Across the nightingale floor

It is said that the Otori castle is unbreakable, soldiers are everywhere to be seen and, above everything else, it counts with a nightingale floor. It is an absolute masterpiece that provides the castle with a solid security having into account that no one can cross it unheard – the nightingale floor sings as a human foot step on it, which makes it impossible to break into the castle.

Impossible?

Impossible is nothing. Overall for Otori Takeo.

The story I am talking about is the one shown in the saga Tales of the Otori written by Lian Hearn, being ‘The Nightingale Floor’ the first one. It takes place in an alternate-universe feudal Japan, where some cultural and traditional similarities can be found – it can be said that it is the same and yet, different.

The story starts when the main character, Takeo finds his own village and people –The Hidden- massacrated by one of the dominating lords of the country. He is supposed to be a normal kid, but on his first encounter with that lord, he dodges one of his attacks with an estrange movement. Time later, after he is adopted by Otori Sigeru, he discovers his birth-father was a member of The Tribe, a secret organization of assassins and spies with supernatural powers.

As you may see, it has all the ingredients to be the beginning of a great adventure:  All the difficulties Takeo bump into lead him across the most dangerous quests and to his own unimaginable fate.

I have seen so many bad critics about the Japanese practices described in the book, which, in my opinion, doesn’t make any sense. There are a lot of people who support the idea of a bad research from the author about Japan, but I would like to emphasize that neither the setting nor the period is intended to be any specific era, though echoes many facts of this culture.

In my opinion, this book is worthy read, a real page turner: it draws your attention and you can’t stop reading! It is a book of honor, identity and determination which, together with the fantasy issues and a Japanese style context create an interesting and original story. Also, the author combines both first and third person, which gives the book different points of view and some changes the reader usually needs.