Plum Wine

I was initially put off that the narrator was an American living in Japan 20(ish) years after the end of WWII because it was through her that the readers receive a picture of Japan and the people who live there. This “Japan” seemed ersatz a copy of the original, a thin description resulting from our narrator’s naïveté. I wondered if this outsider’s perspective is really just the author’s limited perspective, and it may be, but it now seems to me that seeing the world, presented through this narrator’s senses, emphasizes the difficulty of understanding experiences other than our own. We may come to some understanding, whether it’s of Japanese language, calligraphy, original sin, plum wine, the experience of war, the lives show more of hibakusha, but there’s always more to it. Sometimes there is so much more to it that we are prevented from gaining a deeper understanding or connecting with people who have that lived understanding. That feels like a theme of the book, so the framing as a romance and a mystery works pretty well. The book is enjoyable, but everyone and everything seems to be held at a distance which resisted my complete engagement in the book. Some readers might see that as a fault of the narration. I suppose I just choose to see that as the intended experience show less

Barbara Jefferson is an American teaching in Japan, and her professor, Michi, who was like a mother to her, died and leaves her a tansu chest full of plum wine. Each bottle of wine was made in a different year and has a paper wrapped aorund it with the story of that year written on it in Japanese. It's an odd inheritance for Barbara, who doesn't speak or read Japanese. She wants to read the story and know more about Michi, as she realizes she didn't know that much about her personally, although she was close to her in many ways.

An acquaintance of Michi's and fellow hibakusha (survivor of the Hiroshima bombing), Seiji, a moody and talented pottery artist, helps Barbara translate the papers. Their relationship grows, and with it, brings show more confusion to Barbara's world.

I liked and disliked this book. The interweaving of the stories about "kitsune," Japanese folklore about foxes, the stories of the hibakusha, and descriptions of Japan give the story great atmosphere and transport you to Japan. So those are the good points of hte book. But, as the cover says in one of its critic review, "A heartrending story of love and loss . . . .masterful."

There were a few standout scenes in the book. Michi and Barbara's visit to the Buddha of Kamakura, and feeling they were in the womb of the Buddha was interesting and provided a great backdrop for conversations about mothers and relationships. I liked Barbara's speculation about her mother's feelings: "My mother always wanted a daughter like her, someone adventurous but conventional. A suit-and-pants kind of woman who takes flying lessons." show less

Twenty years after the bombing of Hiroshima, Barbara Jefferson is a young American woman teaching English Lit. at a woman's college in Tokyo. Her interest in Japan stems from her mother's stint in Japan as a journalist the late 30's as means of resolving the distance in their mother-daughter relationship. Instead she finds Michi, another college professor who takes Barbara in and "mothers" her, helping her navigate Japanese culture.

The book opens with Michi's death and bequest to Barbara: a mysterious tansu (chest) of homemade plum wine, each bottle wrapped in a Japanese manuscript. The manuscripts are New Years letters of Michi and her mother.

The narrative revolves around Michi, though she is the absent character throughout the book. show more Michi, a survivor of Hiroshima and mother of a recently deceased microcephalic daughter (a result of the radiation from the bomb), has also had a strained relationship with her own mother. The circumstances of her life and death are a mystery that Barbara intends to solve. She enlists the help of a potter, Seiji, also a Hiroshima survivor, in translating the manuscripts. They predictably become romantically involved.

Barbara's female students and fellow female professors provide her with insights and warnings along the way. The book, and the relationship between Barbara and Seiji end shortly after the 20th anniversary commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Strong themes through the book are:
- Japanese Kitsune (fox) folklore which often attributes fox characteristics to women, but perhaps the fox in this book is not the female.
- the concept of sin and redemption (Western culture) vs. shame and guilt (Eastern culture).
-the social plight of the victims of war.

