I wanted to love this book, even while reading it. The glimpses of medieval japanese court life were beautifully and delicately done, the characters were strong, the prose was lovely... But it dragged. There was too much of everything. The ten years compressed into a few weeks that Kitsune spent with her lover were like a metaphor of the book: it seemed much longer than it was. And I preferred Kitsune when she was a fox.I did like the pillow book entries of the wife; I never got tired of her. ( )

This novel is a well executed take on a traditional Japanese folktale- a fox falls in love with a human and uses fox magic to transform into a woman and win his love in return. It is told from the perspectives of Kitsune, the fox, Yoshifuji, the man she loves, and Shikujo, his human wife. The book started out slowly for me; I felt like the first 2/3s were relatively stiff and didn't really draw me into a world where fox magic was possible. By the end I was hooked, though, and I'm glad I stuck it through. The complexities of happiness, propriety, love, and what makes someone human were well dealt with, and the characters musings on these topics were what gave the book depth. While some of the character development along the way felt a bit stilted, by the end I was impressed with the conclusions they all came to, and particularly appreciated the ambiguity of the ending. I did certainly enjoy this book, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it as it really does only come into its own in the last 80 pages. A good book, but one that definitely could have been better. ( )

(Amy) I am honestly not sure what I thought of this book. I was constantly brought up short by too-obviously-inserted "look how much the author knows about Japan" bits, combined with a complete inability to sympathize with any of the stilted, wooden characters. I don't think the latter was an authorial misstep - I think it was a stylistic choice. It didn't work for me, though.

The basic story was interesting, though: A young fox who falls in love with a human man and sets out to be with him, however she can.

I kind of want to stab all of the characters in the eye with sharpened sticks, though. I cannot in good conscience recommend a book that left me so irritated with its entire population.

( http://weblog.siliconcerebrate.com/ze... )

Pure poetry! This book is a work of art! I've read it 4 times now, and each time I find a new perspective. The writing is beautiful, the content thought-provoking, the experience cathartic... I LOVE this book!!! ( )

The book is both very good, and something I didn’t like. This is not written in a style that I like. The few bits of Asian folk tales that I’ve read are generally not my bag, and The Fox Woman is a version of a Japanese folk tale. The issue of style aside, I thought the book was really well done and fairly enjoyable. To the extent I could get my head past the style that is.

(Full review at my blog) ( )

Hauntingly lovely. It's the story of a fox, a man and a woman in Heian era Japan. The man and woman are married and have a son, but are struggling with their own lives and their marriage - he is depressed, she is repressed as their culture dictates she must be. The fox falls in love with the man when the couple retreat to their country estate in "the wilds" and convinces her grandfather to help her work the "fox magic" that will let her act upon her love for the man. The prose is lyrical and restrained at the same time, like the formalized poetry of the era which floats through the text. What a beautiful read. ( )

Kij Johnson turns the conventional portrayal of kitsune on its ear, showing us life from the point of view of a family of foxes who live in the garden of a Japanese nobleman’s country home. They live happily enough together there until the day that the nobleman, Kaya no Yoshifuji, brings his wife Shikujo and their family and retainers to live at the country estate. The young female fox, simply named Kitsune, falls in love with Yoshifuji and his strange, un-fox-like habits of poetry and contemplation.

Yearning to understand him and to enter a way of life she perceives to be beautiful, Kitsune persuades her wise grandfather to work fox magic and create an illusory world to entrap Yoshifugi. It works, and Yoshifugi sees the fox’s den as a glittering palace and Kitsune herself as a beautiful and desirable young woman. Trapped in the magic of the foxes, Yoshifugi marries Kitsune, forgetting completely about his own wife who has returned to the capital with their son.

But the magic is not perfect, and though Kitsune desperately tries to cling to her human husband and to understand the poetry that he writes and the way in which he sees the world, she fears that eventually it will unravel and Yoshifugi will find himself scrabbling in the dirt with a fox.

Despite the anthropomorphic elements and the very strong overtones of magical realism and fantasy, “The Fox Woman” is also a moving and sensual portrait of love, marriage, and the continual struggle to understand the hearts and minds of others. ( )

A really beautiful retelling of a Heian-era Japanese folk-tale, The Fox Woman tells of the intersecting lives of disillusioned nobleman Kaya no Yoshifuji, his wife Shikujo and his fox-wife Kitsune. Johnson uses the story to look at what it is to be human, what it is to be real, what it is to be true to yourself, and manages it with some skill, particularly towards the close of the novel. That said, for some reason I didn't find The Fox Woman to be quite as effective or as affecting as the other novel of Johnson's that I've read, Fudoki; the characters didn't come alive so vividly, and the book was perhaps a quarter again as long as it needed to be. Those flaws aren't enough to make me regret reading it, however, and I do think it makes a good companion to her other works. ( )

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a... ( )

It took me several times to get started on this book. It's written as journal entries for the main characters: a fox who falls in love with a man, the man she loves, the wife of the man she loves.

This is not a swift-paced action thriller, but a slow, deliberate opening of the characters' lives set in a courtly Japan of the past. The language of the book is lush, but restrained; matching the characters and their society.

Beautifully written retelling of a Japanese "fairy tale".

I first discovered (and became fascinated by) Heian era Japan in college; this was the book that first got me interested in Japanese folklore. It's romantic and gorgeous, melancholic, and touching. Really evocative. ( )

http://12frogs.com/reading/reviews/20... ( )