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Sto caricando le informazioni... Three Views of Crystal Waterdi Katherine Govier
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 Iscriviti per consentire a LibraryThing di scoprire se ti piacerà questo libro. Attualmente non vi sono conversazioni su questo libro.  DubaiReader | Jul 14, 2012 |  nessuna recensione | aggiungi una recensione
A literary saga, spanning two generations and two cultures, Canadian and Japanese, reminiscent in writing style and appeal to the work of Isabel Allende. care of her grandfather, who spends long periods away at sea, leaving her alone back in Vancouver. When she reaches her teens, Vera is taken by her grandfather's mistress to a small island in Japan. The women of the island take her in and she learns to dive for pearls. Immersed in her surroundings, she meets a mysterious stranger, a man who is trained as a ceremonial sword polisher, who brings her into touch with the outside world. Every day, they listen to the mounting rhetoric on the radio and must live with the knowledge of the havoc that the Japanese are wreaking in China. she has long thought is dead. World War Two breaks out. The idyll is over. identity. to Japan, to the one place that she truly belonged. Non sono state trovate descrizioni di biblioteche |
Autore LibraryThingKatherine Govier è un Autore di LibraryThing, un autore che cataloga la sua biblioteca personale su LibraryThing. Discussioni correntiNessunoCopertine popolari
 Google Books — Sto caricando le informazioni...GeneriSistema Decimale Melvil (DDC)813Literature English (North America) American fictionClassificazione LCVotoMedia: (3.41)
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3
Generally I love books set in exotic parts of the world and being an historical novel would be a bonus, unfortunately I found this such a laborious read that I frequently questioned myself as to why I was persevering with it. It felt like a non-fiction book and could have benefitted from severe editing.
Vera is a likeable enough character, who finds herself motherless at the age of six. Her father's whereabouts are unknown, so she lives with her pearl trading grandfather and his young Japanese wife, Keiko. It takes a while for the book to reveal who Vera's grandfather is and how he fits into the back-story. Similarly, we gradually learn her parents' identities and who her grandmother was.
Keiko had been a pearl diver on a small Japanese island and when Vera's grandfather dies they have no choice but to return there so Keiko can earn a living and support them both. Vera is very much a loner to begin with, until she begins to learn a little Japanese and meets a few friendly islanders. One of her first friends was the sword polisher, who happens to speak a bit of English from his days in Britain with the Japanese army.
The novel covers quite a span of time and the pearl divers return for several summers of pearl diving during the course of the narrative. Vera longs to be truly accepted and become a pearl diver herself, but this is controlled by the island's headman.
The threat of WWII is looming and questions are asked about Vera's safety amongst 'the enemy'. It is therefore sensible for her to return to Canada when her wandering father finally tracks her down and removes her from, what is now, her home.
A new era begins as she travels with him and his pearl trading.
I read this for a book group and the most interesting outcome was the discussion of pearl diving and the pearls (the differences between real and cultured pearls) and also the art that was mentioned earlier in the book, ukiyo-e.
I found the time-hopping rather confusing and struggled to finish this book. It is interesting in parts but didn't grab me overall. My opinion was shared by the members of the book group. (