Willow (the_willow) wrote in 100_willow, @ 2008-07-05 00:37:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | access: library, access: overdrive media, audio book, cultural appropriation, culture: japanese, feeling: unimpressed |
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
Introduced to my state library system's ebook and audiobook via download lending system, this was my first test borrow. It was listed in Science Fiction & Fantasy. I eagerly snatched it up.
But over and over again the book made me wince or shudder or just plain mashed the zombie dance all over my TOTALLY WRONG button.
I'd hoped to actually find something I'd somehow missed that was Japanese Fantasy Fiction. Instead I got a book that seems to want to equate Ninja's as specially abled beings and even that is not fully realized.
I am so angry and I'm not even sure if I have a right to be. Maybe I expected the wrong thing?
Nightengale reads very much as if the writer was trying to avoid the names of actual Japanese clans, and place names and the actual political unrest of the time. She wanted the culture and intrigues, but she wanted - I guess, the fantasy of Japan; The Samurai Movie Japan?
I feel as if she wanted to write her own version of James Cavell's Shogun. And even while I'm glad that she chose to tread her sort of historically Japanese world with a native pov character, it doesn't change the fact that as a reader I felt like a tourist. With historical fiction I think there's a sense of trust that the author has done the research and alongside the story you're getting a peek, via interpretation, of what life could have been like in those times, in that country, in those circumstances.
But here I felt none of that appreciation. It felt cheap somehow - paper thin. Samurai become the Warrior Class. Persecuted Christians (converted Catholic Japanese) become 'The Hidden'. And Ninjas become the mysterious 'Tribe' - older than mankind and the clans of mankind but integrated and living among man with all their skills attributed to inborn traits (later trained and honed).
Now I write it out the word cheap veneer comes to mind. The words are Japanese. There are tea ceremonies and rice wine and carefully sculpted gardens and kimonos and talk about the hour of the rooster and the hour of the ox but...
Maybe I just don't know what I want. Maybe it's a good thing that someone chose Japan instead of yet another European Medieval setting with yet another noble knight and yet another set of political intrigues messing up the hero's life and that of his lady love.
But it doesn't feel that way to me at all.
I want to scream.
I found myself questioning constantly every instance of frail, terribly beautiful Japanese princess, every overbearing War Lord without honor with a pockmarked face of villainy. Ever cliched twist of 'a real man is a warrior and kills, a not real man is a puny artist/scholar'.
I wish I could explain why I feel so agitated. But I just do.
The women in the book even find ways to push for their own agency - when they remember they have agency / or choose to use it - and this is not a bad thing to have in a book. And yet...
Directions to me are "Go from the monument down the hill to the very bottom, then go directly up the next hill, past the restaurant with the black awning and the bronze grill behind the glass. Turn at the corner by the white church, there'll be a parking garage with an art installation on it's wall of a red ball and a chair. Keep going until you get to a wide three story building with lots of glass display cases. That will be the library. It'll be opposite a church with a rounded brass roof and adjacent to another church, this one gothic red brick.
I relate to places by landmarks and people. I'm in awe of those who can put things in their writings like 23rd and this, Broadway and that in NYC. But it's never been very good world building to me because knowing intersections doesn't conjure up a picture to me. I just end up putting _blank city place somewhere in new york_ in my mind and keep reading.
I think I feel like Lian Hearn (the psued for Australian writer Gillian Rubinstein) was incredibly lazy. To me she didn't build on Japanese culture and create something unique. History has given her everything. She just stuck her characters in. In fact I feel as if she took historical Japan with its political struggles, stuck some anime abilities to the ninjas, and utilized some old school TS (The Sentinel) canon; TS fans if they read this will know what I mean.
And now I'm thinking of finding an ebook version, doing search and replace to add the Japanese equivalents to the names Blair and Jim and seeing if I enjoy things more. I could enjoy this if it was some odd Japanese Historical AU of the city of Cascade. I'd be impressed with the touches the fanwriter included.
For a professional writer... I just don't know.
What does it take for something to be fantasy? Why do I think this has more in common with SHOGUN and MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA than something touting itself as Speculative Fiction. Maybe I think there was no speculation?
I wish I could put my dissatisfaction properly into words.
ETA: Remember my mentioning the noble knight? I think part of my dissatisfaction comes from thinking this is a story set in an 'exotic' place with 'exotic' touches and 'exotic names' and 'exotic happenings' - (oh no it's the rice crop that's being taxed. Not wheat ) but it could take place anywhere, substituting a number of western societies for the ninja like Tribe (eg: The Templar Knights). So I end up feeling like it's set in Japan to make it stand out against possible competition like a fantasy tourist dressed up in a kimono. I don't know yet. Still stumbling for words.
NB: Kevin Gray read. I did enjoy his voice.
[originally posted in my journal on June 1st]]