She writes countless passages in the book in which he speaks, and of course he does not speak English all that well, but the stuff that comes out of his mouth is often plain goofy or contrived. Stella Gibbons paints the young Japanese man, Yasuhiro Tasu, in a ridiculous stereotyped light. He also becomes enamored with the person who is teaching him to speak English, Mary, and he eventually proposes to her. Yasuhiro is enamored with Mishima the great writer who committed seppuku (disemboweling oneself). His great grandfather wants to set up an arranged marriage for him.

His family is rich because they manufacture color television sets in Japan. Yasuhiro is sent from Japan to London England so he can learn to speak English. They pop in and out of the novel - they are not well-woven into the story at all.Ībout halfway through the tome, we are introduced to a new character in the story, a young Japanese man by the name of Yasuhiro Tasu. We are only given snatches of information about them…where they come from (well actually I don’t know where they come from) and their mission (well actually I don’t know their mission). Taverner, Miss Dollette, and Katherine Cornwall. He ends up selling his house and moving into the Yellow House with them - Mr. The other half is that apparently a guardian angel and his helpers come to lift Wilfred Davis out of the doldrums. It is only 6 months after Wilfred’s wife and her mother died.Īnyhoo, that’s one half of the story. Mary’s only goal in life supposedly is to get married and have 3 children, and she figures she is more likely to meet a man who will be a good fit for her if she moves into the big city as opposed to staying in a small town with less eligible men and her depressed father moping around. She was not the sharpest tack in the room and was supposedly not all that physically attractive (as if Stella Gibbons were saying that not being pretty diminished her agency…). Set in the early 1970s in London and its nearby environs, a recent retiree who was a civil servant, Wilfred Davis, is broken-hearted that his 16-year-old daughter, Mary Davis, has left home to work in the big city, London. This work of hers was found 25 years after she passed away…she apparently had made the decision not to submit it for publication but unfortunately after her death, her heirs overrode that decision.ġ.5 stars.

Gibbons stella