Ogiwara Noriko - Dragon Sword and Wind Child
Fri, Jun. 25th, 2004 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterStumbled onto this book at the bookstore, wrote down the name and went home to check out Amazon reviews. Turns out there's only one used copy and it's going for about $200 online (probably inflated)! So I quickly borrowed it before it got sent off to BBOL (the online warehouse), heh heh.
The author says she grew up reading translated children fantasy classics, like C. S. Lewis, and she always wanted to read a fantasy that she didn't have to read translated. So she went off and wrote her own, and now I'm reading it translated ;).
I never quite got completely swept away by it because of the prose, and I can't tell if it's because of the original style or a problem with the translation. I have a feeling that the prose would sound much more normal in Japanese -- there are many interesting metaphors and figures of speech that sound awkward or overly strange in English that I think would have worked in the original language. Now I want to dig up the original... I wonder if I would be able to read it? Probably with my trusty electronic dictionary, since I managed to make it through some critical articles on Utena. Gyah, had to deal with technical terms like "heteronormative" in Japanese. Of course, it helped that "heteronormative" in Japanese is just "heteronoomatibu," tee hee. Katakana never fails to amuse me.
Er, anyway. The most interesting I found about the prose was that it didn't sound stereotypically Japanese to me, unlike a lot of the sort of pseudo-Eastern fantasies, in which everyone speaks extremely formally to express their utter politeness. What actually threw me off a little was the extreme simplicity of the language, in which everyone sounds almost painfullly sincere. Despite the fact that lots of Eastern-flavored fantasies I've read tend to focus on politics and court maneuverings (ok, I generalize, I'm mostly just talking about Daughter of the Empire), this one is very straightforward, and there is little to no trickery happening.
It's one of those magical child stories, in which Saya, the main character, who was orphaned at an early age, turns out to be the latest reincarnation of the Water Maiden, the one person who can wield or hang on to the Dragon Sword. She's caught between the forces of the Lightness and the Darkness, because while the Darkness claims she's one of them, she continues to be drawn to the Lightness and has grown up believing in the intrinsic goodness of the Lightness. I very much enjoyed how the book didn't go into the typical fantasy trope of the grand battle between good and evil, despite the rather ordinary-looking setup.
Aside the from prose, I was also a little offput at Saya in the end not really being the main character of the book. Well, she is, but the story eventually stops being about her and starts being about the Wind Child instead, and mostly how Saya influences him.
Mostly it's an interesting look at an Asian fantasy that takes the Japanese-style setting for granted, as opposed to emphasizing it.
ETA:
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coffeeandink's review
The author says she grew up reading translated children fantasy classics, like C. S. Lewis, and she always wanted to read a fantasy that she didn't have to read translated. So she went off and wrote her own, and now I'm reading it translated ;).
I never quite got completely swept away by it because of the prose, and I can't tell if it's because of the original style or a problem with the translation. I have a feeling that the prose would sound much more normal in Japanese -- there are many interesting metaphors and figures of speech that sound awkward or overly strange in English that I think would have worked in the original language. Now I want to dig up the original... I wonder if I would be able to read it? Probably with my trusty electronic dictionary, since I managed to make it through some critical articles on Utena. Gyah, had to deal with technical terms like "heteronormative" in Japanese. Of course, it helped that "heteronormative" in Japanese is just "heteronoomatibu," tee hee. Katakana never fails to amuse me.
Er, anyway. The most interesting I found about the prose was that it didn't sound stereotypically Japanese to me, unlike a lot of the sort of pseudo-Eastern fantasies, in which everyone speaks extremely formally to express their utter politeness. What actually threw me off a little was the extreme simplicity of the language, in which everyone sounds almost painfullly sincere. Despite the fact that lots of Eastern-flavored fantasies I've read tend to focus on politics and court maneuverings (ok, I generalize, I'm mostly just talking about Daughter of the Empire), this one is very straightforward, and there is little to no trickery happening.
It's one of those magical child stories, in which Saya, the main character, who was orphaned at an early age, turns out to be the latest reincarnation of the Water Maiden, the one person who can wield or hang on to the Dragon Sword. She's caught between the forces of the Lightness and the Darkness, because while the Darkness claims she's one of them, she continues to be drawn to the Lightness and has grown up believing in the intrinsic goodness of the Lightness. I very much enjoyed how the book didn't go into the typical fantasy trope of the grand battle between good and evil, despite the rather ordinary-looking setup.
Aside the from prose, I was also a little offput at Saya in the end not really being the main character of the book. Well, she is, but the story eventually stops being about her and starts being about the Wind Child instead, and mostly how Saya influences him.
Mostly it's an interesting look at an Asian fantasy that takes the Japanese-style setting for granted, as opposed to emphasizing it.
ETA:
coffeeandink's review
(no subject)
Mon, Jun. 2nd, 2008 01:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jun. 3rd, 2008 05:22 pm (UTC)*Spoilers*
Thu, Jul. 30th, 2009 09:38 am (UTC)