The Commoner: A Novel (Hardcover)

by John Burnham Schwartz (Author)
Key Phrases: washi paper, imperial messenger, Crown Prince, Imperial Family, Princess Keiko (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Schwartz bases his finely wrought fourth novel on the life of Empress Michiko of Japan, the first commoner to marry into the Japanese imperial family. Haruko Tsuneyasu grows up in postwar rural Japan and studies at Sacred Heart University, where she excels—particularly and fatefully—at tennis, which provides her entrée to the crown prince, whom she handily beats in an exhibition match. After more meetings on and off the court, the prince asks Haruko to marry him. Persuaded by their mutual attraction and by assurances that the break with tradition will usher in a modern era, Haruko ultimately agrees, against her father's wishes, to become the first commoner turned royal. But, as her father had feared, her freedom and ambition suffer under the stifling rituals of court life. Eventually, Haruko succumbs to the inescapable judgment of the empress and her entourage, falling mute after the birth of her son, Yasuhito. Though the narrative loses some of its life after Haruko marries—perhaps mirroring Haruko's experience within the palace walls—urgency returns after Haruko chooses a wife for Yasuhito; the marriage tests Haruko's dedication to the crown. Schwartz (Reservation Road) pulls off a grand feat in giving readers a moving dramatization of a cloistered world.
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From Bookmarks Magazine
John Burnham Schwartz bases his fourth novel on the Empress Michiko and Crown Princess Masako of Japan. Though Japanese imperial life remains shrouded in mystery, Schwartz teases out the details through extensive research. Much to the astonishment and pleasure of the critics, he gives Haruko an authentic and completely convincing voice. While his vivid depictions of postwar Japan are stunning, it is Haruko’s vibrant inner life that propels the narrative and resounds with readers. Though not as intense as Reservation Road (1998), Schwartz’s unflinching portrayal of the aftermath of a child’s death, and though slightly marred by an implausible ending, The Commoner will captivate readers by providing a haunting look into the 2,000 years of secrets surrounding the Chrysanthemum Throne.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Nan A. Talese; First Edition edition (January 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385515715
• ISBN-13: 978-0385515719
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (65 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #111,276 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An incredibly engrossing read, January 27, 2008

By	David N (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

Such a beautifully written and fascinating story. I found myself so quickly and thoroughly caught up in a world that was previously completely unknown to me that it was hard for me to tell where biographical/historical fact ended and novelistic invention began. The fact that the story of Haruko's marriage into the semi-divine confines of Japan's royal family is in fact based on a true story only makes this book that much more intriguing. Although it's completely authentic in its tiny details of palace life, ultimately what makes this book so pleasurable in the read is it's first person narrative. Haruko is a marvelous and original character that you can't help but root for. Her journey from a cloistered family upbringing in the rubble of World War II through Japan's remarkable 20th century history is so deep and so true that it's hard to believe it was written by a man. Interestingly , one thing I kept thinking as I was enjoying this wonderful book, is that by bringing me into to the interior life of this uniquely contemporary Japanese monarch that I was somehow gaining access to another late 20th century royal icon - on a different continent - who also paid a price for being born a commoner.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars His Daughter-in-Law Elect, February 5, 2008

By	Jay Dickson (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

John Burnham Schwartz's roman à clef about the Japanese imperial family takes as its centerpiece one of the most startling stories of the continuation of ancient royal tradition into the twentieth century: the life and career of the current Empress Michiko, the first commoner in memory to marry an heir to the throne. The empress's life has been paradoxically both intensely dramatic and intensely stultifying. Despised by the court insiders (and supposedly in particular by her imperial mother-in-law) for her common birth and unfamiliarity with court customs, and worn down by the dullness of court routine and the strictures of imperial tradition, the empress allegedly had a nervous breakdown in the early 1960s after the birth of her first son, losing her voice completely for several months. Then, when her husband succeeded to the throne and her son wanted to marry another commoner (this time an Oxford-educated career diplomat), she saw her own new daughter-in-law go through the same horrors she had three decades previously and then even more when the young woman cannot produce a male heir.

