AustLit

'The "plots" of these novels (the term usefully implies narrative purpose, mapping of a course, a calculation or conspiracy, and a piece of land) move beyond formal Aristotelian structures to chart psychological boundaries and the human investment involved in making a life or a garden in difficult or hostile terrains. Aritomo, the Japanese mastergardener/artist in Tan Twan Eng's The Garden of Evening Mists, teaches his initially reluctant pupil, Yun Ling, a woman who petitions him to create a memorial garden for her dead sister, that despite his craft in simulating a garden's timeless quality, an essential element is change-the idea of static perfection, "a garden where nothing dies or decays, where no-one grows old, and the seasons never change," is an anathema (308). Did he borrow from heaven itself? (27) Yun Ling's escape from the hellish death camp, where prisoners and guards were buried alive in the tunnels of their own making, has horrific significance, as the elderly woman now wears her lover's body tattoo that reproduces the layout, the very plot of the garden, its vectors and schema, potentially locating both the grave of her sister and lost treasure. Home, a substantial Sirius Cove property, is threatened by high-rise development, weeds, debt, prolonged drought, Marie's failure to manage financial affairs, and the avarice of an ex-husband.' (Publication abstract)