Customer Reviews

Pearl Diver

5 star:		(39)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

What a beautiful book.
The main character, a strong young woman who is just learning the arduous trade of a Pearl Diver finds spots on her arm that can only be leprosy. She is disowned, and banished to a leprosorium. Forced to chose a new identity, as "Miss Fuji" she cares for other more severely affected patients.
The bulk of the story is told from her perspective, as she looks through objects found in the closed leprosorium.
The writing is beautiful, and instantly transports you to another world.
Every word is carefully, sparely placed.
The author's powers of description, and ability to create mood are remarkable.
Savor reading this, do not skim.
Amazing that this is a first novel!
I am recommending this to everyone I know, and plan to discuss this with my book clubs.

This book feels inspired by one of my favorite books of all time, The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama.

In this quietly moving novel of a young woman's life on the leper's island of Nagashima, Talarigo speaks of horror with tenderness, of dreams interrupted, families who disown the contaminated, condemning them to a slow death in isolation. Even though a cure is found in the 1940's, the officials refuse to release those patients whose disease can be controlled, fearing a public outcry. Consequently, the lepers remain on the island, sharing their stories, skills and incredible generosity. Voiceless in a society that will not hear them; the lepers comfort each other, compassionate in a world that has none for them

The story begins on the leper's island of Nagashima in 1948, where a young woman stands at the base of the suicide cliff. There desperate bodies have cast themselves into oblivion rather than face the empty years ahead. She looks across the sea, where the pearl divers begin their daily diving adventures, a life she once shared. Her disease has not progressed; in fact, there is medication to impede the progress of the disease. Still a young woman, "Miss Fuji" has only her memories of diving, deeper and deeper into the comforting silence of the sea.

Miss Fuji gives daily massages to the other lepers, cataloging their loss of fingers and toes, the result of an absence of nerve endings, causing frequent damage to limbs. At night the patients take turns, rotating watches in their vigilance against rats that nibble at the fingers and toes of sleeping victims. The pearl diver swims in at night to surrounding islands, her secret rebellion, where children play during the day. As the years pass, and the lepers are fractionally integrated into society, Miss Fuji is tethered to the only home she has really known, tethered by her heart and her emotions. Freedom is a concept she nurtures in her soul, preserving her private dignity.

The young woman and the people she has come to know so well make a livable space where the life is unlivable, where death and decay permeate the air, poisoning hope. For all their deformities, their insides shine with a light that cannot be extinguished. In the Japanese manner, the dying create a shrine to life: asked to be complicit in horror, they find whatever small redemption is possible, forming a spiritual chain to one another.

The Pearl Diver is a small but powerful testimony to the best qualities of humankind. With the precision of a calligrapher, the author pays homage to the pearl diver and the other shadowy figures that live and die on the island. The image of the pearl diver remains, washed in the dulcet tones of the past; her interminable kindness from inside the heart of isolation suggests the true nature of humanity in adversity. Luan Gaines/2004.

This is one of the most hauntingly beautiful books I have read. Talarigo's voice is fresh, unique and with bold simple strokes creates a rich tapestry of lives with all their strengths, frailities but above all it's their basic humanity that touches one deeply. It's a sad to think that all one reader got out of the book was "It's a little gross," I wonder why they even felt compelled to write such a comment. I read the galley several months ago and could not wait for it's actual release so that I could share this novel with friends. This is the loveliest book you will read this summer and one that will stay with you for a long time.

Talarigo has captured both the horrendous pain of the enslaved leprosy patients (try googling "Japan +leprosy" for historical context) and the will to overcome oppression in this story of a pearl diver with leprosy. The protagonist has a streak of rebellious independence, which combined with her hope for life outside the leprosorium, guides her through decades of abuse. A must read!

A beautiful first novel - Miss Fuji is a character to remember. Quiet, haunting, reflective, soulful are just a few words to describe this deeply telling and touching book. The ending is unforgettable - you will want to read this book in one sitting.

She's a nineteen year old Japanese girl beginning her dream career--pearl diver. It's a grueling job, diving for pearls, but one she wouldn't trade for anything else. Then the spots appear--first one on her forearm, then another on her back. She gets a deep cut on her forearm while diving, but doesn't feel the pain or the blood that flows from the gash. When she finally goes to a doctor, he renders the worst diagnosis she could hear in Japan at that place and time--leprosy.

She's taken into custody and moved to an isolated leprosarium which is itself isolated on an island. She is stripped of her identity for she is now a source of shame to her family and her nation. She has no family, no past. She's forced to choose a new name and begin a new life with a new family--patients forced into isolation just like her. The leprosarium is a harsh place, breaking the spirit of most who enter here.

"The Pearl Diver" examines the effect this type of enforced community has on individuals who still see themselves as people even though their society tells them they are not. The long-term effects are shown through Miss Fuji, the young pearl diver, as the story progresses through the years.

My biggest problem with the book was keeping track of the timeline. It was difficult at times to figure out how much time had actually passed; how old Miss Fuji now was, how long she had been on the island. But overall, Jeff Talarigo's novel is a walk alongside a young Japanese girl as she is forced to live out a life she never wanted, in a society that considers her untouchable. As the years pass and the fear and loathing of leprosy subsides, will Miss Fuji be able to make the change as well?

This is a novel of a young woman whose life was completely transformed upon diagnosis of leprosy. She was disowned by family and sent off to live with other in exile as they awaited death. They lost their identity, their familiarity of life and most of the sens of belonging.

