*** Oswald Wynd – The Ginger Tree

I really like the basic story (in 1903, Scottish girl goes to China to gets married, has affair, ends up alone to make her own way in Japan) and the central character (initially naive, somewhat conservative, slowly overcoming her upbringing and dealing with prejudices of race, class, and sex), but they’re not realized as well as I’d like in this book. Mary reads too much sometimes as the wish fulfillment of a person in the 70s (the book was written in 77) thinking about a young woman in 1903 — Mary’s evolution from naive girl to proto-feminist is a little too pat, and her insights benefit a little too much from 70s hindsight (or, in some cases, that hindsight is used to make an ironic joke, as when Mary inveighs against the horrible sound of the gramophone and wonders how any true music lover could want one). However, as the book goes on and Mary matures it’s as though the author matures with her — she becomes a more solid and real-feeling character and less of a cardboard cutout. By the end, she’s become interesting and unusual enough to miss her when she’s gone.