Novik, Naomi - Throne of Jade
Sun, Jun. 4th, 2006 09:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterThis is the second book in a series that started with Temeraire/His Majesty's Dragon.
After the Chinese discover that their gift to Napoleon has been taken by the British, they send an embassy to London demanding the return of Temeraire and the separation of Temeraire and Laurence. I loved the first book of the series because of the interaction between Temeraire and Laurence, the sound of the prose and the dialogue, and the descriptions of dragon training. I like this book for the first two, but the third aspect is missing.
Temeraire and Laurence eventually end up on a ship returning to China with Prince Yongxing's embassy; over half the book happens on the ship. While it's not boring, per se, it didn't exactly catch my interest, particularly since most of the events were on the tensions between the Aerial Corps, the Navy and the Chinese embassy. I don't think it's because Novik wrote it badly, it's just that the perpetual tension and the perpetual bad behavior of many of the people started to get a little long.
Also, I read this while on an airplane that was delayed for five hours, so I may have just been in a bad mood and uninclined to be nice to the book.
Thankfully, while the Chinese embassy is set up as the enemy Laurence and Temeraire must face down, Novik does a good job of showing that there are two sides to the issue. When the ship's crew and the Aerial Corps (all British) react to the Chinese capture of a British ship, the anger is understandable, particularly given the times. But Novik doesn't let it remain one-sided, allowing Yongxing at one point to talk about the anger the Chinese feel about being forced to trade with the British, particularly for opium.
Also, Li Po is a dragon! That alone is enough to warrant a ton of squee! And! Temeraire can speak Chinese!
I think the problem with most of the ship stuff was that it wasn't about dragons.
Novik also raises questions with how the obviously intelligent dragons are treated in England.
Anyhow, things got much, much, much more interesting when things got to China, particularly in the contrast with how dragons were treated. Also, I love the fact that all the dragon names make sense in Chinese and follow a pattern (I think).
I nitpicked a little, but really, it was mostly on the preserved eggs and how I wasn't sure if they were green or black, and that's nitpicky even for me!
But the big thing was that when I was reading, I kept thinking, "Temeraire is like me!"
I mean, I have no idea if Novik intended for Temeraire to be read as a third culture kid (Chinese-British?), but I kept projecting that, and as such I felt an incredible amoutn of nidginess whenever Laurence was jealous over Temeraire learning Chinese or eating the Chinese dragon food or reading Chinese. It's just too close to my own feelings of guilt regarding not knowing enough Chinese, speaking with an American accent, and etc.
And in the back of my head, I knew that in 19th-century China, historically, things were just about to start falling apart for the Qing dynasty, particularly on the foreign relations side, culminating finally in the two Opium Wars and the forced signing of unfair treaties. And so, even though I was feeling bad for Laurence being torn from Temeraire, I also wanted to yell at him and his government for the things that I knew was going to happen in history, because even though Temeraire may have been a fair steal, the entire illegal importing of opium via the East Indian Trading Co., the whole thing about starting a war because China didn't want to trade for any British goods, just... gah.
On an individual level, I totally got why Laurence was mad at the Chinese. But from the historical level, I was angry that such a precious thing, a dragon, ended up British just like so much else did.
I don't know. Temeraire is British, from how he was raised, but Novik also sort of makes him into a third culture kid of sorts by having him remember/easily learn Chinese because he heard it in the shell. And I know the Chinese culture isn't necessarily his, but I was so sad that he'd know only so much about Chinese dragons and dragon poetry and etc.
I don't know how to react to this, because it's so obviously tied up with my own feelings of myself as a third-culture kid and how I regret not knowing enough about Chinese culture (so much so that I had to research Qing Dynasty history to write this). And it's further tied up with my own feelings about American culture and living here and all that jazz.
So therein ends my ramble.
ETA: Also, before I forget, I had a nitpick about the first book, which was that all the illustration of the Chinese dragons had them having five toes, but that is because I habitually count the toes of dragons after hearing some myth or something about only the dragons for the emperor having five toes. I seriously doubt everyone else counts dragon toes, though!
And! The entire dragon society of China was awesome! Awesome!
And! I love love love love how China is very much the Qing Dynasty China of the early 1800s; you can tell that the Opium Wars are brewing and that there's been depreciation of silver going on and you can tell the entire imbalance of trade with the rest of Europe. It's not the hand-wavy feudal Asian setting, it's so specifically grounded, down to the details of the clothes. I don't actually know that much about Qing Dynasty stuff, except that most of the TV dramas I'd watch in Taiwan were set there, so I know what the clothes look like, haha. But... so cool! And the summer palace, and the courtyards, and everything. There was such a wonderfully strong sense of place.
Also, Chinese New Year on the ship was very cool, and they ate jellyfish! Obviously, I have absolutely no clue what Qing Dynasty people ate for New Year, but it sounds close enough.
Links:
-![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
tenemet's review
After the Chinese discover that their gift to Napoleon has been taken by the British, they send an embassy to London demanding the return of Temeraire and the separation of Temeraire and Laurence. I loved the first book of the series because of the interaction between Temeraire and Laurence, the sound of the prose and the dialogue, and the descriptions of dragon training. I like this book for the first two, but the third aspect is missing.
Temeraire and Laurence eventually end up on a ship returning to China with Prince Yongxing's embassy; over half the book happens on the ship. While it's not boring, per se, it didn't exactly catch my interest, particularly since most of the events were on the tensions between the Aerial Corps, the Navy and the Chinese embassy. I don't think it's because Novik wrote it badly, it's just that the perpetual tension and the perpetual bad behavior of many of the people started to get a little long.
