The Tokaido Road is a 1991 historical novel

Historical novel

According to Encyclopædia Britannica, a historical novel is-Development:An early example of historical prose fiction is Luó Guànzhōng's 14th century Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which covers one of the most important periods of Chinese history and left a lasting impact on Chinese culture.The...

 by Lucia St. Clair Robson

Lucia St. Clair Robson

-Literary biography:Lucia St. Clair Robson was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in West Palm Beach, Florida. She has been a Peace Corps Volunteer in Venezuela, a teacher in New York City, and a librarian in Annapolis, Maryland. She has also lived in Japan, South Carolina, and Arizona...

. Set in 1702, it is a fictional account of the famous Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

ese revenge story of the Forty-Seven Ronin

Forty-seven Ronin

The revenge of the , also known as the Forty-seven Samurai, the Akō vendetta, or the took place in Japan at the start of the 18th century...

. In feudal Japan, the Tōkaidō

Tokaido (road)

The ' was the most important of the Five Routes of the Edo period, connecting Edo to Kyoto in Japan. Unlike the inland and less heavily travelled Nakasendō, the Tōkaidō travelled along the sea coast of eastern Honshū, hence the route's name....

 (meaning "Eastern Sea Road") was the main road, which ran between the imperial capital of Kyoto

Kyoto

is a city in the central part of the island of Honshū, Japan. It has a population close to 1.5 million. Formerly the imperial capital of Japan, it is now the capital of Kyoto Prefecture, as well as a major part of the Osaka-Kobe-Kyoto metropolitan area.-History:...

 (where the Emperor

Emperor of Japan

The Emperor of Japan is, according to the 1947 Constitution of Japan, "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people." He is a ceremonial figurehead under a form of constitutional monarchy and is head of the Japanese Imperial Family with functions as head of state. He is also the highest...

  lived), and the administrative capital of Edo

Edo

, also romanized as Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of the Japanese capital Tokyo, and was the seat of power for the Tokugawa shogunate which ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868...

 (now Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 where the Shogun

Shogun

A was one of the hereditary military dictators of Japan from 1192 to 1867. In this period, the shoguns, or their shikken regents , were the de facto rulers of Japan though they were nominally appointed by the emperor...

 lived).

Plot summary

So lonely am I

My soul is a floating weed

Severed at the roots

This is how Lady Asano has felt since the forced suicide of her father. Adrift in a dangerous world, she vows to avenge her father’s death and restore his name to honor. To do so, she will have to travel the Tokaido Road.

As the novel opens, Lady Asano has transformed herself into Cat, a high-ranking courtesan

Courtesan

A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...

, to support her widowed mother. Yet Cat’s career is temporary; the powerful Lord Kira’s campaign against her family is continuing and she must find Oishi, leader of the samurai

Samurai

is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...

 of the Asano clan, weapons master, philosopher, and Cat’s teacher. Cat believes he is three hundred miles to the southwest in the imperial city of Kyoto.

Disguising her loveliness in the humble garments of a traveling priest, Cat begins her quest. All she has is her samurai training—in Haiku

Haiku

' , plural haiku, is a very short form of Japanese poetry typically characterised by three qualities:* The essence of haiku is "cutting"...

 and Tanka poetry, in the use of the deadly six-foot weapon, the naginata

Naginata

The naginata is one of several varieties of traditionally made Japanese blades in the form of a pole weapon. Naginata were originally used by the samurai class in feudal Japan, and naginata were also used by ashigaru and sōhei .-Description:A naginata consists of a wooden shaft with a curved...

, and in Japanese Zen

Zen

Zen is a school of Mahāyāna Buddhism founded by the Buddhist monk Bodhidharma. The word Zen is from the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese word Chán , which in turn is derived from the Sanskrit word dhyāna, which can be approximately translated as "meditation" or "meditative state."Zen...

 thought. And she will need them all, for a ronin

Ronin

A or rounin was a Bushi with no lord or master during the feudal period of Japan. A samurai became masterless from the death or fall of his master, or after the loss of his master's favor or privilege....

, a lordless samurai—Tosa no Hanshiro, has been hired to trail her.

Excerpt from The Tokaido Road

Hanshiro prowled the narrow back corridor toward the dark doorway to the storeroom. He walked with a straddle-legged swagger and a slight limp. If the long, divided, pleated skirts of his hakama had been new and crisp, they would have flared almost to the wall on either side. But this hakama was limp and faded from black to a streaked bluish gray. The hems had raveled into a pale fringe. Even the tips of the fringe were frayed.

Behind him Hanshiro heard the rustle and squeak of women. He knew the maids were fluttering like radiant butterflies behind the paper walls, trying to see and hear. He could picture them whispering behind their sleeves. For a morning, at least, they had more on their minds than hairdos.

Hanshiro stood in the doorway of the storeroom and tried to conjure up the image of Cat, the woman who was to have been Lady Asano. He tried to form her from her handwriting and from the scent that lingered in her rooms. Was she a fugitive or a victim or a murderer?

External links

• Tokaido Road - Author's website, with book club discussion points, an excerpt, and background.