Product Description

This title is set in France, 1861. When an epidemic threatens to wipe out the silk trade in France, Herve Joncour (a young silkworm breeder) has to travel overland to distant Japan, out of bounds to foreigners, to smuggle out healthy silkworms. In the course of his secret negotiations with the local baron, Joncour's attention is arrested by the man's concubine, a girl who does not have oriental eyes. Although they are unable to exchange so much as a word, love blossoms between them, a love that is conveyed in a number of recondite messages. How their secret affair develops is told in this remarkable love story.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12553 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 112 pages

Review
"An intensely powerful and perceptive drama of the deepest human desires... One of the most astonishing and moving novels I have ever read." Daily Telegraph "A heart-breaking love story told in the form of a classic fable... A literary gem of bewitching power." Sunday Times "Silk is the perfect pick-up book... A book of startling images and ideas." Observer "Deeply moving - A delicately crafted love story and an anatomy of desire." Guardian"

Mail on Sunday
‘A haunting and delicately erotic novella’

Sunday Times
‘A heart-breaking love story told in the form of a classic fable… A literary gem of bewitching power’

Customer Reviews

"The inexplicable sight of his life as it had been..."
After medieval attitudes to outsiders and two large fantasy tomes, my most recent read was something of a change of pace: Silk, by Alessandro Baricco - a brief, moving, utterly beautiful fairytale of longing and loss, set predominantly in mid-19th-century France and Japan (& which, I hear, is to be made into a film, with Keira Knightley).

The story centres on Herve Joncour, a young French silk breeder. When silk production in his home town is threatened by disease, he travels to Japan in order to smuggle out uninfected silkworms. There, he finds himself captivated by the concubine of his local contact. Despite the danger, as Japan erupts in civil war, and despite his marriage to the loving but childless Helene, Herve finds excuses to return, repeatedly. Lacking a common language, never exchanging a mutually-intelligible word, and venturing little beyond stolen glances, Herve and the concubine fall in love.

It is told, with an elegant simplicity (one of the review quotes on the back compares the language to that of haiku, and I concur), in the rhythms and logic of fairytale. Lines and passages recur, becoming motifs, like the stylised repetitions of Herve's journeys to and from Japan, which punctuate the two poles of his life, his encounters with the concubine and his repeated reunitings with Helene. In a such a stripped-down narrative, the flashes of imagery - in particular, colours - are especially striking and resonant as evocations of mood and theme. The characters, likewise, are made archetypes, their longings and lusts universalised, larger-than-life.

And the conclusion, of course, is desperately poignant - bringing home, finally, how longings for things that will never be can obscure the things that are.

Silken words
Only 100 pages long a mere haiku of a book but intensely poetic and emotionally charged and very re-readable. In translation from the Italian I personally will never know what it has lost if anything but a wonderful, peaceful, wistful thoughtful read.

A beautiful and sensual novella
Barrico’s ‘Silk’ is the story of Herve, a young man working in the silk industry in Europe. Every year he must return to the orient to replenish the supply of silkworms because they cannot be bred in Europe. He develops an overpowering desire for his Japanese supplier’s daughter, despite only glimpsing her briefly. Back in Europe, Herve fantasises about her constantly, and is filled with longing for this girl who he has never really met. Each year is spent looking forward to his next trip to the east. Eventually he receives a letter in which the girl tells him of her desire for him, only to be shocked when he finally understands its source.
‘Silk’ is an achingly beautiful. It is sensual and erotic without being at all pornographic (except, perhaps, for the letter that eventually arrives). Herve’s love for this mysterious oriental girl is brilliantly contrasted with the loving familiarity provided by his wife in France. It is an examination of passion and the foolishness which accompanies it, and it is told in such plain language and simple style that it is instantly accessible to anyone who has every desired the unknown and mysterious.
‘Silk’ is only a small novella, but it completely blew me away. It is succinct, beautiful, familiar and powerful. Its sensuousness is overwhelming, and the denouement startling. One of the best novellas I have ever read.