I have now read all of Susanna Jones's novels, and this - her second - was typically compelling, readable and haunting. Water Lily is subtitled 'a novel of mystery', which I don't think is quite accurate. A novel of obsession, maybe: a novel of delusion, certainly. There are two main characters - Runa, a young teacher who has to leave the small Japanese town where she lives and works after an affair with a teenage pupil, and Ralph, an unpleasant, lonely British man who has come to Japan to find (ie buy) the perfect wife. They are both fascinating, although Ralph is truly the most horrendous, repulsive, absolutely hateful and disgusting character I have ever come across in fiction. (No, I haven't forgotten that I've read American Psycho - he is that bad.) The plot is gripping and I couldn't stop turning the pages - partly because a little bit of me wanted Runa to have a happy ending/escape, and partly because ALL of me desperately wanted to see Ralph get his comeuppance, preferably a gruesomely painful one. However, the book falls at the final hurdle in the same way as The Missing Person's Guide To Love by the same author: it becomes bogged down in confusion towards the end, and I was left unsure of what had even happened to Ralph. I do like stories to retain some ambiguity, but rather than making me want to read the book again to see what I'd missed or misinterpreted, the ending of Water Lily just left me with a long list of unanswered questions and a feeling of mild annoyance. I did enjoy this more than The Missing Person's Guide To Love, but I didn't think it was up to the standard of the author's other work.
This novel completes my reading of Susanna Jones' previous novels. I didn't find this as strong as The Earthquake Bird yet still beautifully written and quite haunting. Again set in Japan it is as much about the perceptions of 'the Orient' by outsiders as it is about the central mystery.The ending was described on the cover as 'surreal' though I did not perceive it as such. More lyrical and a touch dream-like but consistent with what had gone before. Reading these two early novels allowed me to appreciate her progression to The Missing Person's Guide to Love.
