Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon.

[starlady]

Pon, Cindy. Silver Phoenix: Beyond the Kingdom of Xia. New York: Greenwillow, 2009.

I really enjoyed this book; in point of fact I devoured it in one and a half sittings, which is unusually fast even for me.

Ai Ling lives in an out of the way town in a fantastic Sung dynasty China, the doted-on only child of her father, a former high government official to whose name scandal still clings; thus after Ai Ling fails to secure a betrothal and her father is summoned back to court, she and her mother have no one to turn to when a wealthy merchant decides that Ai Ling has the womb to bear him a son and tries to force her into becoming his fourth wife via a forged debt obligation. Rather than place her mother in an impossible position, Ai Ling leaves home in an attempt to find her father at the imperial palace. Along the way she meets Chen Yong, the half-foreigner son of an imperial concubine, who has his own reasons for accompanying her. Things get interesting even before Chen Yong's younger (adopted) brother Li Rong joins them; Ai Ling, not to put too fine a point on it, attracts the attention of demons repeatedly, and her learning to deal with them, to master her own powers, and about her past and destiny is the meat of the novel.

And what a meaty novel it is! Quite honestly it did not occur to me to find anything excessive about the narrative piling up demons, monsters, bad guys, delicious food, dragons, the unglamorous reality of hard travel, goddesses, sorcerers, and many other things until I started reading other people's reviews of the book; the important thing is that Pon juggles all these things beautifully. I do think rachelmanija is on to something with her comparison of the book to wuxia movies, though by the end I was thinking more of Curse of the Golden Flower; it would be spoilery to say exactly why (except, Sung dynasty). Which is to say, excessive isn't; it's par for the course. (I mean, I personally could read more of the descriptions of food until forever. Was I the only one who was really sad that Ai Ling's meal at the 烤鴨 (roast duck) joint was permanently interrupted by demons because she was really looking forward to reading about Ai Ling eating that duck? I can't have been the only one.)

Speaking of roast duck, I really enjoyed that Ai Ling has a voracious appetite, and that as a character she flies in the face of the geisha/singsong girl stereotypes about "submissive Asian women" that are still execrably current even before she realizes that she has psychic (spiritual?) powers and begins to use them. It's true that in some ways Ai Ling is the typical YA fantasy heroine--spunky, bit of a loner, unpopular--but in the story's Chinese context this is not unradical. (Relatedly, I have seen the Sung dynasty held up as a high-water mark of social freedom for women in China. If the social mores Ai Ling confronts are women's liberty, give me death.) I also enjoyed that Chen Yong has issues of his own due to the fact that he is both an adopted son and only half-Xian (like oyceter, I did keep thinking wrongly of Xi'an, the city--which come to think of it was called Chang'an in the period in question--whenever I read the adjective), and that the prejudice he faces even within his own family, and his coping mechanism for the same, is believable and handled frankly. I also liked Pon's decision not to translate the names of all but one of the characters; translating names is not uncommon in Chinese novels I've read in translation, but for my taste it exoticizes characters uncomfortably. I also liked Pon's calligraphy for the chapter headings; she has a nice brushstroke--and I liked the way Pon's background in calligraphy informs Ai Ling's looking at the world in a painterly way, as well as her reading and writing.

In all honesty the prose initially struck me as a little choppy, but very quickly I was sucked in by the story and forgot my earlier difficulties completely. Silver Phoenix is an awesome book and a truly Chinese fantasy, and I am very much looking forward to the sequel, Fury of the Phoenix, despite the fact that Greenwillow, in an effort to boost sales, has redesigned and whitewashed the covers of both of Pon's books.

It's still possible to buy the unwhitewashed edition of Silver Phoenix new at Amazon, thereby boosting Pon's sales figures, and if you want to try the book out first you can read the first 70 pages here. Or view the book trailer below! Happy reading.

Comments

[aphelant]

It's still possible to buy the unwhitewashed edition of Silver Phoenix new at Amazon, thereby boosting Pon's sales figures

Do you mean boosting her sales figures on Amazon? Because I'd read in a couple of places that the publisher has sold off all of the hardcovers and is no longer tracking their sales (there was a specific term used for this, but I can no longer recall what it was. ah, typical). :(

[inkstone]

The term is remaindered but that's changed and is no longer true.

Amazon's restocked the hardcovers (the remaindered copies sold out on July 2ish) and is now selling them at the original price. Same with Powells and other online retailers that had been selling them at the remaindered price. These sales will count.

[aphelant]

Oh, sweet! Thanks for the update! <3

[holyschist]

Oooh! Good to know.

[holyschist]

I think I was probably the only reader who wasn't into food descriptions (I'm generally not, in fiction), although I loved that Ai Ling loved food--it was charming and fun and anti-stereotype. I didn't really like the driving aspect of the plot, but that's a personal taste thing. Really looking forward to Fury, which I think is pretty much guaranteed not to have the same driving aspect.

[starlady]

I think my love for the food descriptions was partially attributable to the fact that I've had a good chunk of those dishes at one time or another. Mmm. Particularly the roast duck, omg. But definitely another thing I liked about it was that it is anti-trope. The only other girl in YA I can think of who canonically is a big eater is Daja in Tamora Pierce's Circle books.

Yes, the books is very breakneck! Even the interlude in the middle passes fairly quickly. Stuff just keeps happening.

[holyschist]

The food sounded tasty, I'd just rather eat food than read about it. I think my aversion to food descriptions in novels probably stems from too many Redwall books when I was a kid...endless, repetitive food descriptions. Burned me out, I guess.

(I was being vague due to spoilers, but I was actually referring to my personal discomfort with YA novels where the primary threat to the heroine is sexual. Since that threat got taken care of, I imagine it won't resurface in Fury. The pacing was fine.)

[starlady]

Oh, the Redwall books. I loved them all until Outcast of Redwall, which is when Jacques jumped the shark as far as I'm concerned. I paged through one of the later ones out of boredom recently and was just appalled at the fact that it was basically food descriptions and random songs strung together without a plot.

[holyschist]

I forget when they jumped the shark for me, but the only ones I particularly remember anything about are the first three and Mariel of Redwall, although I do remember being really angry about the inevitable evil of "vermin" when I was a kid, and how occasionally he would toy with making a "vermin" individual good and then yank the carpet out from under that. Ugh.

(Especially since given a choice between a ferret or rat and a badger, I'll take the ferret any day. Badgers are terrifying animals.)

Stupid Brian Jacques, putting me off food descriptions. >.

[loanwords.livejournal.com]

You might like "The Secrets of Jin-shei" by Alma Alexander if you like Chinese fairytale-ish books. :)

[starlady38.livejournal.com]

*googles* Looks interesting. Thanks!