Rainbirds
The story depicts Chinese culture and the traditions of Chinese families as well. We see Chinese tradition in a world that is not Chinese at all. Still, the characters show in them all the basic elements of Chinese characteristics. Clarissa Goenawan has created quite an intensity in the story with the display of feelings of Ren Ishida for his murdered sister. The story is a murder mystery as well and a mystery that is of spiritual nature as well because a strange vision in the form of a girl wants to tell Ren something of great importance related to her sister’s murder. Ren a graduate having a close relation to his sister totally goes wild at her sudden death.
Ren wants to know the truth behind the murder and also tries to discover the reason behind her sister’s migration from Tokyo and the reason she left the family as well. It is the search for truth that takes Ren to the school in which his sister was teaching and the house in which she was living free of cost because she was providing some sort of service to the honor of the house who was a politician. He hears about a student named Rio who was a bit different from the rest of the students whom his sister used to teach.
The murder mystery takes him to different levels make him meet different sorts of people. Ren tries to link the matter with their past as well, the time that he spends with his sister and thus we become aware of their past as well through the visions of Ren. Arakawa the city in which Keiko was living and the development of the murder mystery makes Ren’s life a living hell the more he tries to indulge himself in it. David Shih has wonderfully performed his job as the narrator of the tale; it is he who keeps us attached to the mystery of the story until it is solved.
If you have enjoyed this amazing story and its soul-nurturing voice of narration then you should be enjoying other books from the same narration including The One-Straw Revolution and The Samurai’s Garden as well.
