He Who Drowned the World

[douqi]

Finally started reading this (after owning the book for at least a couple of years) and this Goodreads review was right: it IS much more rewarding and meaningful reading it as an m/m book rather than an f/f one (despite the first book in the duology being pretty heavily pushed as part of the 'sapphic trifecta' of fantasy novels that came out that year, alongside The Jasmine Throne and The Unbroken). It cares deeply about the relationships, romantic/erotic and otherwise, between its major male characters, and very little about femininity despite also having an uneasy awareness that it should, perhaps, care a little more about femininity. It cares so little about its nominally central, nominally lesbian couple that it Highlight for spoilers!*keeps them apart for large swathes of the book, has both halves of the couple sleep with men (for plot-relevant reasons, but still), and depicts relationships and sexual encounters between just about everyone else in more detail and with more emotional charge than it affords them. Also, an important plot/emotional point from end of the last book that seemed as if it was going to have a deep impact on their relationship seemed to have been dropped completely!* Most of the major male characters angsted deeply and constantly, in a sophomoric way that felt as if (as another Goodreads reviewer put it) they were Experiencing an Emotion for the first time Highlight for spoilers!*Wang Baoxiang (a man far from the epitome of masculinity), to his dead brother (the perfect embodiment of masculinity): YOU HATE ME??? FINE I WILL GO AND DEBASE MYSELF BY GETTING FUCKED UP THE ARSE BY A MAN! WE'LL SEE HOW YOU LIKE THAT!*

It also feels very much like a book not written for me, where me = person fluent in chinese language and culture (or at least one version of it) and having extensive familiarity with c-media of all kinds. This is perfectly fine; I've made my peace with the fact that a lot of genre books with Chinese historical/fantastical elements published in the West are not written for me.

Comments

[aurumcalendula]

I kept putting off reading this (mostly because people were saying it was darker than the first one), which sounds like it was probably for the best considering its focus vs my expectations.

[douqi]

Yeah, if you were looking for a lesbian story, this is even less interested in lesbianism than the first one. There is also quite a lot of violence, physical/emotional/sexual.

[anehan]

My beef with novels like this which try to follow multiple main characters that are only tangentially connected to each other is that they end up not having enough time to devote to them. Which leads to shortcuts in character development, and when the author considers that angst = character development (as Parker-Chan does here; see also Aliette de Bodard, whose Dominion of the Fallen series frustrates me because of this), the novel becomes an angst-fest without much else to it.

I also thought that, in the first book, most of the interesting interpersonal conflicts revolved around Esen-Temur. Without him, a lot of those conflicts just fell apart without there being something of equal weight there to take their place.

also having an uneasy awareness that it should, perhaps, care a little more about femininity

Heh, yes. Shoehorning something in just because you feel you ought to do it doesn't tend to work out well.

It also feels very much like a book not written for me

By the way, tangentially related to this, I found Parker-Chan's explanation on the naming conventions they ended up using interesting and illuminating.

[douqi]

Yes! I found Dominion of the Fallen increasingly frustrating as it went along as well. Not helped by the fact that I didn't feel most of the characters had very distinctively drawn personalities. Yes, I did very much feel the void left by Esen-Temur as well, in He Who Drowned the World. It did feel like a lot of emotional weight had been weirdly displaced.

Shoehorning something in just because you feel you ought to do it doesn't tend to work out well.
Oh, this is so true. Towards the end, Parker-Chan realised belatedly that they had done too little to sell the Zhu/Ma relationship and hastily has Ma think to herself Highlight for spoilers! *that the tender, described-in-touching-detail kiss she shares with Wang Baoxiang is one that has no future unlike the kisses she shares with Zhu, when the novel has not, in-text, depicted any Zhu/Ma kisses or interactions with anything close to the same level of care and attention it gives to the interactions between Ma and Wang Baoxiang*

I found Parker-Chan's explanation on the naming conventions they ended up using interesting and illuminating.

Thank you! I did guess that part of it was publisher interference. Honestly though, the names are the least of it. There's also the thinness of the world-building (it often feels as if no one in the book remembers any of the dynasties between Zhou to Song), depictions of masculinity (e.g. the strong undertone of Mongols = jocks and Han = nerds, when e.g. archery is traditionally one of the Six Arts expected of a Confucian gentleman, and when steppe cultures have historically valued at least some elements of Han Chinese culture) that felt out of kilter, the weird level of attention given to foot-binding, etc.

[anehan]

That's interesting about the thinness of world-building, etc.! I don't know that much about Chinese history and culture myself, so a lot of that was not something I noticed until you mentioned it now.

Heh, yes, it's interesting that the Ma/Wang Baoxiang relationship had more emotional depth than the Zhu/Ma one. But then again, I'm biased against Zhu because I thought that, aside from some interesting parts in She Who Became the Sun and her relationship with Xu Da, Zhu was one of the more boring characters in these novels.

She also didn't seem nearly as capable as I would have expected from what (little) I know of the real-life Zhu Yuanzhang. I mean, she thought that she'd win because she couldn't lose, and then she won because as the main character she couldn't lose. Narratively, an attitude like that needs to have consequences, but I don't think the relatively minor consequences she had really counted. So, it ended up feeling less like she was an able politician and general and more like she was the head of a religious cult, only the person she was worshipping was herself.

You can probably see that I'm not impressed with her as a character. XD Which is a shame, because she's nominally the main character. I really kept reading because of the other characters. Ouyang/Esen-Temur! Esen-Temur & Wang Baoxiang! The whole thing with Wang Baoxiang being disrespected by his family just because his interests don't align with those or his father and brother! IMO these fraught, intense relationships between men were where Parker-Chan was at their best.

[meikuree]

I haven't read this, but I feel validated in my decision not to now. I don't know how true this is so it should be taken with a sceptical pinch of salt, but the grapevine is that there was publishing/commercial pressure for Parker-Chan to focus more on the fandom faves (aka the men) in the sequel.

[douqi]

Re: publishing/commercial pressure — I can definitely see that, but even reading the first book it was already pretty clear to me whose stories the author found more interesting.

[lunarriviera]

this amuses me (and wearies me in equal measure) bc i couldn't finish the first one, and but so then i got curious and asked the author about priest and they confirmed my suspicions, anyway bridget knows what's up—

[douqi]

Ahahahah I can see that!

[geraineon]

"This is perfectly fine; I've made my peace with the fact that a lot of genre books with Chinese historical/fantastical elements published in the West are not written for me." <- I totally feel you on this. I'm happy other people enjoy them, but I cannot and that's fine.

[douqi]

Sometimes I do wonder if the authors realise this, and how they would feel about it if they did.

[geraineon]

Somehow, I don't think we belong in the audience they envision their books to have, so probably nothing? I can't imagine they would write the same way if they were thinking about non-anglosphere Chinese audience.

(it's just that the line dividing "writing from own experience, which is different from Chinese in Asia" vs. "dismantling own culture to take interesting pieces to re-assemble in ways that might be interesting to the anglosphere readers" can be very fuzzy sometimes).