The Teahouse Fire, by Ellis Avery
The rigidity of Japanese society squeezes out the emotional life of this tale
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Arthur Golden's 1997 bestseller Memoirs of a Geisha started something of a "geisha boom" among Western readers. Europeans were beguiled not only by the lives of these super-classy sex workers, but by the cultural exotica surrounding their closed world. Ellis Avery's debut, a historical epic set in the mid-19th century, inducts the uninitiated into one of the essential accomplishments of geishadom – the tea ceremony.
The narrator, Aurelia Bernard, is a nine-year-old American orphan shipped to Kyoto to serve as domestic help to her missionary uncle. Her miserable indenture is prematurely ended following a house fire in which the two are separated. Aurelia ends up in a small teahouse belonging to the Shins, a prominent Japanese family descended from a long line of tea masters. Kukako, the daughter, takes pity on the waif, renames her "Urako", and adopts her as a surrogate younger sister.
A Franco-American child adrift in an alien world is a promising premise, but it soon becomes clear that the author is more drawn to cultural novelties than narrative pay-offs. Aurelia manages to pass herself off as a native (her features are thought to be the result of a botched abortion), and we are immersed in a world of choreographed ritual and Oriental aesthetics. Aurelia's speedy assimilation – though realistic – leaves the reader pining for a little less interior design and more emotional crisis.
At the heart of Aurelia's new life lies the rigorous discipline of chado – the "way of tea". At the beginning it is still an art practised by an aristocratic male elite, but as the Emperor's programme of "bunmei kaika" (civilisation and enlightenment) takes hold, Kukako requests instruction in the use of tea whisks and symbolic ceramics. In one memorable passage, Kukako and Aurelia demonstrate the tea ceremony for a Western trade delegation, who fail to register the sophistication of the centuries-old "dance" before them.
Infusing this impressively imagined tableau is an unconsummated love story. With no other love object on offer, Aurelia becomes fixated on her mistress, Kukako: her small breasts, her scent "sweet and sharp, like fresh earth" and her ever-changing coiffure. A relationship with another domestic, Miss Inko, relieves the itch, but never quite replaces Aurelia's passion for her inscrutable mistress. The novel is similarly frustrating: there is a bestseller waiting to get out, but the weight of history and convention gets in the way.
Vintage, £7.99. Order (free p&p) on 0870 079 8897
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments