The Crane Wife
Ratings17
Average rating3.4
A magical novel, based on a Japanese folk tale, that imagines how the life of a broken-hearted man is transformed when he rescues an injured white crane that has landed in his backyard.
George Duncan is an American living and working in London. At forty-eight, he owns a small print shop, is divorced, and lonelier than he realizes. All of the women with whom he has relationships eventually leave him for being too nice. But one night he is woken by an astonishing sound—a terrific keening, which is coming from somewhere in his garden. When he investigates he finds a great white crane, a bird taller than even himself. It has been shot through the wing with an arrow. Moved more than he can say, George struggles to take out the arrow from the bird’s wing, saving its life before it flies away into the night sky.
The next morning, a shaken George tries to go about his daily life, retreating to the back of his store and making cuttings from discarded books—a harmless, personal hobby—when through the front door of the shop a woman walks in. Her name is Kumiko, and she asks George to help her with her own artwork. George is dumbstruck by her beauty and her enigmatic nature, and begins to fall desperately in love with her. She seems to hold the potential to change his entire life, if he could only get her to reveal the secret of who she is and why she has brought her artwork to him.
Witty, magical, and romantic, The Crane Wife is a story of passion and sacrifice, that resonates on the level of dream and myth. It is a novel that celebrates the creative imagination, and the disruptive power of love.
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I liked it at first. In the middle, a little less. By the end, I was annoyed and bewildered.
(That's the honest-to-goodness truth. You can stop reading now, if you want. Nobody is making you read the rest of this little review. Or you can simply discount it as the thoughts of one reader. It's okay. Warning: lots and lots of spoilers.)
Let me tell you a little more, just in case you are thinking about reading this book and those three sentences are not enough.
I liked the imagery at first. The mysterious arrival of a crane outside George Duncan's door. The subsequent arrival the next day of Kumika at his workplace. George and Kumika's combined art that caused such a stir.
But then I became confused. It's very likely that it is just me. A volcano. Plunging fingers into a warrior and stopping his heart. George going out on Kumiko with his daughter's difficult friend.
Dreams A fire.
On and on. I couldn't fill in the spaces between the images. And I gave up caring about these characters, though I did manage to force myself to read through to the end. In the hope (unrealized) that the story would make some sort of sense by the conclusion.
I'll tell you that this is not the review I wanted to write, not the review I thought I'd be writing when I was happily reading along, a few pages in.
And I'd love it if you could ‘splain to me what I'm missing. Maybe that's all it would take.
Everything about this books suggests that I should hate it. Magical realism? Yup, hate that. Contemporary? Ew, why would I read about people who could be my neighbors unless it's true crime? Yet somehow The Crane Wife found its way onto my list of favorite books of the year. I connected with Amanda on a molecular level (despite having vastly differing opinions). Surprisingly I also really loved the variety of writing styles used and feel they affected the tone in an appropriate and noticeable way. In the end, did I get it? I don't know, but I loved it.
This book was magical. The first 1/2 is filled with yellow highlighting of the beautifully written phrases I wanted to remember and be inspired by. I could feel the loneliness of the two main characters, and the character's amazement at his interaction with an unexpected crane. For some reason I got a little bored 2/3rds of the way in, and one of the story lines didn't ring true, hence the 3 stars, but I enjoyed the ending.
