She embarks on a tour of Kyoto’s Zen gardens pre-choreographed by her father, chauffeured by his personal driver, and guided by his chief of staff, a Belgian art dealer named Paul who will become central to the story. Rose’s father has loved her from afar since she was a child. Rose’s fury at the missed relationship is soon complicated when she goes snooping around her father’s architectural marvel of a home and discovers a wall of photos of herself, and with them, a revelation. The delight in reading Barbery is she will deny you this and any other rule you might have in mind).
(Never mind that old writing dictum not to open with your main character waking up. Rose awakens jet-lagged in the Kyoto home of her late father, a Japanese art dealer she never met, where she has arrived for the reading of his will. Like Barbery’s previous novel, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, this book’s charm originates in the rebellious heart of its philosopher protagonist. Muriel Barbery’s A Single Rose follows a French botanist’s emotional tour through the Zen gardens of Kyoto, Japan, to discover joy beyond grief.
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