering why she is looking at the opposite house. At some point Taro bumps into the woman, they get acquainted and become friends, and one day they catch up for dinner. Taro discovers that her name is Nishi. Nishi tells him the story of why she is interested in the house opposite. It is a fascinating story. Taro also gets to know more about Nishi and her life. Soon, new tenants move into that opposite house and Nishi becomes friends with them. What happens between these three – Nishi, Taro and the blue house – that forms the rest of the story.
‘Spring Garden‘ is an interesting book. There is not much in it in terms of plot. Yes, there is a plot which describes the lives of Taro, Nishi and other characters. But it doesn’t have the typical structure and events that novels have had for ages. The main character in the novel is probably that blue house. How Nishi discovered it, how she became obsessed with it, how she experienced it from the outside and from the inside and how she took Taro along for the adventure – this is the crux of the book. This may not be everyone’s cup of tea. If you are looking for action, dialogue, mysteries and revelations, this is not the book for you. However, though this book is not about plot, it is about some beautiful things. This book is a love letter to houses – as living spaces, as showcases of beautiful architecture, as places filled with aesthetic beauty. This book is about how houses can be living characters in stories and in real life, how they evolve and change across time, how they embrace their dwellers and grow with them, and how when they are empty they grow in different ways. It is a beautiful ode to our everyday house from a perspective that we rarely think about. I loved it. This book also made me think of Brian Selznick’s ‘The Marvels‘. Last, but not the least, I adore that cover!
I will leave you with one of my favourite passages from the book.
“Time which had stopped while the house was empty, was moving again. The structure itself was exactly the same as it had been a week ago when nobody was in it, and yet its colours, the feel of the place, where now wholly different. It wasn’t just that people were living in it – it was that the house itself had suddenly come back to life. The house which Nishi had been convinced that she could carry on looking at forever, in the same way as she could the house in the photos, felt now as if it had taken on a mind of its own, and begun moving. As dramatic as it sounded, it honestly seemed that the house has taken on the same quality as a doll that had suddenly become human. Every time she passed by the house, every time she saw the envelopes poking out of the letterbox or the sheets hanging out to dry on the balcony, she had the physical sensation like something rubbing at her body from the inside.”
Have you read Tomoka Shibasaki’s ‘Spring Garden‘? What do you think about it?
Beautiful review, Vishy:)
Glad you liked it, Lisa 🙂
[…] Spring Garden by Tomoka Shibasaki (Japanese) – a story about a house and a […]