The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

Not as good as we had expected !

We had high hopes for this novel having fallen in love with “The gift of rain” by the same author . It has also won numerous awards and was listed for the Booker Prize and so we opened the pages confident that we were in the hands of a master.

The writing was the hero in this novel. Masterful, sensory, and powerful, it transported us to the Cameron Highlands, so effectively that the damp mountain air was almost palpable.

The pace was gentle and slow and felt like an intentional attempt to reflect the meditative themes covered throughout the story. These include gardening, archery and body art.

All of the characters were well developed with admirable qualities offset by fundamental flaws and complex backstories which emerged as the plot developed.

The plot, which included plenty of twists and turns dotting around over time, covered an array of events relating to family relationships, war crimes, hidden treasure, mysterious disappearances, and kamikaze pilots, all set in Malaysia during the period around and after the 2^nd world war.

The narrative provided some fascinating insights into zen practices, tattoo preservation, and colonialism and multiculturalism in Malaysia.

And so, with all of these strengths, we can recommend this novel. But the recommendation comes with a caveat - it was not as good as we had expected. The pacing was, perhaps, too slow? The climax somewhat attenuated? The overall read, rather - well – misty?

We drew our conclusions about the book over dinner at Artisam (link here http://artisam-corbridge.co.uk) . This was the closest thing to Malaysian or Japanese cuisine which we could find in the Tyne Valley. Having dined there previously we - again – had high expectations. Sadly, the ownership has since changed and the new management clearly have a different culinary offer. We did go for the early bird option and it seemed that all of our fellow diners did the same. Perhaps later diners (although we saw none that evening) can enjoy some better fare. However, on the basis of our own experience we agreed that, as with The Garden of Mists, it was not as good as we had expected!

Our next read is a more modern thriller, Our House by Louise Candlish.