Even after a cure was found in the 1940's this young woman and her fellow captives were banned from leaving the island due to possible public outcry. They remained on the island and formed a family of sorts depending upon one another for friendship, fellowship and intimacy.

The book begins on the leper's island of Nagashima in 1948, where "Miss Fuji" - (the name she gave herself upon stepping onto the island) - stands at the base of the suicide cliff. She glances across the sea, longingly seeking the sights of where pearl divers begin their daily diving adventures.

Freedom has come to represent an inner self that she expounds in her massages given to other lepers at this cast away island. Death and decay are prevalent to many that medication cannot help and she talks to these individuals with voice, a simple touch and a knowledge of deep compassion for fellow human beings. She creates a shrine to life and even when forced to become part of death to those unborn, she rises above the callous feelings of the doctors and nurses to assist those in need.

This is a very powerful work on how humankind can benefit from each other in times of crisis and times of misunderstanding. Those that live and die on the island are given new life by the author, and expound through the book as kindness, generosity and love from a simple Pearl Diver, no known as Miss Fuji. She is no longer bound by water surrounding the island, for she has risen above the pain and suffering through he struggles and small victories over ignorance of her disease.

Someone get me a calendar and a Gollum translator. I was much more excited about the thought of reading this book than the actual story itself. The timeline covered (1948-1990ish) is long and the book short, so it jumps from decade to decade quicker than Marty McFly. It's also somewhat repetitive, delivering the same message several times-I am a leper and shunned wrongly by society, it hurts me. But by far the part that was hard to wrap my head around was the dialogue. It's told in a first person, choppy, random thought process like the narrator is Gollum from Lord of the Rings. In his defense, Mr. Talagrio has tackled a tough subject and done a good job exposing the realities of dealing with a debilitating disease with inadequate medical knowledge. But I was disappointed at the lack of a real plot and the poor way in which that lack of a plot was told. Kudos to Mr. Talagrio for taking on such an admiral subject but less than stellar execution makes this one to pass on.

Unlike a lot of people living today, I don't have a hard time imagining what it must be like living in a leper colony. Vesta and I lived on a sailboat for about a dozen years in the Caribbean. During the safe months, we'd mostly spend our time anchored off the French side of St. Martin or, if we wanted some peace and quiet, at Ballast Bay on the southern side of St. Kitts. But during hurricane season we'd sail south to Trinidad or Venezuela where hurricanes don't blow and one of our favorite anchorages was a small deserted island between them called Chacachacare, which used to be a leper colony.

We'd often go ashore and explore the hospital or the nun's quarters or the old auditorium, the doctor's houses, the small houses the lepers who didn't have to be hospitalized lived in, the generator room. It was a small community on a small island, away from and out of sight of the population of Trinidad.

So in reading this book I had a pretty good picture in my head about living life as a leper on a small island within view of the mainland, though Trinidad and Venezuela were not within a swimmer's reach from Chacachacare as Nagashima is from Shodo in this story. Still the lepers could see out where the uninfected lived. It must have been horrible.

The pearl diver in this book is confined to the leper colony in 1948 and the age of nineteen and though she isn't infected as badly as the others, in fact she has no outward signs at all, this is where she must life. She adopts the name of Miss Fuji and stoically sets about helping to care for the lepers there as the years move on. However, sometimes she swims to neighboring islands during the night to watch children play, to see life as lived by ordinary people.

This is a story about life in a leper colony, about dashed hopes, about a kind of fatalism that those condemned to such a life accept. It's a story about humanity. It's a story about pain, suffering and loss and it's a story about the inherit goodness found in the human heart.

"The Pearl Diver" is a difficult book. Leprosy is not part of most our lives, and much of what we think of may involve Jesus Christ's healing of the 10 lepers in the Gospel of Luke. The book is not about leprosy, but it is the context which drives the story. It is about being confined in flesh, the ever present and ubiquitous human condition.

Imagine a young woman diving with great skill to the ocean floor. The grace, beauty and athleticism just off the shore of a Japanese island alone is an image to carry a reader through each page. Author Jeff Talarigo finds the proper tone and pace so as to begin the story well. A diagnosis of leprosy changes this scene, and the woman quickly moves to a leper colony. Her family cannot handle the shame and disowns her.

Giving context to the story are 'Artifacts', something Talarigo uses as object/symbols. The technique works like a subtitle within a chapter like as with "Artifact Number 0596: A bar of soap." The soap represents cleanliness and purity. Miss Fuji, as the young woman is called at the colony, carves them into shells or fish, and in them briefly finds freedom.

The tone of the book is beautifully dour. It never ebbs and flows like the waves of the ocean dove into, creating emotional exhaustion for readers who want to leave the book uplifted. But leprosy in the 1940s is not a happy disease. The disease itself is hard, as is the social outcasting that packaged with it.

It occasionally leaves a contemplative place and falls into sentimentality, and arcs into cynicism as Miss Fuji reacts against one patient who describes her faith to her. The most tragic portion is when Miss Fuji falls into intolerance, and "wants to rip their skin apart," whenever someone religious talks about what they believe. At once she claims it is OK for some, yet is enraged when patients discuss their beliefs openly.

The world continues on without her, and it will continue when she's gone. She understands this, but isn't satisfied and pursues freedom.

Excellently written, if a bit monotonic, "The Pearl Diver" is more than moralism wrapped in an exotic context. It looks for, and arrives at deliverance.

--Brockeim