She Who Became the Sun

She Who Became the Sun

By Shelley Parker-Chan

In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness...

In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family's eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family's clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.

When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate. After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.

I got into this one! I heard it recommended before I heard it was actually a twisted history of a real person, the Hongwu Emperor of 1300s China, who founded the Ming Dynasty. So I was originally interested as an original fiction tale, rather than a fictionalized version of a real person.  I'm not sure which is harder, but it works on both levels.  There's almost a Michener/McCullough/Rutherfurd feel to it.  That's not a knock; their books give a very personal spin on history.  She has a fairly broad scope.  We're given a fair number of narrative viewpoints - Zhu herself, Ma, the thief, Esen, Ouyang - although the focus is primarily on Zhu's rise from peasant through the Red Turbans, and secondarily on Ouyang's revenge on the Mongols, and the bulk of the book takes place over two years while the Mongols and the Red Turbans fight for ascendancy over central China. I did wish, at points, for Zhu to be even more prominent in the storyline, rather than switching back and forth, although there's usually always a reason for it (although the thief's purpose as narrator seems specious  - it feels like Zhu could have taken that on herself. The only major exception I can think of is the thief's narration of the ghost meal plot, and if Parker-Chan didn't want to tip us off too early as to Zhu's plan.  But I will continue to say what I've always felt, which is that while a good surprise can make a book great, misdirection of the readers can feel like a cliched ploy- unless it's the point of the book, like Agatha Christie's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. When you know what's happening early on, like here (Parker-Chan intentionally hints what Zhu will do!) it just seems cheap to try to hold back the reveal further. I think that's one of the reasons I was so unmoved by Gideon the Ninth, it just felt like the author held back so much in order to make the plot points pop, which felt underhanded and manipulative.)

Zhu as a character wholly succeeds for me, although I wish we had more formative years with her. Ouyang I didn't want to like, partly because he was positioned in opposition to Zhu, and maybe also partly because I think Zhu made a good point about him thinking that being castrated had anything to do with being less of a man (although to be fair to him, everyone else certainly thinks that, so I assume it would be hard for him not to do so likewise). I kind of agree with Zhu on this one: to survive is the key.

There's a lot in the book about fate: escaping it, turning towards it, helping someone realize their own, and it's interesting how Parker-Chan has added an additional magical element, by ghosts and this idea that the Mandate of Heaven is actual fire that can be seen.  I'll be waiting to see if the new elements make any material difference in the storyline versus Zhu Yuanzhang's documented life. 

What else can I say? It's lengthy but compelling.  Parker-Chan does a good job keeping characters distinguishable and memorable, even with the Chinese naming conventions (at least we don't get into Russian naming conventions which are pretty much: anything goes and god be with you), so even though we substantially broaden our cast of characters after the first section, the average reader shouldn't get lost. Pacing is good. Oh, right -!

This is just Part One.  Of how many, I don't know, maybe two? Three? I mean, we spend most of the book on just two years and Zhu Yuanzhang lived until he was almost 70, so, in theory I guess, like it could be the first of twenty. I don't know if the next will focus much, or at all on Ouyang, who finished up the first part of his REVENGE, and is now gunning for the whole Mongol court, and I know Chen will pop back up at some point (thanks, Wikipedia!), but it seems like Zhu is pretty comfortably in charge of the Red Turbans, the prime minister and young lama are dead, and now all she has to do is unite central China.  Easy!  Especially when a stray eunuch is targeting your biggest enemies preemptively.  Parker-Chan's website says it's a duology, although no name or information is available about part 2, so we'll see.  Honestly, it does mostly stand on it's own, although it feels also a bit unfinished at the end.  Things wrap up rapidly and we don't see much fallout, aside from Ma's objections to the death of the young Mandater.  

[Sidebar: I did find the tone of the section on the child's death a little weird.  It just felt...like it was supposed to mean more than it did? I mean, was anyone really surprised that Zhu killed the kid? We know how the story ends, and while yeah, it's possible for misadventure to befall people of many ages for many reasons, did anyone, except Ma, think this child was going to be leaving the situation alive? It's almost more interesting to me that Parker-Chan had Ma object so strenuously to it, although it is in keeping with her character.  But you'd think Ma would have become slightly more pragmatic at some point, having seen her father killed in battle, her fiance executed for a traitor, and her husband lose his arm in a duel. Or is Parker-Chan's point that after a very short time in Zhu's life, she's gone from agonizing over killing a monk to a child's death not even meriting a debate. If so, she weirdly missed the mark, maybe the conversation should have been with Xu Du instead.]

Anyway, I like rooting for people who seem smart, and who figure out solutions to their problems that I can't guess, so I'm all in on Zhu's side.  Which is great, because it sounds like she's going to found a preeminent dynasty. Let's see what she does next!  And we'll gently ignore the pun in the title She Who Became the Sun because I feel dumb I only just noticed it, and also it's too on the nose for words. 

22: A Book with a Character on the Ace Spectrum