The book starts with an interesting premise, but I'm left with some hesitations about Boroson's decisions with the book. Chinese mythology is deep and complicated, spanning dozens of ethnic groups, thousands of years, and with no singular religious tradition to unite them. So when it comes to depicting Chinese mythology you have a lot of options you can kind of pick and choose and jumble together, which Boroson does. And quite frankly I don't know enough about Chinese mythology to say whether this is accurate or not, so that's not a huge part of my concern.
The biggest thing I noticed was an emphasis on the concept of ''face'', an obsession with honor, social standing, prestige, and all that comes with it. Again, this is a subject that I don't know a whole lot about but I do know that a lot of what people assume Chinese culture is about tends to rely more on nineteenth century stereotypes about Chinese culture rather than actual representations of Chinese culture. The prevalence of the use of the word ''face'' specifically and emphasis on how gaining and losing face makes me think this wanders into stereotypical territory rather than an accurate representation of Chinese culture.
I also noticed that Boroson tended to repeat concepts or phrases over and over, especially if it was something like the March of a Hundred Devils or the Death of Five Touches. But Boroson also emphasizes how the tongs aren't just criminal organizations but function as support networks for immigrants as well. And these are just a handful of examples throughout the book. This book isn't all that long in the first place and I suspect that if Boroson hadn't repeated himself so much this book might have been significantly shorter.
I was kind of left uncertain on my opinion with Li-ling. She kind of vacillates between hyper-competent in her job as a Daoist exorcist and having to rely on her father or other people to help her out. I've been finding that a lot with various urban fantasy characters in the books so it seems to be a trend within the genre. Long-team readers will know the number of times I've lamented Harry Dresden's decision to leave his brain cell at home or with Thomas for the day. As far as I can see this is the only book in the series as of right now, so I don't know if Li-ling improves in her abilities and that may be determined in future books.
Overall the book is okay. I wouldn't say it's the best book I've read, but at least Boroson is trying something different.
- Kalpar
Hello Kalpar! It's bad form for an author to respond to a review, but hey I'm bored and sitting in an airport for the next few hours with nothing to do, so, hi!
ReplyDeleteAny brief generalization one can make about "face" is likely to be misleading; so I'll just say that when this question came up before, I checked Sina Weibo and found that one of several common terms that gets translated as "face" had been used 44,000 times in the previous 24 hours, and on that day it also appeared in front-page headlines in both the South China Morning Post and the Hong Kong Free Press about politicians losing face. I do get where you're coming from, because so many primitivizing accounts have used the term to Other people from certain East Asian backgrounds. These accounts treat "face" as synonmyous with "honor," and stereotypify (is that a word?) an imaginary cultural rigidity that pretends fascination with Asian cultures but ultimately affirms Western values as more modern, progressive, flexible, and other nonsense. Yet the terms for face (and its interrelated concept, guanxi [關係], which I rendered into "the social order" or something like that) are pervasive, they appear with extreme frequency in news accounts, personal conversations, and books written by Chinese people for Chinese people; a story omitting or excluding such a significant cultural element would be problematic.
In the book I hoped to emphasize contextual understandings rather than theoretical ones, thru cultural immersion, vicariously; and I aimed to represent different characters who hold a spectrum of individual interpretations of traditional notions in a changing world. "Face is the old way" says one character, rejecting his cultural background, and it is this line that ultimately signifies him as a villain. I'm gonna stop here because authors providing their own lit-crit are pretentious to the max.
You can read what some Chinese sociologists regarding "face" at a number of sources; even wikipedia has some strong info on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept)#Chinese_%E8%87%89%E9%9D%A2_and_%E9%9D%A2%E5%AD%90 . A great deal of my own perspective on face was shaped by Chinese sociologist Fei Xiaotong, his books _From the Soil_ and _Peasant Life in China_ and some essays that haven't been translated into English; I actually sneaked a quote from him into the book's epigraph. :)
So, thanks for reading, I'm glad you enjoyed it (somewhat)! The sequel actually goes further into the territory that raised your questions; it's called THE GIRL WITH NO FACE. :)
Hey! Thanks for taking time to read my review. Obviously you've done a lot more research on Chinese sociology than I have so thank you for addressing my concerns. As I said, there are a lot of bad overgeneralizations of non-European cultures in fiction so I was concerned. I'll have to check out the sequel when I get a chance. So many books to read, so little time. You know how it is.
Delete