Schwartz has as his narrator the empress, here known as "Haruko." The names are changed not to protect the innocent, but rather because Schwartz varies from the story of the current empress particularly at the end, where he imagines a different fate for the current crown princess heroically engineered by her kindly mother-in-law. There's little here critical at all of the current empress or of her husband, son, or daughter-in-law: only the emperor's dead parents are treated as in any way less than fully sympathetically (his mother is basically treated as a wicked witch). As a result it seems almost impossible that the crown princess (here called "Keiko") could get into the emotional fix she does, since everyone here seems constantly brimming over with high promises and kindly intentions. (Surely there could have been a more balanced and honest way to tell these women's stories, even as told from the empress's own perspective.) The best thing about the book is its lovely prose style, which seems simultaneously elegant and understated, as prettily befits its subject. And where else will you find a novel told from the point of view of an actual living empress? That rarity alone makes it worthy of attention.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The rating fell as I read on, March 17, 2008

By	Japan Reader (eastern Japan) - See all my reviews

I began this book willing to give it a definite three or possible four based on the concept and the writing, but as I read on the rating steadily fell, until I got to the end convinced that this was worth one star at best. As one other reviewer said, it touched my head but not my heart -- that's a big part of it, but hardly all.

The characters were flat and none of them, including Haruko, ever really came alive. She herself was tepid, and most of the others were worse. This made it very hard to sympathize with any of them or their problems. I've lived in Japan for 20 years and know the ins and outs of the royal family pretty well, so I was very disposed in this book's favor when I began. There were a few moments during Haruko's falling in love with the Crown Prince that I did feel a spark of life in the book, and interest in myself. But that faded fairly fast. I suppose the author's intention was to create a book as mannered as the Imperial Family -- well, that succeeded. Mannered unto death, and boredom. Maybe that was his intention too.

It also seemed as if the author was more interested in having each phrase be a work of art than in actually bringing the plot or the characters alive. But this "art," enjoyable enough at the start, gradually became cloying, until by the end of the book I was cringing. A few examples:

"He spoke from his heart, and then he took it with him."
"The eyes I found looking back at me held no past and no future.
"The lack of evidence was so astounding....that over time it had the effect of a powerful narcotic...separating them from their honest perceptions and absorbing all curiosity."

This is purple prose you might expect of a novice, or a romance writer (sorry, romance writer friends), not an author with four published books to his credit. In addition, it seemed he chose images and incidents designed to play to a Western idea of what Japan is. All the cliches are trotted out: red falling maple leaf, the kimono (once a sash is "blood red" -- bit overdone, again), a child whose hair smells of "plum blossoms" (in autumn, metaphors getting a bit messy there). While the problems of Japan's imperial family partly -- or largely -- stem from aspects of their nationality, he's missing the biggest story here, a universal human one. A woman whose job is to produce a child suffers from fertility problems, etc. If drawing a story from the real imperial family, there are much more interesting stories to write than the one we get here. Even this one could have been told with much more life, if the author weren't determined to make it "artful" and "exotic." Japan is way less exotic than people think these days -- it's the land of Toyota, Nintendo, anime -- all of which are part of our lives. Yet people persist in loving these little bits of exoticism more than the true face. Most Japanese didn't like "Lost in Translation" because it played to stereotypes. This book does too.

Finally, a lot is simply unbelievable. Besides the ending, which could never, ever, ever take place. The supposedly touching scene where a father sits on his daughter's bed to talk to her at nighttime, in early 1960s Japan? Well, to start with, I find it hard to believe that a traditional family -- the father's a sake brewer, for goodness' sake -- would have had a bed in that era. But for the father to come in and sit on the side of his daughter's bed -- that would never have happened. It's a very American gesture that even in Japan today would be almost unimaginable. A Japanese father would be far too embarrassed to do that with a grown daughter even now, never mind the early 1960s. The way the Empress expresses herself. What the young, new Crown Princess says at a news conference.

And the author, for all his supposed years of research, messed up some very basic facts. The worst was when he had two people at the imperial family's villa in Nasu, taking "small walks by the seaside." I'm sorry, Nasu is in the mountains. Some people may say that a tiny slip of fact shouldn't make a difference in fiction, but it makes the author seem sloppy. This, on top of the purple prose, really detracted from my reading experience.

I wasn't impressed with "Bicycle Days," which I thought was a patronizing look at Japan that pandered to stereotypes. This book hasn't changed my impression of the author much. I wish I hadn't bought this book in hardcover. Borrow it from the library or wait for it in paperback, please.