( Questions from the Man Book Prize website.

What feelings are you left with having completed the novel? Although containing many violent scenes, readers have commented that they found the story comforting, leaving a feeling of calm and tranquillity. How and to what extent has Yun Ling’s capacity for intimate love and affection in later life been affected by her experiences in the internment camp and or her shared time with Aritomo?ĥ. Does Yun Ling’s disposition towards Aritomo and towards the Japanese in general undergo a significant shift in the course of the novel, or does she rather maintain a constant though compartmentalised attitude throughout?Ĥ. Given this statement, do you get the sense that Yun Ling is a reluctant narrator?ģ. It was a constant battle for me to crack her open. Now and then the light will fall on a particular point in time, illuminating it for a moment before the wind seals up the gap, and the world is in shadows again. And yet at the same time she wanted to-she had to-reveal those secrets. Tan Twan Eng, quote from The Garden of Evening Mists Memory is like patches of sunlight in an overcast valley, shifting with the movement of the clouds. Because of what she had gone through, and what she had become, no one was allowed into her head. because Yun Ling very much wanted to keep her secrets to herself. Tan Twan Eng said his novel was difficult to write How does Tan Twan Eng use the garden as a metaphor for memory?Ģ. Memory is one of the main themes of The Garden of Evening Mists. Scream To The Shadows RM43.50 Add to cart.Who is Aritomo and how did he come to leave Japan? And is the real story of how Yun Ling managed to survive the war perhaps the darkest secret of all? Related products But the Garden of Evening Mists remains a place of mystery. Aritomo refuses but agrees to accept Yun Ling as his apprentice “until the monsoon comes.” Then she can design a garden for herself.Īs the months pass, Yun Ling finds herself intimately drawn to the gardener and his art, while all around them a communist guerilla war rages. Despite her hatred of the Japanese, Yun Ling seeks to engage Aritomo to create a garden in memory of her sister, who died in the camp. There she discovers Yugiri, the only Japanese garden in Malaya, and its owner and creator, the enigmatic Aritomo, exiled former gardener of the emperor of Japan. Yun Ling Teoh, the scarred lone survivor of a brutal Japanese wartime camp, seeks solace among the jungle-fringed tea plantations of Cameron Highlands.

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