Also, I read this while on an airplane that was delayed for five hours, so I may have just been in a bad mood and uninclined to be nice to the book.
Thankfully, while the Chinese embassy is set up as the enemy Laurence and Temeraire must face down, Novik does a good job of showing that there are two sides to the issue. When the ship's crew and the Aerial Corps (all British) react to the Chinese capture of a British ship, the anger is understandable, particularly given the times. But Novik doesn't let it remain one-sided, allowing Yongxing at one point to talk about the anger the Chinese feel about being forced to trade with the British, particularly for opium.
Also, Li Po is a dragon! That alone is enough to warrant a ton of squee! And! Temeraire can speak Chinese!
I think the problem with most of the ship stuff was that it wasn't about dragons.
Novik also raises questions with how the obviously intelligent dragons are treated in England.
Anyhow, things got much, much, much more interesting when things got to China, particularly in the contrast with how dragons were treated. Also, I love the fact that all the dragon names make sense in Chinese and follow a pattern (I think).
I nitpicked a little, but really, it was mostly on the preserved eggs and how I wasn't sure if they were green or black, and that's nitpicky even for me!
But the big thing was that when I was reading, I kept thinking, "Temeraire is like me!"
I mean, I have no idea if Novik intended for Temeraire to be read as a third culture kid (Chinese-British?), but I kept projecting that, and as such I felt an incredible amoutn of nidginess whenever Laurence was jealous over Temeraire learning Chinese or eating the Chinese dragon food or reading Chinese. It's just too close to my own feelings of guilt regarding not knowing enough Chinese, speaking with an American accent, and etc.
And in the back of my head, I knew that in 19th-century China, historically, things were just about to start falling apart for the Qing dynasty, particularly on the foreign relations side, culminating finally in the two Opium Wars and the forced signing of unfair treaties. And so, even though I was feeling bad for Laurence being torn from Temeraire, I also wanted to yell at him and his government for the things that I knew was going to happen in history, because even though Temeraire may have been a fair steal, the entire illegal importing of opium via the East Indian Trading Co., the whole thing about starting a war because China didn't want to trade for any British goods, just... gah.
On an individual level, I totally got why Laurence was mad at the Chinese. But from the historical level, I was angry that such a precious thing, a dragon, ended up British just like so much else did.
I don't know. Temeraire is British, from how he was raised, but Novik also sort of makes him into a third culture kid of sorts by having him remember/easily learn Chinese because he heard it in the shell. And I know the Chinese culture isn't necessarily his, but I was so sad that he'd know only so much about Chinese dragons and dragon poetry and etc.
I don't know how to react to this, because it's so obviously tied up with my own feelings of myself as a third-culture kid and how I regret not knowing enough about Chinese culture (so much so that I had to research Qing Dynasty history to write this). And it's further tied up with my own feelings about American culture and living here and all that jazz.
So therein ends my ramble.
ETA: Also, before I forget, I had a nitpick about the first book, which was that all the illustration of the Chinese dragons had them having five toes, but that is because I habitually count the toes of dragons after hearing some myth or something about only the dragons for the emperor having five toes. I seriously doubt everyone else counts dragon toes, though!
And! The entire dragon society of China was awesome! Awesome!
And! I love love love love how China is very much the Qing Dynasty China of the early 1800s; you can tell that the Opium Wars are brewing and that there's been depreciation of silver going on and you can tell the entire imbalance of trade with the rest of Europe. It's not the hand-wavy feudal Asian setting, it's so specifically grounded, down to the details of the clothes. I don't actually know that much about Qing Dynasty stuff, except that most of the TV dramas I'd watch in Taiwan were set there, so I know what the clothes look like, haha. But... so cool! And the summer palace, and the courtyards, and everything. There was such a wonderfully strong sense of place.
Also, Chinese New Year on the ship was very cool, and they ate jellyfish! Obviously, I have absolutely no clue what Qing Dynasty people ate for New Year, but it sounds close enough.
Links:
-
tenemet's review
(no subject)
Mon, Jun. 5th, 2006 05:15 pm (UTC)I too wish there had been more time in China and less on the ship-- just enough to get across everyone's evolving relationships, plus the sea serpent attack, which was both awesome and thematically coherent, as it involved human perception of dragons vs. dragon perception of dragons (and dragon perception of humans), and the sometimes tragic results of the species coming together.
I was delighted at how Naomi Novik followed through with the questions raised in the first book, of equality and inequality between humans and dragons, and of how a society might work if dragons were not subservient. The cooked food vs. live animals was a perfect little microcosm of the attitudes toward dragons in Chinese and British society, and also of Temeraire and Lawrence's shifting tastes and opionions. Food is culture. (Trying very very hard not to make a crack about English cuisine... After all, they invented clotted cream as well as spotted dick.)
I too wonder about what might have happened if, as I've seen some manga do, the entire premise of "Napoleonic wars with dragons" had been set aside in order for the characters' wills to dictate the action-- if Temeraire had stayed in China, and persuaded Laurence to stay with him. Might they have gotten entangled in Chinese wars? Could they have ended up on the Chinese side against the British? I happily contemplate the Bujold-esque moral dilemmas Laurence would have faced had that situation arisen.
(no subject)
Mon, Jun. 5th, 2006 05:17 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Tue, Jun. 6th, 2006 05:23 am (UTC)