Today I attended ‘Japanning’ which was both informative and entertaining.
This was a more intimate event, with just two authors, Katherine Govier, and David Mitchell. I sat in the front row and really got the feeling that I was sitting in a living room with these two authors. The theme was Japan, of course.
Katherine Govier’s latest novel is ‘The Ghost Brush’. Here is a description of it, taken from the book:
In an art gallery in Washington, DC, Rebecca is accosted by a ghost — O-Ei, the daughter of the great Japanese printmaker Hokusai. Long consigned to a minor role as gloomy sidekick, O-Ei wants her rightful place in history.
O-Ei recounts her life with one of the great eccentrics of the nineteenth century. Dodging the Shoguns spies, she and Hokusai live amongst actors, novelists, tattoo artists and prostitutes, making the exquisite pictures that define their time. Disguised, the pair escapes the city gates to view waves and Mount Fuji. But they return to enchanting, dangerous Edo (Tokyo), the largest city in the world.
She does not cook or sew, and is not beautiful, but O-Ei has her secret joys. Wielding her brush, O-Ei defies all expectations of womanhood — all but one. She is dutiful until death to the exasperating father who created her and who, ultimately, steals her future. Rebecca is left to discover why and how O-Ei vanished from her own time, and from history.
Both a feat of scholarship and a breathtaking work of imagination, The Ghost Brush shines fresh light on the very contemporary issues of authorship and masterworks. But above all it illuminates the most tender and ambiguous love of all — that between father and daughter.
Ms. Govier spent years researching for this book and then had trouble finding the notes that she wanted to. She wrote the book from a Japanese point of view but thought about writing it from the Dutch point of view like David Mitchell’s book.
The original manuscript had the present day character, Rebecca, showing the research that Katherine did for the book but it made the book too long. However, it is in the e-book edition.
O-Ei ‘s father , in history, signed all of the paintings that O-Ei actually painted. Most scholars say that O-Ei didn’t mind because back then men owned women and daughters. Kathleen can’t believe that O-Ei didn’t want recognition. She said that O-Ei came to her and said, “I want authorship to my works.
David Mitchell’s latest novel is The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. (See may review of it, here). Here is a description of it, taken from the book:
In 1799, Jacob de Zoet disembarks on the tiny island of Dejima, the Dutch East India Company’s remotest trading post in a Japan otherwise closed to the outside world. A junior clerk, his task is to uncover evidence of the previous Chief Resident’s corruption.
Cold-shouldered by his compatriots, Jacob earns the trust of a local interpreter and, more dangerously, becomes intrigued by a rare woman – a midwife permitted to study on Dejima under the company physician. He cannot foresee how disastrously each will be betrayed by someone they trust, nor how intertwined and far-reaching the consequences.
Duplicity and integrity, love and lust, guilt and faith, cold murder and strange immortality stalk the stage in this enthralling novel, which brings to vivid life the ordinary – and extraordinary – people caught up in a tectonic shift between East and West.
Mr.Mitchell talked about historical fiction as a genre. The history part is “reconnecting with the past human race. What is good history, can be bad fiction unless you manipulate it. It has to be authentically wrong. “
David said, ” You have to make characters each different with use of speech or all of them will sound like the Borg.” The audience laughed. David said, I’m glad there are some Star Trek fans here.” More laughter.
An audience member asked David how he decided to write. David said, I excrete dialogue, my head just does that. Your question is “like asking a pumpkin plant when it decided to grow.”
This was my question to David, “how did you think up the House of the Sisters and was there any fact it was based on? David said, “not as far as I known. I asked myself if it was even remotely possible, the answer was yes and I went with it. There was a religion in Japan that had no text, bible, or pope. Who’s to say that a cult wasn’t formed from it.”
Well, this event added another book on to my “must read” list, ‘The Ghost Brush’ by Katherine Govier. I’m quite temped to buy it in e-book form to get the un-cut edition.
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