Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

[lightreads]

Under Heaven by Guy Gavriel Kay

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Eighth –century…ish fantasy….ish novel set in China….ish about the second son spending the mourning years for his father burying the dead from an old battlefield, before his service draws him into the heart of imperial court politics.

Yeeeeah. This is the second Kay in a row I've bounced off of, and it's for exactly the same reason. This is the sort of book that words like "lush" and "gorgeous" and "poetical" get slapped on, and that's fair enough. But here's the thing. That lushness is so much less enjoyable when you realize that an inextricable part of it is sexual violence against women. Seriously – this book has multiple female narrators as well as a few female side characters, and there isn't a one of them – save arguably one, and it's definitely arguable – who isn't bought/stolen/sold/owned for sex. Which is one thing to write about, and it's another thing to make that part of the . . . the texture the book is rolling around in. Part of the cultural fabric that we're supposed to look at and say, "oh, how exquisite." Not uncomplicatedly, but we're definitely supposed to have that reaction on a basic level.

This really came home to me when I started wondering why no one was pregnant. Really remarkable, considering the number of courtesans sleeping with multiple men per night (generally somewhere on the wrong side of the spectrum of optionally) and the privately kept concubines whose function is to play exquisite music and be beautiful objects and to get fucked nightly. But not a single oops in mumble hundred pages, with no explanation. I mean, you could explain that away if you wanted to – though not plausibly – but Kay didn't want to. That would have destroyed, like, the art.

Ugh, I just feel icky after that, and it's one of those things where the more beautiful the book tried to be, the worse the effect was because of how it was framing that beauty.

I'm really hoping I can get to Tigana before Kay sinks any lower in my estimations, since I'm told that really is worth the price of admission.




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Comments

[readerjane]

I think Tigana really is.

Remembering one standout line from Tigana... I won't spoil it, but it sends shivers (good ones) all these many years later.

[yunitsa]

My favourite GGK novel is probably Lions of Al-Rassan, if you haven't read that one? But a lot of his work seems to have those issues, and there is a thing in Tigana that left me dubious even in my much less critically-aware days.

[lightreads]

Thanks, good to know. I enjoyed the Fionavar books in a bemused 'my goodness, you have a lot of quivering feels' sort of way, and genuinely liked Ysabel, though it's . . . weird. I do mean to continue with his back catalog. Just....oi.

[kate_nepveu]

_Tigana_, um. If I remember correctly, it has a very politicized kind of kink-negativity that comes up in one or two scenes? And, uh, spoilers, and stuff.

[cahn]

I'm... not... sure I found Tigana worth it, exactly? But I find it really hard to take his lush prose seriously (for me it tips over into Trying Too Hard), so I might not be the best person to ask here.

[avendya]

This is... I think the most fair criticism of Kay I've ever read, and I hadn't thought about the books in quite that way. (Though it explains some of why I bounced off this book, I think.)

I adore Kay. I encountered his books when I was a too-serious fifteen-year-old, exactly when I wanted the overwrought delicacy of his prose. And I still love Lord of Emperors -- it has all the flaws of other Kay novels (though no prostitutes! a few affairs, but no courtesans), but it hits my narrative kinks perfectly. That all being said: you are absolutely right about every one of your criticisms of his work.

Tigana is... mixed. There are things about it I love. There are deeply kink-negative things about it I side-eye, and there's one plot line which I think either hits your id really hard, or just completely passes you by. (I was in the latter category.) I'm glad I read Tigana when I did, but I'm not sure I would love it if I read it for the first time now.

I think his strongest book is The Lions of Al-Rassan, though I think you will react with "JUST HAVE A THREESOME ALREADY DAMN IT". (Though Lions, unlike Fionavar, is clear that the threesome would be about more than just male desire; that Jehane wants both of them.)

[lightreads]

Tbf, I really did enjoy Fionavar. A lot of people said you have to get to that one young; apparently 'taking exams in the last semester of law school' will substitute just fine. I sighed and sniffled my way through, but will probably never be able to read them again.