The Printmaker's Daughter by Katherine Govier

Published by Harper Perennial on November 22, 2011

This lengthy novel spans the life of a woman named Ei, a woman who eventually thinks of herself as She Who Paints But Does Not Sew (or cook, for that matter). In early nineteenth century Japan, writers and artists are being censored, sometimes arrested. Ei's father, Hokusai, is an artist who barely earns enough to survive. He takes ten-year-old Ei with him on his daily trips to create and sell his art because Ei's mother doesn't want her in the home. Hokusai is pleased when Shino, an apprentice prostitute, takes responsibility for Ei while he paints. Part two finds Ei and Hokusai fleeing from Edo, making their way to a fishing village to avoid arrest. Part three takes Ei into adulthood, when she further develops her artistic ability, takes a lover and later a husband, encounters death, and learns to be cruel as she becomes her mother's daughter.

Part four rather abruptly shifts to the story of a Dutch physician named Philipp von Siebold. His life, of course, intersects with Ei's, leading -- in part five -- to Hokusai's second flight from Edo. Part six brings competition between Ei and Hokusai, a new lover for Ei, and the reappearance of Shino. Part seven begins when Ei is fifty and heralds the arrival of demon ships from the western world.

The story gets better as it moves along although it often falters; I never found it particularly intriguing. A good bit of the early chapters are taken up by prostitutes chatting with each other. Frankly, they have little to say of interest, making the first part of the novel rather dull. Other early scenes detail the bickering between Ei's parents. Much of what passes for drama in the story is of soap opera quality: the mother-daughter conflict and the husband-wife conflict produce predictable tears and hand-wringing but little genuine emotion. As Hokusai refines his understanding of the world (and of art), the novel strives for depth that it doesn't quite attain (although I give Katherine Govier credit for the striving). The ending is just too over-the-top for my taste; it seems inconsistent with the rest of the story.

Govier made some odd choices in her rendition of dialog. The speech of some characters is written in standard English while others speak with a heavy accent. Given that the characters with an accent are presumably speaking a Japanese dialect or a heavily accented form of Japanese, I had no idea why the English version sounded like a blend of Asian, Scottish, and Appalachian accents, with a bit of Elmer Fudd tossed into the mix. I assume this is intended to approximate the accent the characters would have if they were speaking English, but since they aren't speaking English, Govier's rendering of the accent comes across as silly.

There are bits of this novel I admired: the enthusiasm for art; the characters' insistence on being true to their artistic natures; the suppression of knowledge as a means of social control; the strong sense of place and time. I also appreciate that the crux of the story -- a woman's growth, her lifelong struggle for independence in a culture where subservience is expected, her desire to be recognized as an artist, her patience as she waits for her time to shine -- may resonate with some readers more than it did with me. Other novels with similar themes, however, have made a stronger impression on me than this one did, perhaps because other writers have handled the subject with more subtlety. Govier repeatedly tells the reader how much Ei wants to live her own life, outside of her father's shadow. I got it the first time, and the one note song becomes rather tedious by part six. In fact, much of the novel seems redundant; a good third of it could have been excised without harm.

Of greater interest to me than Ei's story was a political thread that runs through The Printmaker's Daughter. To the extent that Govier writes about Japan's transition from an isolated group of islands controlled by shoguns to an open nation that melded its spiritual tradition with western science, the story is captivating. If Ei's story had been as interesting as the background that surrounds her, I would have more enthusiasm for the novel. As it stands, I don't regret having read it, but I wouldn't recommend it to readers looking for something special.

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