The same sort of floor installed in the home of Iida, Shigeru's mortal enemy. Shigeru, who has an inkling of Tomasu's true provenance, soon calls upon Tomasu to test his tread along a nightingale floor, a floor designed to sing with warning when trod upon. As his training continues, however, Tomasu exhibits certain other skills: an uncanny sense of hearing, an eerily light step, and an ability to be almost in two places at once.
Tomasu is quickly integrated into life in the Otori home, receiving training in all manner of disciplines from Shigeru's close friend, the taciturn and impassive Muto Kenji. While Shigeru's actions initially seem serendipitous, coincidental, they begin to take on further meaning when he returns home, announcing that Tomasu be renamed Takeo, and become his heir. Everything except Tomasu, who is rescued by the warrior Otori Shigeru, who has been wandering the lands of the Tohan with retribution in mind: his brother, Takeru, was recently murdered at the hands of the Tohan, who are led by the callous Iida. And it does, as the warriors of the Tohan clan descend upon the village of young Tomasu, indiscriminately destroying everything in sight. However, given the war-like nature of the times, with the brazen battle for supremacy among the various feudal clans, and the ongoing persecution of the Hidden for their sacrilegious beliefs, it is inevitable that the careful harmony of their existence will one day come to an end. In Hearn's slightly canted take on Edo-era Japan, the Hidden Christians are instead simply the Hidden, small enclaves of people living quiet, unremarkable lives. The book's opening recalls Shusako Endo's Silence, which tells of the historical persecution of the Kakure Kirishitan: the Hidden Christians. Across the Nightingale Floor is the literary counterpart of this situation. Imagine that you have taken your train one station too far: when you alight, everything is familiar, but not quite. The novel takes place in an almost-Japan, in a reimagining of the country that has taken a very small, very cautious shuffle to one side or the other. It is this sort of aesthetic that bestselling pseudonymous author Lian Hearn seeks to capture Across the Nightingale Floor, the first in her Tales of the Otori trilogy. They are like wells: despite having a small, hemmed in surface of finite dimensions, their depths are unknown, dark, requiring close examination, speculation on behalf of the reader.
These stories comprise mere moments: a meeting of gazes, a gesture, a brief downfall of rain, the arranging of flowers, the steeping of tea. Japanese author and Nobel Laureate Yasunari Kawabata is famous for his ' palm of the hand' stories, stories so small and taciturn that they could fit in the grasp of one's curled fingers.
Across the Nightingale Floor appears in our list of young adult novels with Asian protagonists
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