Linda V. (L221147) reviewed Wind and Stone: A Novel (Rock Spring Collection of Japanese Literature) on
Taken from the back cover.
This novel tells the story of Kase, a designer of traditional Japanese gardens, and Mizue, the wife of Kases client. At first, Kase and Mizue each act according to their assigned roles, but Mizue, haunted by a devastating personal loss and attracted by the remarkable sexual energy of Kases garden design, grows increasingly uneasy. Finally she and Kase begin an affair, and as Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire, her carefully structured home life begins to crumble. Author Masaaki Tachihara explores the psychology of human passion in an oblique language filled with references to Japanese garden art and aesthetic values. In the landscape of the garden we see base urges given physical form, seductions crafted into the tangles of branches and the colors of blossoms, and the intransigence of a stone. This is a disturbing and alluring work.
This novel tells the story of Kase, a designer of traditional Japanese gardens, and Mizue, the wife of Kases client. At first, Kase and Mizue each act according to their assigned roles, but Mizue, haunted by a devastating personal loss and attracted by the remarkable sexual energy of Kases garden design, grows increasingly uneasy. Finally she and Kase begin an affair, and as Mizue wakens to a new sensuality and desire, her carefully structured home life begins to crumble. Author Masaaki Tachihara explores the psychology of human passion in an oblique language filled with references to Japanese garden art and aesthetic values. In the landscape of the garden we see base urges given physical form, seductions crafted into the tangles of branches and the colors of blossoms, and the intransigence of a stone. This is a disturbing and alluring work.
