What is the book about?
Yoshiko lives on the island of Shindo – divided into three regions ruled by the Masters. The girl didn’t really know her parents, she had always been under the care of her grandparents – mainly her grandmother. Her family once ran a famous martial arts school, now falling into disrepair. The heroine takes care of her sick grandfather, who still cannot come to terms with his fate and requires her granddaughter to take revenge on one of the Masters for the harm done to their family. Yoshiko, trained in combat from an early age, under pressure from her guardian, decides to continue training and achieve the “venerable” goal – vendetta. The girl meets Shuga on her way. The boy hides a secret. They are united not only by the desire to avenge their loved ones.
Overwhelmed with descriptions
The book is full of detailed descriptions: from food to interior design, clothes and architecture. The author tries to create a world in which we will be able to immerse ourselves in and immerse ourselves in Japanese culture. The plot, however, is lost against the backdrop of reflections, philosophical considerations, names and descriptions. Climaticity – food, vegetation, animals, introduced in excess, in effect distracts the reader. This detail and new names made it impossible to imagine the scenes, as you experience an information shock while reading it.
The action rushes at breakneck speed
Epic events are always promised to us. Meanwhile, one of the confrontations between the enemies is limited to a few sentences. But in return, we get detailed interior descriptions. It would be a mistake to say that there is no action in the story, but sometimes it goes too fast – constantly changing locations.
Many things happen by miraculous coincidence. I understand that this is the concept of history, and literature often uses it. Basically, thanks to him, the heroes meet, learn the truth, etc. As a rule, it is about a certain correspondence of time and place, characters appear by accident in a given location and this is how the action begins. In the reviewed book, everything happens thanks to an unexpected coincidence – guess who the death of Yoshiko’s parents is related to? Reading becomes predictable and you can guess part of the plot in the early stages – it is not only about the relations between the characters, but their individual movements.
Ah, those heroes
Let’s start with the fact that the chapters are written from the point of view of individual characters – the so-called POVs. A similar procedure is used in his books by, for example, GRR Martin. Generally speaking, this way of narrating does not bother me, and I like it. However, in this case, there were too few characters for such a construction to make sense. We observe the action theoretically from the point of view of three people – Shuga, Yoshiko and Koun. The last of them is the younger friend of the main character, who, as it was possible to predict, secretly loves her. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit, but with Koun practically nothing happens, and a lot more are brought to the story by other characters, and they would be more deserving of their POV with more development. It’s not hard to get the impression that the Yoshiko and Shuga duo are Mary Sue and Gary Stu. I understand perfectly that they have trained for it all their lives, but sometimes their success seems impossible – it is too easy for them. They are so careful, trained, and they make basic mistakes, they trust strangers too easily and think about nothing, no reflection – here the team is perfectly complemented by Koun with his youthful stupidity. For me, the heroes are – too strong at their peak moments and too emotional, and then suddenly incredibly weak.
To conclude my argument
I have a hard time classifying the conventions of the novel. I was expecting a revenge adventure game. And I guess it was … although at times I had the impression that I was reading a romance. Many elements made it difficult for me to read and enjoy it. I’m not sure I know what happened in the novel. At times, I was drawn in – for example, the fight scene in the mountains, to be incredibly boring later. And that seems like a paradox given the fast-paced action and the constant change of locations and plots. Japanese culture is very interesting, but you need to learn about it first, and that was probably not a good place for it. We know this world mainly from film productions – The Last Samurai, Shogun, Seven Samurai. Personally, the atmosphere of the novel reminds me a bit of Princess Mononoke.While it was possible to attract the audience, interest them and help them plunge into the atmosphere, this art failed in the case of the novel Names of Death . It seems to me that although the threads are numerous, they can be reduced to a maximum of two. I would like the author to decide to develop interesting elements, e.g. ghosts, because this thread had potential. And here the story ran like a TGV, and at the same time was too over-the-counter – if possible.
Summary
If someone is a fan of Japanese culture – rather of the past centuries – he should read the book. Recognizing that many times you will have doubts as to whether you will survive to the end.
