The Tokaido Road

This historical novel was a mixed bag. It had the best sense of place of any Westerner-penned novel about feudal Japan I've read and the characters were appealing, but its length and incredibly slow pace as well as the relatively unexciting plot hurt an otherwise appealing book.

This book was incredibly well-researched. I'm fairly well-versed in the Edo period and fluent in Japanese, and I could find very few nits to pick. The author demonstrated such a broad grasp of Japanese history that I was surprised to find out that her other books are set in historical America. I was pleased to see samurai Japan faithfully brought to life, and everything seemed authentic.

While I thoroughly appreciated the detail that went into the book, there were also times where it was overkill. Much of the detail explained at length for Western reader's benefit described facets of life that a Japanese character of the time would've found unremarkable, and probably could've been safely glossed over.

The plot was also slightly disappointing. It's sort of a prequel to the Loyal 47 Ronin historical incident, which all Japanese people are intimately familiar with through theatre, film, and novels. The basic premise involves a revenge plot against the conniving samurai Lord Kira, who provokes rival Lord Asano into drawing his sword while in the Shogun's estate, a capital crime. After Asano's death, 47 of his retainers lie low for a couple years before avenging their former lord in a bloody, dramatic fashion. That's the historical tale, but this book focuses on Asano's fictional illegitimate daughter Cat. Hoping to round up her father's remaining loyalists and prepare for vengeance, she escapes from the brothel she works at and makes an epic journey along the eastern sea route (the eponymous Tokaido) to her father's fief. Her journey is mostly entertaining, but the book reads almost like an unabridged travelogue, with no detail spared. Several colorful characters drift in and out, but most are largely inconsequential to the narrative. Without giving too much away, her journey concludes in a less than triumphant manner, and the actual Loyal 47 Ronin revenge saga is resolved in about a dozen pages, with our heroine relegated to the sidelines. If you're familiar with the story through film and history books that's not a critical flaw, but those less of a background in Japanese history might feel slighted by the abrupt resolution.

While plot and pacing were a little on the weak side, I did enjoy the characters. Cat is beautiful, brave, and determined, but those qualities are balanced out by arrogance and occasional episodes of pettiness and imperiousness. Ronin bounty hunter Hanshiro lives up to the archetype while still avoiding becoming a cliche. He seemed like the kind of character Kurosawa's favorite leading man Mifune Toshiro would play. Peasant girl Kasane is a gullible bumpkin, but her loyalty and fundamental kindness endear her to both Cat and the reader.

Overall this book was a bit of a slog. Rich in detail, but meandering and overly long. I enjoyed the world it presented and the characters appearing within, but probably a third of the book's length was extraneous. I'd recommend it to fans of Japanese history and samurai, but those with only a passing interest in these topics would probably find this book frustratingly slow.