Weird fantasy. The best thing that I can say about this book is that I’ve never read anything like it before. Unfortunately, when I was about a hundred pages in, I was on the verge of abandoning it. I’m glad I stuck with it, because it grew on me somewhat, but it never managed to transcend all of the things that, early on, made me want to chuck it across the room and start reading something else instead. For instance, I’m not someone who has principled objections to self-consciously fancy writing, and in fact I can quite enjoy it sometimes, but I just didn’t like the passages in this book written in trying-to-be-lyrical-and-edgy ways and sometimes was left saying ugh, please, no, just don’t. I also didn’t particularly like that most of the characters in this book aren’t really characters at all, but figures – they aren’t literary manifestations of the flawed, complex selves that all of us are, but rather are person-shaped constructions (albeit sometimes quite sophisticated ones) that are not really plausible as human beings but that clearly exist as they do to serve the writer’s will. And I hate to simplistically invoke authorial gender in reviewing books, because I’m sure someone clever could come along and tell me what is wrong about what I’m saying, but there was something about this book that felt distinctly masculinist in a way that I just don’t enjoy – the writing and the figures-not-characters issue are part of that, and it has a sort of bombastic and intensity-for-intensity’s-sake sensibility that…blech. I might have been more impressed by it when I was younger, I don’t know. Also, the setting of the book is very deliberately and intensely colonial, and I can’t decide what I think about that. I mean, obviously the setting per se isn’t a problem, and it’s clear that the author grasps at least some of the implications of that, but I can’t decide if the use that the author made of this setting was subversive, indulgent, or none of the above. Anyway. As I said, even given all of that, this book is inventive, and I’ve never read anything quite like it before. I’m glad I made it to the end. If, despite everything, your interest is piqued by what I’ve said, maybe give it a shot. But, also, don’t say I didn’t warn you, and for the most part I don’t recommend it.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.