Tales of the Otori Trilogy

I have had the first volume of Tales of the Otori trilogy for many years but never had sought to read the rest. I guess I hadn't been impressed. Then the second and third part happened to be shelved in library and I borrowed them if only for the sake of closure or something. I also re-read the first one to refresh my memory since it had been so long.

My hunch turned out to be right: I would have missed nothing of value by not having finished the trilogy. It is a fast read; a simple, predictable story -- yet another coming-of-age fantasy story too. Lian Hearn writes children's literature under her actual name Gillian Rubinstein. I reckon the pen name is because of different target age group but I think Tales of the Otori could pass for young adult fiction too.

Interestingly enough it seems the English prints have a few more pages than the Finnish ones. Usually the opposite is the case. The Finnish ones even have unusually wide side margins. I'd imagine that the books would go well below 300 pages each with a more typical page layout.

The trilogy seems to be categorized under historical fiction (among other genres) which mostly fits since it's basically set in feudal Japan even if the locations are fictional. There are some fantasy elements in the story too, so I wouldn't exactly place the books in the same category as, let's say, Shōgun and Gai-Jin by James Clavell.

The first book is called Across the Nightingale Floor. For some reason the Finnish title drops off the preposition and is just called Satakielilattia ('nightingale floor'). I wonder what was the reasoning behind that. The book is not about the floor but the act of crossing it. Or rather, the protagonist Takeo learning how to do it without making a sound. And practicing other related skills.

Young Takeo is living in a small village of Christians (though the books call them the Hidden) when something tragic happens and by seemingly happenstance he is adopted by Lord Shigeru, a noble of the Otori clan.

Soon it turns out that Takeo's father was of Kikuta clan which is a part of the Tribe, a group of clans who offers their spying and assassination services for those willing to pay. Kikuta blood runs strong in Takeo and he gains superhuman hearing and illusion powers. As the story continues, Takeo struggles with where his allegiance should lie: with the Otori or the Tribe.

Most of the first volume of the trilogy is kind of generic; it doesn't have the qualities I expected from the setting. Towards the end it starts getting there and the other two books follow suit. I'm not sure if I should call the themes typical since I'm not that much of an expert but they're very much the same as in Clavell's novels. The book's characters try to balance their lives between their clan's interests, tradition, and what they want themselves. They're fatalistic: even if they predict an action will likely be their undoing, they do it anyway because it's proper. And of course there's the tendency for everyone to be ready for a seppuku although not quite to the same degree as in Shōgun.

There is a second viewpoint as well: Takeo and Shirakawa Kaede fall in love at first sight. Them being together is not simple of course; they're not in control of their own destinies. Kaede even less so for being a woman. She has to do what men tell her to. Kaede doesn't make much of a protagonist for being so passive of a character. In the second book, Grass for His Pillow, she becomes more proactive but loses her capability to affect things again in the third one. Her viewpoint in Brilliance of the Moon is mere filler.

The trilogy skips past what would be its conclusion and instead has a short epilogue 15 years after the events. As if Hearn had gotten tired of the story. She however did then write a sequel, The Harsh Cry of the Heron, and a prequel, Heaven's Net is Wide. I doubt I will ever read them; the trilogy wasn't interesting enough for me to care.