Words fail me in the effort to express the superhuman act of will which was required to continue reading this book after the opening scene, wherein a young boy, Kikuji, spies his father's mistress clipping hairs from the birthmark which covers most of her breast.  Try shaking that image from your head.  At any rate, Kikuji, now a grown man, becomes involved with both another mistress of his now deceased father's and her daughter.  Meanwhile, the birthmarked mistress somehow feels free to meddle in his life and tries to set him up with another young woman.  All of this is set against the backdrop of the ritual of the ancient Japanese tea ceremony.  Eventually, as it must, tragedy strikes as one woman after another commits suicide.

Yeah, so?

If the word dysfunctional did not exist, it would have to have been invented to describe Kikuji's romantic life.  As if wading through your old man's detritus was not bad enough, topping it off by pursuing a mother and daughter would have to be described as begging for trouble.  Add to this the fact that none of the characters are terribly likable and that Kikuji is almost completely passive and you've got a book that is hard to fathom or to like.  Ultimately, I felt like there were too few suicides--I wanted them all put out of my misery and that birthmark trimming schtick purged from my memory.

(Reviewed:15-Jun-00)

Grade: (D) Orrin C. Judd

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