The Garden of Evening Mists
by Tan Twan Eng. "On a mountain above the clouds once lived a man who had been the gardener of the Emperor of Japan.... Eng's writing is poetic at times and full of beautiful imagery. The Malaysian settings of the Japanese garden and the tea estate are fully drawn and for the past few days my head has been filled with visions of lush jungle and a formal structured garden of rock and foreign plants - contrasting images that parallel life in a country controlled by outsiders, first by the British and then the invading Japanese during the war. Teoh Yun Ling is a retired judge who returns to the Cameron Highlands with aphasia - she will slowly forget how to speak and write and understand language. As a result, she starts to document her past and her story is told through her writing interspersed with episodes in the present day. The story unfolds slowly and while the book is character driven, the plot is generally compelling."
