Silk - Alessandro Baricco

One of the beautifully written short novel. Lovely use of language. The credit should be given to translator, in this case , Ann Goldstein. I never heard of this writer before .

This is the story of Herve Jancour, silk breeder living in a small village called Lavilledieu,France. The year is 1861.When their silk hatcheries were affected by the epidemic,the villages heeding to the advise of  Baldabiou, who knew everything about Silk breeding, sent Herve Jancour to Japan to get silk eggs.That was the first of his four journeys to Japan.

Helen , Jancour's wife was very beautiful and had a great voice. They were happy couple without any children. Jancour wanted to build a garden and he started to design it himself.

In Japan, he met Hara Kei ,who was sort of head of the community. He gave him silk eggs but Jancour was attracted towards the lady who was sleeping on Hara Kei's lap. Her eyes fixed on Jancour. From that moment Jancour was possessed by her thoughts.She sent ideograms.He kept on thinking about her. On his fourth journey to Japan, he saw destruction everywhere. The whole village was destroyed by the foreign force. And they were leaving the village en mass. He found a boy who lead him to the leaving group. Hara Kei asked him to go back. The next morning he found the dead body hanging on the tree. After few days he returned back to Lavilledieu with nothing as all his eggs were hatched.

After the death of his wife Helen, he received a letter which describes so many intimate things. There he found who sent the letter and the love which made the writer to write that letter.

This is a poetic story, bit of suspense , bit of travel and a pure love.I finished this book in matter of hour, to precise 1 hour and 16 minutes. Very few characters but each character is a mystery.In the whole story what is unsaid is more powerful than what is said.The author allows the reader to imagine whatever he wants.The language is neat ,precise and delicate which makes the reading a pleasant one, of course there are lots repetitive texts specially when describing the journeys but none is boring.

I think  if i read it again my thought on Helen and the Hara Kei's lady and the letter  will be different. That is the victory for the author. "To be nostalgic about something never happened!" that line is really poetic and made me to think a lot.

Kalachuvadu had published this book with the title 'Pattu'. I hope that the poetical essence of the original will remain in the translation.I have to read in Tamil too.

Very enjoyable read!