Last week a colleague I don't know very well was going to Japan for a holiday. He said that he was spending a few days in a mountaintop monastery and was wondering how he'd cope with the silence.
This instantly made me think of David Mitchell's Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.
I asked if he read fiction and would he like to take this book with him.
He did and he said he would
but
as I handed my copy over I had some serious qualms about whether I was acting in accordance with my workplace code of conduct.
I mean, the first chapter is a fairly graphic description of a very difficult childbirth and some other extraordinarilty nasty things happen especially in the mountaintop monastery in feudal Japan.
Was my loan going to ruin his holiday?
He said he'd take my warnings on board and we both admired the cover. All of David Mitchell's Australian editions are gorgeous to look at.
I'm still waiting for my postcard.
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