The Fox Woman
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4.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
The Fox Woman is a powerful first novel, singing with lyrical prose and touching the deepest emotions. A historically accurate fantasy, it gives us a glimpse into, and an understanding of, the history that shaped the people of one of our world's greatest nations.
But it is also a story about people trying to understand each other and the times they live in, people trying to see through illusions to confront the truth of who they are.
Kij Johnson has created an achingly beautiful love story, a fable wrapped in smoke and magic set against the fabric of ancient Japan. Johnson brings the setting lovingly to life, describing a world of formalities and customs, where the exchange of poetry is a form of conversation and everything has meaning, from the color of the silks on wears to how one may address others.
Yoshifuji is a man fascinated by foxes, a man discontented and troubled by the meaning of life. A misstep at court forces him to retire to his long-deserted country estate, to rethink his plans and contemplate the next move that might return him to favor and guarantee his family's prosperity.
Kitsune is a young fox who is fascinated by the large creatures that have suddenly invaded her world. She is drawn to them and to Yoshifuji. She comes to love him and will do anything to become a human woman to be with him.
Shikujo is Yoshifuji's wife, ashamed of her husband, yet in love with him and uncertain of her role in his world. She is confused by his fascination with the creatures of the wood, and especially the foxes that she knows in her heart are harbingers of danger. She sees him slipping away and is determined to win him back from the wild...for all that she has her own fox-related secret.
Magic binds them all. And in the making (and breaking) of oaths and honors, the patterns of their lives will be changed forever.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
HAn expansion of Johnson's acclaimed story "Fox Magic," this moving novel is based on a ninth-century Japanese fairy tale. Depressed by his failures in the emperor's court, Kaya no Yoshifuji brings his wife, Shikujo, and his eight-year-old son back to his remote country estate. There Kitsune, a young fox-woman, sees him and falls in love with him. Through the diaries of the three main characters, we see that as Yoshifuji's sadness drives him away from his wife, he finds himself strangely obsessed with the family of foxes in his garden. This obsession terrifies Shikujo, who has disturbing memories of a fox-man who once appeared in her dreams. Later, when Shikujo returns to the capital to try to salvage her son's career in the imperial court, Kitsune and her family use fox-magic to create an idyllic imitation of the human world, into which they lure Yoshifuji. He believes the illusion and marries Kitsune. But in this fairy tale, marriage does not end happily ever after. Kitsune fears that Yoshifuji will someday see that his beautiful human wife is in fact a fox, their house a hole in the ground and their dainty food mice and insects. It is clear that the precarious illusion will soon unravel. A meditation on poetry, ritual and humanity, Johnson's fairy tale is a literate, magical and occasionally grotesque love story. Yoshifuji and Shikujo often communicate with each other through poetry; beautiful haikus and wakas provide intense glimpses into their characters. Steeped in historical detail, Johnson's prose is uncommonly musical; it captures the atmosphere of Japan's old courts while avoiding ostentation. This is only Johnson's first novel, but it establishes her as one of SF's most remarkable stylists.
Customer Reviews
Amazing and fascinating read
I’ve read this book after checking out from my local Library. And for people who have a fascination with Japanese Mythology and folklore then this is a book for them