The Ash Garden
Encyclopedia
The Ash Garden is a 2001 novel by Canadian author Dennis Bock
. It is Bock's first novel, following on from Olympia, a collection of short stories published in 1998. The book follows the stories of three main characters affected by World War Two: Hiroshima bombing victim Emiko, German nuclear physicist Anton Böll, and Austrian-Jewish refugee Sophie Böll. The narrative is non-linear, jumping between different times and places, and the point-of-view alternates between the characters; Emiko's story being written in the first person while Anton and Sophie's stories are written in the third person. Bock took several years to write the novel, re-writing several drafts, before having it published in August 2001 by HarperCollins
(Canada), Alfred A. Knopf
(USA) and Bloomsbury (UK).
Critics gave it mostly positive reviews and it became a best-seller in Canada. It was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
, the Books in Canada First Novel Award
, and the Kiriyama Prize
. It has been analysed in several literature journals, including Canadian Ethnic Studies which noted the similarities between the character Emiko and the Hiroshima Maidens
.
was 36 years old and living in Toronto. He had previously published a book of short stories called Olympia, but struggled with this project that would become his first novel, taking several years to write the novel. Doubleday Canada
originally owned the rights but Bock withdrew the book from Doubleday citing "a difference of opinion" between himself and the editor. He had written two drafts, including one in which the main character was an art historian involved in art theft and looting during World War II
. With a working title of A Man of Principle, Bock gave the draft to editor Phyllis Bruce in 1999 and sold it to Knopf for US$250,000. He re-wrote most of the book with the help of Bruce, and two other editors, Gary Fisketjon of Knopf and Liz Calder of Bloomsbury (who published the book in the U.K.).
, though the back story of each character is told. Emiko was a small girl living in Hiroshima
with her parents, younger brother, and grandfather during WWII. Following the atomic bombing, with her parents dead, Emiko and her brother recover in a hospital and her grandfather cares for patients. Though her brother dies, Emiko travels to the United States as part of a group of girls receiving reconstructive surgery
. On the way, the American media takes an interest in the girls and she appears on an episode of This Is Your Life
thanking the American audience for bringing her to the US. She later becomes a documentary filmmaker and, in 1995, approaches Anton Böll to be part of a new project.
Anton was a scientist in Nazi Germany who, following a disagreement regarding the direction of its nuclear program
, is recruited by the US and flees via France, Spain, and Portugal. He becomes a part of the Manhattan Project
, witnesses the tests, and travels to Hiroshima recording the aftermath. Anton regrets the consequences of the atomic bombs, attends the Pugwash Conference
, but maintains his belief that it was necessary to end the war and prevented more deaths. He marries Sophie and becomes a professor at Columbia University
in New York. With Sophie, he retires to a small town outside of Toronto.
As WWII was beginning, Sophie's Jewish parents sent her away from Austria. She was on board of the MS St. Louis when it was turned away from Cuba and sent to the United Kingdom. She was living in a refugee camp in Canada when she met Anton. She was diagnosed with lupus
and takes up gardening, planning elaborate landscapes every year. In 1995, after refusing further medical treatments, and with Anton by her side, she succumbs to the disease.
After Sophie's funeral Anton reveals to Emiko the extent to which he had been involved in Emiko's life. He first met her while volunteering at the hospital in which her grandfather was working. Feeling he had to make amends in some way, he ensured that Emiko was on the list of girls to get reconstructive surgery, and secretly filmed her at memorial events. He had been waiting for her to find him.
, while the portions following Sophie and Anton Böll use the third-person. The tone was described as "disturbingly calm". Its central theme is that of identity and attempts to find solace. Bock states "All three of the main characters in The Ash Garden are refugees who don't belong anywhere. Each has a desperate search for home." In Harper's Magazine
, Pico Iyer
compares The Ash Garden with Michael Ondaatje
's The English Patient
as "a book that ends where Bock's begins". An essay in the journal Canadian Ethnic Studies, looked at The Ash Garden from the a Japanese historical perspective, finding strong similarities between the real-life Hiroshima Maiden
Shigeko and the character Emiko, but noting it was not a roman à clef
.
in Canada, Alfred A. Knopf
in the United States, and Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. Knopf ordered an initial print run of 60,000 copies. It debuted at the #2 sport on the Maclean's
fiction bestseller list and peaked at #1 in late-September and early-October. It was translated and published in multiple languages, including Japanese and German. The book was a finalist for the 2001 for the Books in Canada First Novel Award
, as well as the Kiriyama Prize
, an international literary award for promoting greater understanding of the Pacific Rim and South Asia. It was nominated by the Vancouver Public Library
and the Bergen Public Library
for the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
.
In Time
, Brian T. Bennett
wrote, "The Ash Garden may not be a page-turner, but Bock's prose lures the reader along through smooth, sculpted sentences full of rich detail and subtle meditation." In Maclean's
magazine, Brian Bethune wrote, "Intellectually engaging, beautifully written and powered by three memorable characters, The Ash Garden will seduce anyone who reads it." In the Christian Science Monitor, fiction critic Ron Charles
wrote "Bock moves back and forth through time in a series of exquisite scenes, always keeping his vision tightly focused, despite the world-altering events he describes. ... What makes the novel so compelling and disturbing, though, is its emotional restraint." Regarding the quality of the prose, a review in the Quill & Quire
said "Bock's writing is both dense and immensely readable" while the review in Library Journal
"highly recommended" it. In Books in Canada one reviewer highlighted that on "occasions, the prose turns mannered and cliches pop up". though a later review by W. P. Kinsella
called it a "brilliant novel...[with] superb plot twists that make it a spellbinding adventure in reading".
A Japanese review in the Yomiuri Shimbun
noted "something inaccessible about all three [characters...who are] as remote to each other as they [are] to the reader, and thus are never truly empathetic". The review in The New York Times
by literary critic Michiko Kakutani
called it "an elegant, unnerving novel" but that Bock "tries too hard to underscore those links by using leitmotif
s to connect his characters' experiences". In London, the review in The Sunday Telegraph was more critical, finding it "is badly let down by its form, a split-time-scale narrative...[and] is significantly short of narrative dynamism", while novelist Amanda Craig
concludes that it "reads as the work of a young writer who is straining with too much effort".
Dennis Bock
Dennis Bock is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His latest novel, The Communist's Daughter, published in 2006 by HarperCollins in Canada and Knopf in the US, and later in France, the Netherlands, Greece and Poland, is a retelling of the final years in the life of the Canadian surgeon...
. It is Bock's first novel, following on from Olympia, a collection of short stories published in 1998. The book follows the stories of three main characters affected by World War Two: Hiroshima bombing victim Emiko, German nuclear physicist Anton Böll, and Austrian-Jewish refugee Sophie Böll. The narrative is non-linear, jumping between different times and places, and the point-of-view alternates between the characters; Emiko's story being written in the first person while Anton and Sophie's stories are written in the third person. Bock took several years to write the novel, re-writing several drafts, before having it published in August 2001 by HarperCollins
HarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
(Canada), Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
(USA) and Bloomsbury (UK).
Critics gave it mostly positive reviews and it became a best-seller in Canada. It was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...
, the Books in Canada First Novel Award
Books in Canada First Novel Award
The Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a literary award given annually to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976....
, and the Kiriyama Prize
Kiriyama Prize
The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...
. It has been analysed in several literature journals, including Canadian Ethnic Studies which noted the similarities between the character Emiko and the Hiroshima Maidens
Hiroshima Maidens
The Hiroshima Maidens are a group of twenty-five Japanese women who were young when they were seriously disfigured as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945....
.
Background
At the time of publication, author Dennis BockDennis Bock
Dennis Bock is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. His latest novel, The Communist's Daughter, published in 2006 by HarperCollins in Canada and Knopf in the US, and later in France, the Netherlands, Greece and Poland, is a retelling of the final years in the life of the Canadian surgeon...
was 36 years old and living in Toronto. He had previously published a book of short stories called Olympia, but struggled with this project that would become his first novel, taking several years to write the novel. Doubleday Canada
Doubleday Canada
Doubleday Canada is an imprint of the publishing company Random House of Canada. The company was previously known as Forboys, and was incorporated in 1936 and since 1945, has been known as Doubleday Canada Limited. Since 1986 Doubleday Canada Limited has been owned by Bertelsmann AG.See...
originally owned the rights but Bock withdrew the book from Doubleday citing "a difference of opinion" between himself and the editor. He had written two drafts, including one in which the main character was an art historian involved in art theft and looting during World War II
Art theft and looting during World War II
Art theft and looting occurred on massive scale during World War II. It originated with the policies of the Axis countries, primarily Nazi Germany and Japan, which systematically looted occupied territories...
. With a working title of A Man of Principle, Bock gave the draft to editor Phyllis Bruce in 1999 and sold it to Knopf for US$250,000. He re-wrote most of the book with the help of Bruce, and two other editors, Gary Fisketjon of Knopf and Liz Calder of Bloomsbury (who published the book in the U.K.).
