Three Views Of Crystal Water [Hardcover]

Vera, 13, lives in Vancouver with her grandfather, James Lowinger, a pearl merchant. Loneliness drove Vera's mother to jump off a bridge, while her shiftless father travels the world chasing his next moneymaking scheme. Set in the 1930s, Katherine Govier's Three Views of Crystal Water is the story of a girl who has (as Ikkanshi, the sword polisher, will later tell her) "beginner's mind," both ignorant and clear of preconceptions. When her grandfather too dies, Vera ends up on a remote island in Japan with her Japanese "stepmother," where slowly she is accepted into the all-female community of pearl divers, grows up, falls in love, and nearly becomes ensnared in the politics of an increasingly militaristic Japan.

Filled with intriguing lore on pearls, their history and magic, and traditional Japanese swords, this coming-of-age story is told with a subtle and elegant simplicity, the writing exquisite and clear as sparkling water. When Vera helps Ikkanshi test an ancient sword by holding it in a stream to see if it can cut floating leaves, Govier explains, "they focused only on the task itself, and not its meaning," thereby imparting a feel for an archetypal Japanese artistic view without having to state it baldly. Later, in a final testament, Vera's grandfather tells the wondrous story of how he traded everything for a single pearl of incomparable size and possibility only to see it all disappear in an attempt to attain perfection. This fine novel creates a world of depth and feeling, one that brings together the mountains and seas of Japan, the sea's nacreous jewels, and the intriguing life of a young, spirited woman. --Mark Frutkin

Listen as author Katherine Govier discusses the history and context behind the writing of Three Views of Crystal Water in this series of exclusive videos.

In this lucid and exotic tale, Katherine Govier delves into the19th-century pearl rush. Greed for the unearthly luster drove sea-farers toscour the ocean floor until the plunder all but destroyed the divers, the oysterbeds and the pearl itself. But on a small island off the coast of Japan, a mantamed the oysters, learning to create pearls at will.

Three Views of Crystal Water is told by the Canadian girlVera, who comes of age amongst the brave women divers of Japan. Nurtured by the amacommunity, she learns to dive 45 feet with a single breath. She also findsher first lover. In the lives of the simple fisherfolk, loyalty is everything.But Vera is an outsider, and when war is declared in Europe, she must go home toVancouver. In the murky streets of Gastown, Vera comes to understand thepearl-lust that has divided the men in her family. But it is years later whenshe discovers what catastrophes war has brought to her friends, and whatdeliverance to her young lover, and herself.

Like the divers it so compellingly portrays, Three Views ofCrystal Water penetrates far below life’s surface. Part fable, parthistory and entirely original, this novel is infused by Govier’s profoundreflections on nature—both earthly and human.

KATHERINE GOVIER has written eight novels and three shortstory collections. The New York Times named her most recent novel, Creation,a Notable Book of 2003. Other works include Angel Walk and Hearts ofFlame, which won the City of Toronto Book Award. She is also the recipientof the Marian Engel Award. Katherine Govier divides her time between Toronto andCanmore, Alberta.