Flower Mat

First published as Hanamushiro in 1948, the setting for The Flower Mat is eighteenth-century Japan, a time when familes were bound together by a rigid code of honor and individual lives were of necessity valued far less than the interests of the group.

It tells of a young bride, Ichi, born into such a tradition, groomed in the virtues of ideal womanhood, and finally tempered by tragedy. Her life and fate are bound up inexorably with the fortunes of her in-laws, high-ranking officials. She so...