Eighth Book Review: Across the Nightingale Floor

Hearn, Lian. Across the Nightingale Floor. New York: Riverhead Books, 2002.

Annotation:

Tomasu is a sixteen year old from a remote mountain village where nothing has ever changed, except for the seasons.  That was until the brutality of war came to his home and destroyed everything and everyone he had ever loved.  Taken in by a kindly lord from a distant land who had suffered the loss of his own family, Tomasu sees this beautiful new land as a place where he can hone his fighting skills in order to seek revenge against the lord who wiped out his village.  However, when a strange old man with supernatural abilities finds Tomasu, he discovers that the art of assassination runs deep in his family, and that his new lord may have been training him to become the most important part of a plan to throw down the oppressive regime that is tearing the land apart.

Nomination:

Across the Nightingale Floor is a remarkably well written book that takes place during a fictionalized portrayal of feudal Japan, but the incredible attention to historical and geographical detail makes one forget at times that they are reading a fictional account of a fictional land.  However, while the time and place may be fictional, the details of daily life and the emotional turmoil each character is experiencing is as real and genuine as any author could hope to portray.  And while some of the characters have far greater burdens to bear, you feel just as sympathetic to those whose hardships may pale by comparison.  And it is these hardships that the characters go through that explain why this book is considered to be a controversial book.  Considering the period of time that this fictional world is based upon, feudal Japan, one should come to expect that violence would play a pivotal role in the story.  But violence in Across the Nightingale Floor is not presented just for the sake of shocking the reader; rather it is presented in a manner that is necessary to keep the story believable (after all, people die during wars).  But since this is a world where wars are fought with knives and swords, killing takes on a much more personal disposition.  

I feel that Across the Nightingale Floor deserves a nomination because it truly encapsulates the protagonist Tomasu at varying levels that most young adults find themselves at one point or another.  At the beginning of the book, Tomasu is a naïve teenager who is just beginning to work with the men of the village, but knows enough to not speak and just listen and watch in order to pick up the norms and mores of the community.  However, his life is fast forwarded almost instantaneously when his village is destroyed and he must flee for his life.  When Tomasu begins his new life, it is with a new purpose and drive.  Suddenly, problems that seemed so vexing before now reveal themselves to him as being insignificant and even childish.  And by the end of the story, Tomasu has accomplished things that he never could have imagined, even after he began his new life.  It is this cycle of growth that the young adult reader will grasp onto, and realize that when one is focused and driven, practically anything is possible.  

Genre Category: Challenged or Censored Title