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523 pages, Paperback
First published August 30, 2022
"this is indeed a love story. down to the blade-dented bone."
“Your lola told stories about the country she had come from; your father told you the stories of himself, his destined for greatness. They are private stories told on stages behind thick curtains, seen only by the teller, and no one else.”
I had seen what happened to all of those sons I gave birth to. How they were molded by the world they had been given, for even the man who had started it all did not know why he made the choices he did. It is all a spiral that feeds into itself with the gathering weight at the center that we call Power.The beginning was unengaging, but then, beginnings often are, especially when I’m in no particular mood. I thought it’ll get easier and hook me eventually, but it never did. I was never particularly confused by what was going on, I’m used to confusing literary fantasy and going with the flow, but the main plot was incredibly boring until about 70% in and mediocre from there on, and the opaqueness of the style got in the way of even remotely connecting to the characters. The almost-grimdark level of graphic violence (though the book is, ultimately, in no way nihilistic) didn’t help my enjoyment either.
“The tale is for you,” she said.The tale is told in a convoluted second person perspective with random jumps between characters as much as three times within a single paragraph. Nevertheless, it is executed with utter perfection and in no way confuses the reader.
The tobacco burning in her lungs.
���So let the dreaming body go.”
She exhaled.
And the smoke, blown in from the dark, envelops you until all you can see are the curls of gray matter swirling around you, the thick fog seeming to lift you, to cradle you, bearing you gently downward until you light upon a smooth, hard surface, and the smoke clears—the memory of your lola in the kitchen fading as day does to dusk, before you find yourself standing before the very place she had once spoken of, all those years ago.
Welcome to the Inverted Theater.
You step out of the smoke and you see it: the towering pagoda on a still lake at night, its reflection in the water perfect, its many levels at once rising high above you and, in its watery likeness, falling endlessly below. Lanterns hang off its curved eaves like earrings, lighting up its ornate facade against the darkness of the black-carpet sky.
Their cups clapped to Jun Ossa, the twenty-fifth Peacock, who had for six months been guarding the fabled Wolf Door beneath the palace mountains, the sole protector of the empress. The Terror wiped his eyes, moved by this imagined scene: Jun’s six-month rotation, spent alone in the cold and the dark of that deep mountain cavern with nothing but one’s blade, and one’s thoughts, and a locked door to protect, to keep one company. This image weighed on him for the rest of the day, until later, at camp, his other sons placed hands on him in comfort, and we told him it wouldn’t be long now, the prince then smiling at his boys, grateful for all of them.I honestly am stumped as to whom to recommend this particular book too. Even while I certainly enjoyed the uniqueness of the story telling, it wasn't something I found as "page turning fun". It is certainly an interesting piece of surreal fantasy.
// buddy read with melanie <3