Silk

I read this yesterday.  It was a thin book so it didn't take long.  I'm glad I read it in 1 sitting because I managed to stay in the atmosphere of life in 1850s France and Japan. It's all about a married French man called Herve, who has the job of buying silk eggs/worms/cocoons for the silk weavers in his French town.  As soon as the silk eggs in Northern Africa become diseased he is forced to take the gruelling journey to Japan. The long journey is described about 4 times during this book for the 4 times he travels.  The journey might be long but the trip is quickly described in one paragraph each time. Because this story is not about travelling, it is about his obsession with the mistress of a powerful clan leader in Japan.

The couple can't communicate or directly touch each other but through slight erotic actions it becomes clear how much they both lust after each other. She manages to hand him a short letter which he can't read until he gets back to France.  There is one Japanese woman nearby, who also happens to be a prostitute, who lives in Nimes. (Both Japanese women in this book are whores.  Probably the only paid professions for them at the time. ) his desire to go back to Japan begins to take over his life.  He is in a state of loss for experiences he's never had.  His boss and his wife try to find out what is wrong with him but nothing is shared. Each time he goes back to Japan things change a little with really atmospheric images of ways to show their love/ lust for each other.  But the last time he goes Japan is in the middle of a civil war and the silk worms are nowhere to be seen. A young boy risks his life to take Herve to her and he goes back to France without both silk worms and her.

All through this book there are two other characters.  Herve's boss and Herve's wife. Herve's boss is brilliant and even though he is one of the richest men in the town he is the least bothered by the money he creates  and just wants to hear about Herve's travels. He is quite an eccentric.  Herve's wife plays a back seat role. Well kind of...

I enjoyed this.  Reading it in one sitting was totally absorbing, like being in a fairy tale. Sometimes it was a bit pretentious and other times not.  ( it is translated from the Italian.)

 I liked the simple links to history.  The Brits  selling weapons to the Japanese for their imminent civil war, ( first at grabbing a lucrative gap in the  newly opened Japanese free market.) and Pasteur in France trying to work out how to stop locally cultivated silkworms from dying: Little details in the vast world of science, love and war. 

Plus the ending was a surprise. It made me cry. ( or maybe I was just over tired.) Today I have been thinking about this book more than I thought I would, and I some of the beautiful images will stay with me for a long time.