Johnson, Kij - Fudoki

[oyceter]

I really, really, really loved this book. Really. While I read and liked her The Fox Woman with some reservations, I loved this one. I think I read The Fox Woman during a trip elsewhere, and I never seem to like books I read like that... too much mental dislocation already while throwing in further mental dislocation by "visiting" Heian Japan. Also, in a love triangle, I always feel bad for the spurned wife (hello, Lauren), so that was in the way too.

This one though just worked the entire way through for me -- Princess Harueme's musings on her age, on her pending death, and of her fierce desire to live still, intermingled with memories of her life, of her lover, and all this twined with the tale of Kagaya-hime, the tortoiseshell cat without a fudoki (family story? clan?) who turns into a woman.

Beautiful prose. And I want to wave this book around as a way to do the whole "Asian" thing without falling into horrible cliches (imho). To me, I felt like I was at the court of Heian Japan, without bits of PC that tear me out of the story, like if Harueme ranted on about a woman's circumscribed life and escaping to be some sort of warrior, etc. She hated the boundaries around her life and the fact that she was penned in all the time, and yet, somehow, when she protests or has regrets, she does it within the cultural framework. Well, not that I know the cultural framework of Heian Japan ;). But you know, no horrible anachronisms of thought or anything.

Small bits that confused me -- while I liked how Johnson managed to stick in most Japanese words unobstrusively, sometimes I was a little confused as to which ones she kept. Why kaze-cold instead of just "cold"? Didn't quite see why that wouldn't just be straight out translated, as opposed to a concept as important as "fudoki." And I need to reread Fox Woman now to figure out Kitsune's story, because I've forgotten =(.

And not to damn the book with the faint praise that it does something not-wrong, because it succeeded on so many levels for me. Thoughts on age and memory and stories and especially the fragility of life and of memory and how the two are intertwined. I loved so many small things, like Harueme realizing her lover would never ever touch her on the neck again and that she was not that Harueme whose neck he touched anymore. I don't quite know how to talk about this book because it just stays with me. And nothing seems to happen with Harueme, and yet, everything does, and we get to read about her memories and her life and her thoughts, all of which takes on an incredible poignancy. Just... thoughts on life and love and friends and sex and family.

I'm very glad of the ending.

Links:
- rachelmanija's review
- sophia_helix's review

Comments

[penmage.livejournal.com]

I haven't yet read Fudoki, but I really want to - I read and loved The Fox Woman.

Did you know that the author is on livejournal? kijjohnson, as a matter of fact.

[oyceter]

Yeah, I have her friended ^_^.