Summary
The narrative alternates between three characters (Emiko, Anton and Sophie) and takes place around the fiftieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of HiroshimaAtomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
During the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
, though the back story of each character is told. Emiko was a small girl living in Hiroshima
Hiroshima
is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
with her parents, younger brother, and grandfather during WWII. Following the atomic bombing, with her parents dead, Emiko and her brother recover in a hospital and her grandfather cares for patients. Though her brother dies, Emiko travels to the United States as part of a group of girls receiving reconstructive surgery
Hiroshima Maidens
The Hiroshima Maidens are a group of twenty-five Japanese women who were young when they were seriously disfigured as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945....
. On the way, the American media takes an interest in the girls and she appears on an episode of This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life
This Is Your Life is an American television documentary series broadcast on NBC, originally hosted by its producer, Ralph Edwards from 1952 to 1961. In the show, the host surprises a guest, and proceeds to take them through their life in front of an audience including friends and family.Edwards...
thanking the American audience for bringing her to the US. She later becomes a documentary filmmaker and, in 1995, approaches Anton Böll to be part of a new project.
Anton was a scientist in Nazi Germany who, following a disagreement regarding the direction of its nuclear program
German nuclear energy project
The German nuclear energy project, , was an attempted clandestine scientific effort led by Germany to develop and produce the atomic weapons during the events involving the World War II...
, is recruited by the US and flees via France, Spain, and Portugal. He becomes a part of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
, witnesses the tests, and travels to Hiroshima recording the aftermath. Anton regrets the consequences of the atomic bombs, attends the Pugwash Conference
Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs is an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work toward reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats...
, but maintains his belief that it was necessary to end the war and prevented more deaths. He marries Sophie and becomes a professor at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in New York. With Sophie, he retires to a small town outside of Toronto.
As WWII was beginning, Sophie's Jewish parents sent her away from Austria. She was on board of the MS St. Louis when it was turned away from Cuba and sent to the United Kingdom. She was living in a refugee camp in Canada when she met Anton. She was diagnosed with lupus
Systemic lupus erythematosus
Systemic lupus erythematosus , often abbreviated to SLE or lupus, is a systemic autoimmune disease that can affect any part of the body. As occurs in other autoimmune diseases, the immune system attacks the body's cells and tissue, resulting in inflammation and tissue damage...
and takes up gardening, planning elaborate landscapes every year. In 1995, after refusing further medical treatments, and with Anton by her side, she succumbs to the disease.
After Sophie's funeral Anton reveals to Emiko the extent to which he had been involved in Emiko's life. He first met her while volunteering at the hospital in which her grandfather was working. Feeling he had to make amends in some way, he ensured that Emiko was on the list of girls to get reconstructive surgery, and secretly filmed her at memorial events. He had been waiting for her to find him.
Style and themes
The portions of the book that follow the character Emiko Amai is written as a first-person narrativeFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
, while the portions following Sophie and Anton Böll use the third-person. The tone was described as "disturbingly calm". Its central theme is that of identity and attempts to find solace. Bock states "All three of the main characters in The Ash Garden are refugees who don't belong anywhere. Each has a desperate search for home." In Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer
Pico Iyer is a British-born essayist and novelist. He is the author of numerous books on travel including Video Night in Kathmandu. His shorter pieces regularly appear in Time, Harper's, NYRB and many other publications.-Life and career:...
compares The Ash Garden with Michael Ondaatje
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...
's The English Patient
The English Patient
The English Patient is a 1992 novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian novelist Michael Ondaatje. The story deals with the gradually revealed histories of a critically burned English accented Hungarian man, his Canadian nurse, a Canadian-Italian thief, and an Indian sapper in the British Army as they live out...
as "a book that ends where Bock's begins". An essay in the journal Canadian Ethnic Studies, looked at The Ash Garden from the a Japanese historical perspective, finding strong similarities between the real-life Hiroshima Maiden
Hiroshima Maidens
The Hiroshima Maidens are a group of twenty-five Japanese women who were young when they were seriously disfigured as a result of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima on the morning of August 6, 1945....
Shigeko and the character Emiko, but noting it was not a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
.
Publication and reception
The book was released as a hardcover on August 25, 2001, published by HarperCollinsHarperCollins
HarperCollins is a publishing company owned by News Corporation. It is the combination of the publishers William Collins, Sons and Co Ltd, a British company, and Harper & Row, an American company, itself the result of an earlier merger of Harper & Brothers and Row, Peterson & Company. The worldwide...
in Canada, Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf
Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. is a New York publishing house, founded by Alfred A. Knopf, Sr. in 1915. It was acquired by Random House in 1960 and is now part of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group at Random House. The publishing house is known for its borzoi trademark , which was designed by co-founder...
in the United States, and Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom. Knopf ordered an initial print run of 60,000 copies. It debuted at the #2 sport on the Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
fiction bestseller list and peaked at #1 in late-September and early-October. It was translated and published in multiple languages, including Japanese and German. The book was a finalist for the 2001 for the Books in Canada First Novel Award
Books in Canada First Novel Award
The Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a literary award given annually to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976....
