Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon.
Jul. 11th, 2010 09:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starladyPon, 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 thinkrachelmanija 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 (likeoyceter, 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.
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.