More of a Review: Fudoki
Jan. 29th, 2005 11:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakI never properly reviewed Fudoki by Kij Johnson. She's on my LiveJournal reading & trusted list now (what the system calls a friends list), but I don't write this to win her favor. Rather the other way around, she's on my reading list because I like her work very much. I first read it in May of 2004 after having seen it on various shelves since it was published in 2003. I checked out from the library without much of a plan or expectation about it, just another book.
After reading about three chapters I really started to realize I had picked up something special. I wrote something like a short review as I was reading saying how it made me want to write as really good writing does. I'm reading it again now that I purchased a copy and it is still wondrous. Kij's words, as I think of it, are heavy on the page. They seem to fit together with the same perfect weight like a piece of cut glass in the hand.
Fudoki contains a story within a story. A Japanese noblewoman nearing the end of her days starts to write about her life and also of a young kitten. The fantasy elements crept in slowly like mice glimpsed for a moment out of the corner of your eye in a quiet room. In fact a more mainstream imprint than Tor (A science fiction and fantasy imprint for those who do not know) could have printed this work, but don't for a moment let that put you off either way. It is a very fine fantasy in the best meaning of that word.
As much as I enjoy the light reading of the standard Epic Fantasy Pastiche that mines the same vein that Tolkien first opened it is wonderful to find something that is different. Yet it is not so foreign that I would recommend this to only a few of my friends with the most book loving of habits like I would write of The Name of the Rose, The Club Dumas, or another "hard read". I can't forget it either, it speaks to something deep within me and I suspect it may do the same for others.
I strongly recommend that other people try this book and more I will not say so as not to spoil it for readers.
After reading about three chapters I really started to realize I had picked up something special. I wrote something like a short review as I was reading saying how it made me want to write as really good writing does. I'm reading it again now that I purchased a copy and it is still wondrous. Kij's words, as I think of it, are heavy on the page. They seem to fit together with the same perfect weight like a piece of cut glass in the hand.
Fudoki contains a story within a story. A Japanese noblewoman nearing the end of her days starts to write about her life and also of a young kitten. The fantasy elements crept in slowly like mice glimpsed for a moment out of the corner of your eye in a quiet room. In fact a more mainstream imprint than Tor (A science fiction and fantasy imprint for those who do not know) could have printed this work, but don't for a moment let that put you off either way. It is a very fine fantasy in the best meaning of that word.
As much as I enjoy the light reading of the standard Epic Fantasy Pastiche that mines the same vein that Tolkien first opened it is wonderful to find something that is different. Yet it is not so foreign that I would recommend this to only a few of my friends with the most book loving of habits like I would write of The Name of the Rose, The Club Dumas, or another "hard read". I can't forget it either, it speaks to something deep within me and I suspect it may do the same for others.
I strongly recommend that other people try this book and more I will not say so as not to spoil it for readers.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 07:26 am (UTC)The Name of the Rose, not so much. Still massively cool, but exponentially slower going.
CU
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 07:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 03:42 pm (UTC)I found The Club Dumas to be a hard read, and The Name of the Rose to be a rock-my socks pageturner. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 11:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 06:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-30 06:49 pm (UTC)