The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama

Summary

A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight. Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soul-mate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy. (Goodreads)

The Samurai's Garden is a story about preservation and understanding about oneself and nature, beauty and life.

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Discussion topics

1. What comes to your mind when you read 'illness', 'secret', 'inner turmoil', and 'different cultures'?
   
2. The title of the novel obviously alludes to Matsu's garden, but to whom else could the title refer as a "Samurai"? Why?
3. It appears as though Stephen and Sachi are somehow juxtaposed. How is this connection represented and developed?
4. How is Stephen and Keiko's relationship represented?
5. What are some of the metaphors for the garden and how are they worked out in the novel?
   

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