Silk

This book was recommended to my by a friend, who read it in German. I was able to track down this German translation and I was unable to put it down. Beautiful language with attention to sound and detail. Simply beautiful.

Alessandro Baricco's SILK is a rare extended poem or aria of a novel. The author's background as a musicologist is evident in the way he fashions his tale of sensuality and eroticism: statements are made only to be repeated verbatim later in the story of four excursions to Japan as though having said it once merely requires a reprise; moments of visual senses and responses are in fragments, like breaths inhaling and exhaling the unspeakable quality of beauty and desire; the 'chapters' are brief, often one page in length, like an aside to the reader. It is a hauntingly beautiful song and Baricco composes it well (the translation from the original Italian by Ann Goldstein is equally as sensitive). Hervé Joncour is a silkworm merchant living in 1861 France in a town Lavilledieu whose wealth is dependent on the silk manufactured form the eggs and hatched larvae of the silkworm. He is married to Hélène Joncour, a beautiful wife who allows her husband to make trips to far away lands to support the town industry. They are a happy couple, hoping for a child. Baldabiou is a businessman who encourages Joncour to travel to the then dangerous Japan to gather silkworm eggs not infected with the disease that threatens local eggs. Joncour sets out to Japan, a long journey through Europe, Russia, Siberia, and China to a Japanese village Shirakawa where he meets he chieftain Hara Kei - but more importantly, where he first encounters the gaze of a nameless beautiful woman - a girl with eyes not the shape of Oriental eyes - who appears to be a mistress of Hara Kei. That exchanged gaze, wordless, leads to the obsessive infatuation that rules Joncour's life. The story repeatedly visits this moment and the clandestine 'love' that occurs between the two. How Joncour and Hélène and Baldabiou and Hara Kei weave in and out of this silken fantasy provides the quiet yet operatic dénouement for this whisper of a story. Baricco manages to teach us about the silk industry, about the politics of the time, and about the East/West relationships with succinct means. But the greater challenge of the book is the relating of the erotic dream that is as elusive as the strands of silk that start it all. This is a novella (an extended poem) to be re-read many times, not only for the story but also for the magic of the author's unique writing. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, January 08

I believe it is a proverb of the African bushmen, "A story is like the wind, it comes from a far-off quarter, and we feel it." Those words were invented to describe this stirring gem from Baricco. His prose feels much like a light autumn breeze, soft yet wondrously mermerizing. With ballad-like refrains and sublime descriptions of the harmonious way of Japanese life, we are drawn into an evocative portrait of what it means to be human, at our most elemental, and the effect is awesome. The hypnotic curiosity of a distant unrequited love leads the novel to its stark and tempestuos end, which lingers in your mind long after you've turned the last page in bewilderment. I have never read such an effortlessly haunting saga of compassion, obsession, intrigue. Kudos to the translator for retaining Baricco's original Italian delicacy. It takes about 2 hours to journey between the novel's shores, but I bet you'll take the voyage more than once.

I was simply overwhelmed after having read this book, which was a very pleasant and challenging introduction into Alessandro Baricco's world. This is more than a book, it is a soft touch which tells you the beautiful story of nostalgia for a love that can never be lived. It will not take you more than one hour to read it, but it will be one hour full of peace, in which you will discover the mistery of a life, of a country, of sensual love, of an illusion.Baricco is very poetical and his simple and delicate manner of story telling, which flows like a river, is what makes the book great. The beauty comes also from the understated sensuality and passion that derives from the plot, as well as from the "silence" that this book gives off. You can feel there is no need for too many words - too much has already been told. The whole story is written with a soft pen, as if instead of ink, the writer used silk. This is perfect to create the a subtle and exotic atmosphere. In only 100 pages one can find out about Herve Joncourt and his life, his wife, his business partners, his travels to Japan, the imposibility to fight and win his love and touch his dream. I don't want to say too much about Silk, as I would like you to convince yourselves that it is just breathtaking.

Silk, by Alessandro Baricco, is the story of Hervé Joncour, a French silk breeder living in the small town of Lavilledieu. In 1861, when epidemics were striking the hatcheries of Europe, Joncour began to travel to Syria and Egypt to acquire healthy eggs for the town. When his friend, Baldabiou tells his of the extraordinary silk produced in Japan, Joncour embarks on the first of four journeys to what then was determined to be "the end of the world." Traveling by train, horseback, and ship, Joncour always takes the same route and always deals with an enigmatic man named Hara Kei, "the most elusive man in Japan, master of all that the world contrived to carry off the island." But more important to Joncour than Hara Kei is Hara Kei's concubine, a young girl, of which we learn nothing, excpept that "her eyes did not have an Oriental slant." Even though they do not touch and do not speak, Joncour, a true romantic, falls instantly in love with this strange and beautiful girl and comes to believe that his love is returned, although by his fourth and final trip to Japan, he does resign himself to the fact that she will remain forever out of his reach. Civil was in Japan has torn Hara Kei's village apart and Joncour returns to Lavilledieu and to his faithful and loving wife Hélène, resigned that "in the whole world there was nothing beautiful left." Now a wealthy man, Joncour settles down to life in Lavilledieu with Hélène util the arrival of a letter, posted in Belgium, arrives. Written entirely in Japanese, Joncour believes it looks "like a catalogue of the footprints of little birds, fantastically meticulous in its compilation." When the letter is finally translated, Joncour learns the earth-shattering truth, truth he should have known all along, and his life, as well as the lives of others, are shown to be nothing more than a heart-breaking string of missed opportunities and the vulnerability of assumptions. What is most powerful in Silk is not what is said, but what is left unsaid. The book is highly stylized and enigmatic. We are never given any details about Hara Kei's concubine, Joncour's journeys to the East, or Hélène's feelings about her husband. Yet, I find I must disagree with those reviewers who criticized the book as containing little character development. I felt the characters were developed most excellently and by the book's end, I felt I had come to know most of them and was certainly able to identify with their plight. And, although the writing is lyrical, with strong undercurrents of eroticism throughout, it is both ephemeral and spare. It is most definitely prose and not poetry. Much in this book is reiterative narration, leading us to believe that nothing that happens in Japan upsets the calm day-to-day existence of Joncour and his wife in Lavilledieu. Even late in his life, Joncour spends his days "with a liturgy of habits that succeeded in warding off sadness." Silk is a sm