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Executive Times |
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2008 Book Reviews |
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The
Commoner by John Burnham Schwartz |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click
on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Interior John
Burnham Schwartz bases his new novel, The
Commoner, on the life of Japan’s Empress Michiko, who was the first
commoner to marry into the imperial family. While fictional, The
Commoner presents considerable detail about Japanese imperial life, both
in external practices and for his protagonist, Haruko Tsuneyasu, a rich
interior life that provides much of the momentum for the novel. Here’s an
excerpt, from the end of Chapter 3, pp. 38-40: "I
hear he’s grown three centimeters this
summer alone," my mother remarked. She was sitting at the low table
arranging the flowers she'd just bought in the Machi, Karuizawa's main
shopping street. Flower arrangement was one of her most accomplished arts, though
she wasn't doing her best at the moment, distracted as she was by the idea
of the Prince's summer growth spurt. "You
mean there's more to him than meets the eye?" my father said. He was
sitting on the tatami, his back to the wall, perusing some business papers
through a pair of reading spectacles. It had been raining for days, and the
air in the house felt like miso paste lathered on the skin. My
mother glared at him as though personally insulted. "You mustn't speak
that way about His Highness." "Then
you mean there's less to him?" My father winked at me. "I
don't find that amusing." She clipped an iris stem by a third.
"It's disrespectful." "Not
at all. By almost every account he's a fine young man. I'm simply trying to
figure out why I should care that he's three centimeters taller than he was
in May." "I'm
saying it for Haruko's benefit." "Haruko,
eh? Well, that's different. Why didn't you say so in the first place?" "You're
just as impossible as she is!" My mother spiked a last
flower into the bowl of polished black pebbles, gathered a handful of
clipped stems, and walked out of the room. "Better
to be impossible than measured in centimeters!" my father called after
her, grinning at me now. There was no answer from the other end of the house.
Amused, he grunted contentedly, removed his spectacles, and rubbed his eyes. Without
the bracing frames of steel and glass, his face looked suddenly old and
vulnerable to me, and my smile disappeared. "Haruko-chan, are you all
right?" He hadn't called me by that childish endearment in many years. "I thought I heard a bird
in the other room," I lied. "But there's nothing there now." "Well, that's good—I'm
getting too old to rescue birds. Soon they'll have to start rescuing
me." He folded his glasses and put them in his pocket. "I wonder if
this rain will ever stop." He got to his feet, straightening his papers,
one of his knees making a sound like a rice cracker snapped in two. He moved
and stood near me. Through the open shoji were the trees dripping with rain,
but because of the mist no mountains were visible. "So," he said,
"do you really care?" "Do I care about
what?" "The three
centimeters." I wheeled around and pinched
his stomach. "Eh! Sharp fingers." "See how sharp if you keep
saying silly things." "That's my daughter for you." He was smiling. He would have
allowed no one else to speak to him this way. And he took my ear tenderly between
his thumb and forefinger as he used to when I was small. The
Commoner is a beautifully written novel that takes readers into an
unfamiliar world. Steve
Hopkins, September 20, 2008 |
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Go to Executive Times Archives |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the October 2008 issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The Commoner.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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