Book Review: The Office of Gardens and Ponds by Didier Decoin (Historical Fiction)

Title: The Office of Gardens and Ponds
Author: Didier Decoin
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Publication Date: 2 May 2019
Pages: 320
Format: eBook - PDF
Genre: Historical Fiction
Source: ARC via NetGalley
 


The village of Shimae is thrown into turmoil when master carp-catcher Katsuro suddenly drowns in the murky waters of the Kusagawa river. Who now will carry the precious cargo of carp to the Imperial Palace and preserve the crucial patronage that everyone in the village depends upon?

Step forward Miyuki, Katsuro's grief-struck widow and the only remaining person in the village who knows anything about carp. She alone can undertake the long, perilous journey to the Imperial Palace, balancing the heavy baskets of fish on a pole across her shoulders, and ensure her village's future.

So Miyuki sets off. Along her way she will encounter a host of remarkable characters, from prostitutes and innkeepers, to warlords and priests with evil in mind. She will endure ambushes and disaster, for the villagers are not the only people fixated on the fate of the eight magnificent carp.

But when she reaches the Office of Gardens and Ponds, Miyuki discovers that the trials of her journey are far from over. For in the Imperial City, nothing is quite as it seems, and beneath a veneer of refinement and ritual, there is an impenetrable barrier of politics and snobbery that Miyuki must overcome if she is to return to Shimae.


The Office of Gardens and Ponds is a beautiful, lyrical work that captivated me right from the first page. Decoin weaves an intricate world of magical realism through which the reader swims as if they too were one of Katsuro's carp. Miyuki is an engaging and interesting character, and I was invested in her from start to finish. I also loved the flowing, descriptive prose that engaged all the senses. It is a visceral work, but wonderfully so. I would recommend this to readers who love poetic, lyrical prose with hints of magical realism, and I would certainly be keen to read more from this author in the future, perhaps in the original French next time.