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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 2002, 304 pages
Paperback:
Jun 2003, 323 pages
A world-wide sensation, this first book of The Otori Trilogy is a brilliantly imagined, wholly seductive tale of war, passion, and intrigue, evoking the spirit of medieval Japan.
Every now and then a novel appears, completely unlike anything that has appeared before. Across the Nightingale Floor is such a work-a magical creation of a world beyond time.
Set in an imaginary, ancient Japanese society dominated by warring clans, Across the Nightingale Floor is a story of a boy who is suddenly plucked from his life in a remote and peaceful village to find himself a pawn in a political scheme, filled with treacherous warlords, rivalry--and the intensity of first love. In a culture ruled by codes of honor and formal rituals, Takeo must look inside himself to discover the powers that will enable him to fulfill his destiny.
A work of transcendent storytelling with an appeal that crosses genres, genders, and generations, Across the Nightingale Floor is a rich and brilliantly constructed tale, mythic in its themes and epic in its vision. It is poised to become the most captivating novel of the year.
My mother used to threaten to tear me into eight pieces if I knocked over the water bucket, or pretended not to hear her calling me to come home as the dusk thickened and the cicadas' shrilling increased. I would hear her voice, rough and fierce, echoing through the lonely valley. "Where's that wretched boy? I'll tear him apart when he gets back."
But when I did get back, muddy from sliding down the hillside, bruised from fighting, once bleeding great spouts of blood from a stone wound to the head (I still have the scar, like a silvered thumbnail), there would be the fire, and the smell of soup, and my mother's arms not tearing me apart but trying to hold me, clean my face, or straighten my hair, while I twisted like a lizard to get away from her. She was strong from endless hard work, and not old: She'd given birth to me before she was seventeen, and when she held me I could see we had the same skin, although in other ways we were not much alike, she having ...
Many books have kept me up at night but not many have caused me to wake up early to finish them. In this case, I took the book camping and was so hooked that, on waking at 4am, I left the warm confines of my sleeping bag, and sleeping family, in order to sit outside, shivering in the cold early morning, reading by flashlight until the sun rose two hours later! This isn't a particularly deep or intellectual book - just a ripping good mainstream historical fiction yarn.
Christina Reader, Watermark Books and Cafe, Wichita, Kansas
What a wonderful book of imagination! It reawakens the side of longing for good stories, a desire instilled in childhood and never gone. One looses the tedious realities and escapes into that innocence of fascination. Thank you!
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