, as well as the Kiriyama Prize
Kiriyama Prize
The Kiriyama Prize is an international literary award given to books which will encourage greater understanding of and among the peoples and nations of the Pacific Rim and South Asia...
, an international literary award for promoting greater understanding of the Pacific Rim and South Asia. It was nominated by the Vancouver Public Library
Vancouver Public Library
The Vancouver Public Library is the third largest public library system in Canada, with more than 2.5 million items in its collections, 22 branches, approximately 375,000 cardholders, and nearly nine million item borrowings annually...
and the Bergen Public Library
Bergen Public Library
Bergen Public Library is a library building and public library institution in Bergen, Norway. Founded in 1872, it is the second largest public library in Norway...
for the 2003 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...
.
In Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Brian T. Bennett
Brian T. Bennett
Brian Timothy Bennett is a Time Magazine correspondent based in Washington D.C.; he covers national security issues.Bennett is a native of Riverside, California; he attended The Thacher School in Ojai, California...
wrote, "The Ash Garden may not be a page-turner, but Bock's prose lures the reader along through smooth, sculpted sentences full of rich detail and subtle meditation." In Maclean's
Maclean's
Maclean's is a Canadian weekly news magazine, reporting on Canadian issues such as politics, pop culture, and current events.-History:Founded in 1905 by Toronto journalist/entrepreneur Lt.-Col. John Bayne Maclean, a 43-year-old trade magazine publisher who purchased an advertising agency's in-house...
magazine, Brian Bethune wrote, "Intellectually engaging, beautifully written and powered by three memorable characters, The Ash Garden will seduce anyone who reads it." In the Christian Science Monitor, fiction critic Ron Charles
Ron Charles
Ron Charles is deputy editor and a weekly fiction critic of The Washington Post "Book World", the book review section of the Post...
wrote "Bock moves back and forth through time in a series of exquisite scenes, always keeping his vision tightly focused, despite the world-altering events he describes. ... What makes the novel so compelling and disturbing, though, is its emotional restraint." Regarding the quality of the prose, a review in the Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire
Quill & Quire, a Canadian magazine about the book and publishing industry, was launched in 1935 and has an average circulation of 5,000 copies per issue, but its publisher claims a readership of 25,000...
said "Bock's writing is both dense and immensely readable" while the review in Library Journal
Library Journal
Library Journal is a trade publication for librarians. It was founded in 1876 by Melvil Dewey . It reports news about the library world, emphasizing public libraries, and offers feature articles about aspects of professional practice...
"highly recommended" it. In Books in Canada one reviewer highlighted that on "occasions, the prose turns mannered and cliches pop up". though a later review by W. P. Kinsella
W. P. Kinsella
William Patrick Kinsella, OC, OBC is a Canadian novelist and short story writer who is well-known for his novel Shoeless Joe , which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams in 1989...
called it a "brilliant novel...[with] superb plot twists that make it a spellbinding adventure in reading".
A Japanese review in the Yomiuri Shimbun
Yomiuri Shimbun
The is a Japanese newspaper published in Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, and other major Japanese cities. It is one of the five national newspapers in Japan; the other four are the Asahi Shimbun, the Mainichi Shimbun, Nihon Keizai Shimbun, and the Sankei Shimbun...
noted "something inaccessible about all three [characters...who are] as remote to each other as they [are] to the reader, and thus are never truly empathetic". The review in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
by literary critic Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani
is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning critic for The New York Times and is considered by many to be a leading literary critic in the United States.-Life and career:...
called it "an elegant, unnerving novel" but that Bock "tries too hard to underscore those links by using leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
s to connect his characters' experiences". In London, the review in The Sunday Telegraph was more critical, finding it "is badly let down by its form, a split-time-scale narrative...[and] is significantly short of narrative dynamism", while novelist Amanda Craig
Amanda Craig
Amanda Craig is a British novelist. Craig studied at Bedales School and Cambridge and works as a journalist. She is married with two children and lives in London....
concludes that it "reads as the work of a young writer who is straining with too much effort".
External links
- HarperCollins — The Ash Garden
- Curled Up With a Good Book — The Ash Garden