Tales of the Otori

[bibliogramma]

Across the Nightingale Floor, Episode One: The Sword of the Warrior, Lian Hearn

Set in an alternate world that seems to have stepped out of the feudal Japan of legend and history entwined, this is a complex and fascinating story told with grace, beauty and simplicity.

A young boy survives the massacre of his family and village, to be taken into the household and family of the enemy of his family’s murderer. As he grows, he shows signs of special gifts found only among the tribe of assassins, and with the approval of his benefactor, he begins his training in the ways and skills that his own father had rejected.

A young girl, held hostage to enforce the loyalty of her family, is selected as a bride to a man she has never met in what appears to be a peace offering between warring factions, but she carries with her a history that is believed to promise death to any man she marries.

A man and a woman, secret lovers who have sworn to marry, are kept apart by war and political considerations, and face being forever separated by forced marriages to others.

And a man has built for himself a nightingale floor, so constructed that, it is said, no one can cross without making a sound.

Such are the beginnings of the Tales of Otori, and I have been captivated.

Note about editions: I am reading currently reading the Firebird editions of Hearn's Tales of the Otori, which are beautiful to the senses in all ways, but which divide each of the original books into two episodes each. This comment, then refers to the first half of the book Across the Nightingale Floor as originally published. The other available TPB editions I know of are the Riverbend editions, which contain the complete text of each book in one volume.

Comments

[morgan-dhu.livejournal.com]

I shall have to wait for a paperback edition, alas - we're trying to save money to buy a house, and while I can't give up books, I can wait for less expensive editions.

The other books in the series that I'd ordered arrived yesterday, alnog with a few other things I've been wanting for a while, so I've lots of eagerly anticipated reading to do in the near future.