∎ Libro The Teahouse Fire Ellis Avery 9781594489303 Books

The Teahouse Fire Ellis Avery 9781594489303 Books

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The Teahouse Fire Ellis Avery 9781594489303 Books

Such a huge amount of information, beautifully presented. Especially fascinating to me was the narrator's ability to adapt to new languages, remember old ones, and move back and forth with a child's ease. To a language lover, this was a sidelight that added immense realism and interest. I ordered Avery's memoir on the basis of this book.


Tags : The Teahouse Fire [Ellis Avery] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. <DIV><b>“Like attending seasons of elegant tea parties—each one resplendent with character and drama. Delicious.”—Maxine Hong Kingston</b> The story of two women whose lives intersect in late-nineteenth-century Japan,Ellis Avery,The Teahouse Fire,Riverhead Hardcover,1594489300,Literary,Americans;Japan;Kyoto;Fiction.,Japanese tea ceremony;Fiction.,Kyoto (Japan);Social life and customs;19th century;Fiction.,American First Novelists,Americans,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction Historical,Fiction Literary,Historical - General,Japan,Japanese tea ceremony,Kyoto

The Teahouse Fire Ellis Avery 9781594489303 Books Reviews

I loved this book. It was a pick of my book club. We all liked it. I may have loved it more than most. It was not an easy read and you had to really pay attention. However, that being said, one got a sense of how the main character struggled with her ethnicity and gender in Japan during the opening of the Far East by the west. It was incredible and I was transformed to an era I was not familiar with.
Wanted to love it but found it tedious. Finally skipped to the end. which I rarely do.
The Teahouse Fire, Ellis Avery's first novel, is an epic of late 19th century Japan, as seen through the eyes of an American orphan--Aurelia Bernard.

After a teahouse fire, Aurelia escapes the torment of her Uncle Charles, and is adopted by the Shin family, who change her name to Urako. Guided by the daughter of a famous Kyoto tea master, Urako learns--among other things--that "a teahouse is a net to catch the sky."

Urako falls in love more than once, and is loved more than once. The sensuality of her inner world and the formality of Japanese tea ceremony (and the hierarchy from which, in part, the ceremony arises) lend this book both tension and grace. In the end, Urako must leave Japan and return to America. She strips away all that is unessential and basks in that which remains--love.

Avery's prose is hypnotic and precise. One hears in the cadence of sentences, and in the attention to detail, a lover of beauty. "Sharp. Sweet. Grass. Green. That bowl of tea was all things in all places. A pivot between the living and the dead."

Read this book. You will enjoy every sentence.
This book started out rather well but went to weird quickly. My wife found herself drifting off as she was no longer engaged with the story. Overall, a time waster.
Basing a novel around the art of tea in Japan is in interesting idea, especially when the main character is a foreigner who got involved by chance. However, three quarters of the way through, I lost respect for both of the main characters, especially Aurelia. The things she did made it seem like she was one of those insane friends who would do anything for attention. So to summarize, good beginning, bad ending.
I started this book and found it very slow going. Difficult to get into, difficult to get to know the characters. I read about halfway, and then gave up entirely. I don't know if something important happened in the second half, but now I don't really care. I don't even remember the unmemorable characters.
I didn't even finish the book as I felt I had learned way more about tea ceremonies than I ever wanted to know. There is a good story here and a historical perspective. I wanted to hang in there but every time the plot started to move ahead it stopped again with more tea ceremonies.
Such a huge amount of information, beautifully presented. Especially fascinating to me was the narrator's ability to adapt to new languages, remember old ones, and move back and forth with a child's ease. To a language lover, this was a sidelight that added immense realism and interest. I ordered Avery's memoir on the basis of this book.