Raybearer

Raybearer

By Jordan Ifueko

Nothing is more important than loyalty. But what if you've sworn to protect the one you were born to destroy?

Tarisai has always longed for the warmth of a family. She was raised in isolation by a mysterious, often absent mother known only as The Lady. The Lady sends her to the capital of the global empire of Aritsar to compete with other children to be chosen as one of the Crown Prince's Council of 11. If she’s picked, she'll be joined with the other Council members through the Ray, a bond deeper than blood. That closeness is irresistible to Tarisai, who has always wanted to belong somewhere. But The Lady has other ideas, including a magical wish that Tarisai is compelled to obey: Kill the Crown Prince once she gains his trust. Tarisai won't stand by and become someone’s pawn--but is she strong enough to choose a different path for herself? With extraordinary world-building and breathtaking prose, Raybearer is the story of loyalty, fate, and the lengths we're willing to go for the ones we love.

 

I started out comparing this to The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm, because it was about a sheltered kid who goes out into the larger world and winds up getting into adventures, and then we skipped forward several years and that fell by the wayside, and then we took a trip into the bush and I got Black Leopard, Red Wolf vibes, but only slightly, since that book is definitely was more adult than Raybearer, and I guess then I got kind of like, Tamora Pierce vibes? Not that any of that is bad!  And frankly, it didn't feel derivative the way that Children of Blood and Bone did (very strong Avatar: The Last Airbender plot) even though it was vaguely reminiscent of all of them. 

So there's been a push for more diverse cultures and settings in sci-fi and fantasy (Black Sun is a good example of that) and while I appreciate that this was not set in faux-medieval Europe, I did feel, at times, that the broad geographic and cultural empire of Aritsar felt very "pan-African" at times to the detriment of the setting.  We clearly see East Asian and South Asian influences and as a result, it felt more like the other provinces kind of melded together as "African".  I know there's a lot of diaspora in current Nigeria, where the author's background is, but I just keep thinking of that old chestnut, which is the more specific you can be in telling the story, the more general the appeal.  Would keeping it tighter geographically and culturally have given it more depth?

There was also commentary on social justice and law reform which seemed influenced by current events. I initially got very excited, as it seemed like we would get into real debates on social ills and quick fixes and unseen causes when there was (a) the initial question about certain provinces not performing well on the mind tests, and two answers of: are they just bad at it in general, or is it because alphabetically, their names are last called for food and they're hungry, and then (b) Tarisai's attempt to create a child foster care and protective services process, butting up against the practical concerns of: money.  But after those two early examples, it seemed like we just went straight into: the villains make bad laws and the heroes make good laws.  [Spoiler alert: I started reading the second book and I'm only a chapter in so far, and I am incredibly disappointed with how the book starts, Tarisai basically deciding that if she likes the person, then they should get off scott-free, never mind that they committed murder in cold blood - for very little reason!  A very bad murder! And Tarisai is the high judge, who is trying to create an equitable system!  The second book treats her breaking this person out of prison as like, a hijink for the greater good.  If that doesn't get addressed, I'm going to have a very different impression of the story. And further spoiler - I read one chapter and then just stopped, for like, months.  It was not beguiling me.]

In hindsight, I like this book while I was reading it, and I was excited about the second, but then, after getting only a little ways into the second, the problems I had with it were exacerbated and ultimately I just wasn't excited about continuing the story, although I definitely will, for the challenge.  Tarisai has a childish outlook and approach that works fine in the beginning, but begins to be grating as we get further along and she should be more mature.  But I do like the setting, and the storyline, and I appreciate the familial relationships that the Raybearer and the council present, although again, it's one of those things that you kind of go, "How did they ever succeed in erasing the second Raybearer in the first place?" in terms of plausibility.  Some suspension of disbelief is required.

 

44: A Duology (Part 1)

 

Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

By Chinua Achebe

It is a classic narrative about Africa's cataclysmic encounter with Europe as it establishes a colonial presence on the continent. Told through the fictional experiences of Okonkwo, a wealthy and fearless Igbo warrior of Umuofia in the late 1800s, Things Fall Apart explores one man's futile resistance to the devaluing of his Igbo traditions by British political and religious forces and his despair as his community capitulates to the powerful new order.

I'd always heard about Things Fall Apart, but been a little reluctant to read it because, you know, who wants to spend their free time basically taking lessons in English literature, but I happened to already have this on the shelf, and the challenge was a good kick in the pants to do it.

Don't fall into the same mistake!  It's actually a very simple, easy read - it's much shorter than I thought it would be, and the style is very matter of fact and not torrid or melodramatic at all.  Things Fall Apart centers around Okonkwo, a warrior whose greatest feats lie behind him, and who sees nothing but weakness in the changes coming to the village.

I don't know why great literature is so obsessed with tragic heroes.  Or tragic figures, since I don't think Okonkwo is ever really a "hero" in Things Fall Apart.  Protagonist, surely, but from Chapter 1, we know that he's too worried about his standing in the village hierarchy to suffer pangs of conscience when he beats his sons for not being manly enough. And it is somewhat tragic what happens to him, but the tragedy hanging over the book is that we, as readers from the future, know what lies in store for Umuofia and Mbanta: the loss of cultural traditions and the breaking up of tribes, the insidious takeover by the white Christians.  And while the people have survived, and while I can't argue that all of their original cultural traditions were super great, still, it is a tragedy that it is lost.  Notre Dame cathedral burned today, and while Catholicism hasn't always been a force for good, still it's hard to see this thing that has lasted for centuries burned away in a night, and it feels like that in Things Fall Apart as well.  I could try to stretch the analogy further by allowing that the cause of destruction was not intentional but caused in both cases by some cold and crucial indifference to the existing structure, but I'm already too sad already. 

I suppose it is a talent of Achebe's that you're not actually rejoicing when Okonkwo dies. Considering he kills three people in the course of the book, including his own foster son, and random a sixteen year old, you'd definitely forgiven for hoping he gets what he deserves.  Of course, for what we might consider morally the worst of those - murdering his foster son even though he's been excused from attending the killing at all - there is no punishment at all, except for his own semi-guilty conscience.  And for the murder we might consider the most excusable - the attempt to stop a hostile takeover of Umuofia by the Christians - he submits himself to the worst punishment, death. That's how you know it's a tragedy, when the villain dies for the wrong reasons and it's not fair.  

I did appreciate some of the negative reviews on Amazon. "There are endless discussions in the novel about the cultivation and economics of yams. I don't get why the author spent so much time discussing yams." Let's be real, there was a lot of yam-talk. But for a book that's kind of about the destruction of native cultures and traditions via the onset of Christianity, it's a pretty soothing, easy read.  There's not a lot of character development - we hear very little about the rest of the family, and they exist only as two-dimensional ideas for Okonkwo to butt up against, but this book really only works as an allegory, and not as, like, a thriller.  

What's interesting is that although the point of the book seems to be Okonkwo's downfall, we spend very little time on the events directly leading up to it.  I almost feel like this would work just as well as a short story.  The first two sections of the book, in which Okonkwo lives in Umuofia and then becomes exiled, and then lives in Mbanta until his exile expires, are so much scene setting.  It's interesting, since it's a relatively uncommon setting for a book, but does have the sense of nothing really progressing, narratively.  It's also a little disjointed, as the book is more like a series of vignettes than a more typical a then b then c.  But overall, an enjoyable enough way to wallow in shitty missionary history via a great author.


32: A Book Written By An Author From Asia, Africa Or South America