KJ
Reviews
The
Teahouse Fire by
Ellis Avery, Riverhead Books, 2006, 391 pp.
Reviewed by Susan Pavloska (KJ
#66)
The Teahouse
Fire is a historical novel of the subgenre known as the “Victorian
lesbian romp;” however, since the locale is Kyoto, and its protagonists
are practioners of the Art of Tea, displays of passion, like extraneous
talk in the tearoom, are subject to rules… “more honored
in the breach.”
The story centers on a real-life historical personage, Sen Yukako, who
introduced tea ceremony into the curricula of girls’ schools during
the Meiji Period (1868-1912). It is narrated by a fictional American
woman of French extraction, Aurelia Bernard, who, as a lost child in
the late-Tokugawa city of Miyako, is adopted by the infelicitously-named
“Shin” family as a servant and companion to Yukako, the
tea master’s only child. Despite this improbable beginning, Aurelia,
re-named Urako, soon adapts herself to the household; from this vantage
point she provides us with a fascinating, if necessarily confused account
of daily life in Kyoto during the crucial years of Japan’s struggle
to come to terms with the end of its centuries-long cultural and political
isolation.
Unlike other historical novels set in 19th century Japan, The Teahouse
Fire is located in the feminine interior of a Japanese house, making
us bear witness not only to gendered exploitation, but also to the back-breaking
labor necessary to create the one moment of beauty that is Tea. For
author Avery, the feminization of tea in rapidly-modernizing Meiji Japan
is not an indicator of its cultural marginalization (although Yukako
seems to regard it that way), but rather the expression of an idea whose
time has come. While in the West, giving parties is thought of as a
“female” activity (think of Woolf’s representation
of Mrs. Dalloway’s party as a symbol of thwarted female creativity)
Avery reminds us that the creation of the perfect moment between host
and guest in the tearoom was, in Japan, an exclusively male activity.
Teaching women the Art of Tea thus de-essentializes “male”
and “female” artistic forms, and also returns tea to its
egalitarian roots. Not only samurai but members of the merchant class
were deemed capable of understanding tea (Sen no Rikyu himself was,
after all, a member of the 16th century merchant class). Avery expands
this list to artisans, servants, women, and non-Japanese, and she even
opens the door to the interesting possibility that the study of tea
is best undertaken in cultures where equality is a core value. In any
case it is significant that, in their respective eras, both Miss Urako
and Rikyu are cast out and ordered to commit suicide for the same offense:
disregarding social distinctions, or more precisely, the relationship
between liege and vassal.
In one of the novel’s few love scenes, Avery draws a parallel:
the study of tea is mirrored in the acts of lesbian lovemaking. However,
the narrator’s sexual orientation is treated as matter-of-factly
as the numerous baroque developments in the plot. What emerges most
clearly from this carefully-researched novel is the realization that
Japan still has not resolved the dilemma of its national identity vis-à-vis
the West it encountered during the Meiji Period.
Copyright
held by the author
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