The "Tales of the Otori"-trilogy...

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 May 2006, 09:57

Bought the "Tales of the Otori"-trilogy a few days ago. I am currently reading the first part called "Across the Nightingale Floor" and it is brilliant so far. For people who have enjoyed reading Yoshikawa's "Musashi", this will be a good read. Not as monumental, but really good. It is a fictional story that takes place in the old samurai days, but also in a fictional feudal Japan. There is a map of the country this story takes place in and it looks nothing like Japan. It is a made-up Japan and it is very well described.

The story is written in first-person from the view of a man who in the story is still a 16-years-old boy. His peaceful village was attacked by an evil clan and his mother and sisters were killed. He escapes and his two followers are killed by a wandering samurai. After that they travel through the country when it turns out that the wandering samurai is the lord of the Otori-clan in the middle-west of the country. He wants to adopt the boy as he, too has lost his whole family during a battle. His clan does not agree to the adoption, though.

Let's see where the story will go from there. This all happened during the first 50 pages in the first chapter. Really looking forward to more as the back cover text says that there is a lot of magic involved, like the art of being in two places at the same time or so. Hmmm... this should be interesting.

What's also interesting though is that the three books were written by Lian Hearn, a British woman who now lives in Australia, because she seems to know the old Japanese customs very well. They could be made-up, like Karl May has made up a lot of Arab customs in some of his books, but I doubt that, since she has studied Japanese and she travelled to Japan, too, where the idea of this trilogy started.

Part 1: Across the Nightingale Floor

Part 2: Grass for his Pillow

Part 3: Brilliance of the Moon

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 23 May 2006, 11:50

Salaam LD,

I'm reading Across The Nightingale Floor at the moment BTW, and its' pretty good so far though I havent got very far

Its a man telling the story?

I've only just started but I thought it really WAS a young boy?

thelostdragon · Post by **thelostdragon** » 23 May 2006, 13:14

Well, I think it is a man telling the story of his youth. Maybe you're right, though.

But what a coincidence. It really is a great book so far. I love books which I can start reading without having to get used to the writing style and where I feel comfortable right away. I have read books, which I only finished reading because it would have been wasted money otherwise. Even so-called best-sellers.

Grim, you should definitely check out "Musashi" by Eiji Yoshikawa. It is probably my favourite novel ever.

grim_tales · Post by **grim_tales** » 23 May 2006, 13:25

Well really I started reading it some time back (the first Otori book) then stopped reading it, and I havent got round to starting it again

But I will read it soon