Despite these themes, this is not a deep philosophical story but rather an enjoyable read as a mystery romance. show less

Plum Wine. Angela Davis-Gardner. 2006. Friend Lorie suggested this book, and I am so glad. It is a beautifully written love story! Barbara Jefferson is teaching English at a university in Tokyo. Michi, Barbara’s neighbor, mentor, and dear friend dies unexpectedly and leaves her a tansu chest filled with 20 bottles of wine dated by year. Each bottle is wrapped in rice paper that is covered with Japanese writing. Michi must have wanted Barbara to learn her history by reading this odd journal. At a memorial service for Michi, Barbara meets Seiji who had known Michi for years. He agrees to translate. They must meet secretly. It is not proper in 1960s Japan for the American teacher to meet with a man. As they fall in love, Barbara realizes show more there is more to Seiji’s relationship with Michi that he has told her. In addition to being a lovely love story, the books provides glimpse of life and culture in Japan in the aftermath of Hiroshima. show less

An American woman in Tokyo during the time when America is involved in Vietnam, teaches English to students at the Kodaira College and finds that her friend has bequeathed a chest of plum wine to her following her death. As she opens the drawers, she finds each bottle tagged with the year, but also wrapped in paper which she discovers to contain Japanese calligraphy which she is unable to read.

She meets a potter who knew her friend, Michi Nakamoto, well and decides to ask him to translate the writings. Therein she soon discovers more than she had expected. She is drawn into the shadowy world of the Hiroshima survivors and the tragic consequences the atom bomb had on human lives on that fateful day. These survivors are considered show more ill-fated and some of them choose not to disclose the fact that they are from Hiroshima for fear of being shunned by other members of society.

The letters take her back to stories about Michi's grandmother Ko, Michi's mother and Michi's daughter. There is a surprising twist to the family history, and perhaps a quest that requires a friend to close. The stories are delicately told and offer such a depth of expression and feeling that one cannot help but be drawn into the human drama that unfolded in that year.

There are many wonderful expressions in this book, and none more poignant than the potter describing how, as a 12 year old who survived the bomb, he looked at shadow prints (pieces of ground cut out around shadowy figures) to try identify if his sister and father had cast these 'shadows' if they had been incinerated in the blast.

A forbidden love affair develops between the teacher and the secretive potter. I'm not going to hand out a spoiler as to the outcome of this love affair, but the ending was very touching.

The teacher, through the letters and through her interactions with one of her students, evolves gradually and finds she can no longer hide behind an apathy towards both the bombing of Hiroshima and America's involvement in the Vietnam war.

This is a wonderfully quiet book... quiet because the author has managed to capture the essence of the Japanese and their social dictates. The details of life in Japan in the 70s is particularly resonant. show less

This love story confronts the issues of how our own personal pain from past experience affects our ability to love in the future. The setting of this book takes you to post Hiroshima Japan. The affects on the people of this place and how it has affected others around the world. Not only does it look at war it also embraces the issues that are placed on children who are not given the love that most children take for granted. Sometimes we can overcome our past and sometimes we cannot. I especially liked the setting of Japan and the descriptions of the beauty of the land. Being able to have a small window into the world of another culture was a pleasure for me. While this was a Love Story it was more about our ability to look at what show more responsibility we each have to take in our own personal decisions. I believe this to be the best part of this book. While the stories themselves were adequate it was the ability to cause the reader to explore their own feelings regarding themselves and the world that truly made it worth the read. show less

This novel, set in Japan in the 60s, is definitely on the minimalist side. It’s the story of Barbara, a woman from North Carolina, who goes to Japan to teach for a few years. The constant slight confusion of the protagonist is very familiar to me, since I’ve also experienced a lot of culture shock in my life.

The story that’s grafted onto this doesn’t feel entirely natural, but it is heartfelt. Barbara is befriended by Michi, a Japanese teacher who is like a mother to her, and when Michi dies, Barbara inherits her chest of stories. Looking for a translator for the writing, Barbara falls in love with Seiji, a Japanese man, a potter. Both Michi and Seiji lived in Hiroshima when the bomb fell, both lost their families, and both show more remained wounded.

From her exploration of Michi’s life, and from her growing and then fading intimacy with Seiji, Barbara learns what it means to be a survivor of Hiroshima. The US Vietnam War is also part of the story, as Barbara must explain it to her students.

The novel is written very plainly, one might even say in a Japanese style. Everything is suggested rather than spoken. But at times it feels too sparse, and the prose seems utilitarian rather than poetic. show less