Narrative Disorder… in Japan!!

I picked up this book because I was interested to see how another writer might handle a contemporary fantasy which invokes ancient gods in the modern world. That the ancient gods were Asian (specifically Chinese) and that it was set in Hong Kong were also attractive for obvious reasons.

I expected a fantasy action novel - certainly there is a war going on amongst the Spirits, Immortals and Demons on the celestial plane and leaking down to the Earth. You’d think that there would be plenty of material for the conflict that is required for an interesting story. You’d be wrong - there is simply no conflict at all in this book and the potentially interesting story is lost to a romance which made me cringe.

There is action and fighting, certainly and it’s well written and keeps you glued (it was what made it possible for me to get through to page 478) but action is not conflict. Plot-wise the action is mostly training for threats which come few and far between. When at last the real tests come and one of our characters is, of course, mortally wounded - there is always a way to heal or even return from Hell so any real concern for life and limb goes out the window fast. (Hell sounds interesting, right? Don’t get your hopes up we’re too busy watching the romance while the other characters are there.)

Anything that might possibly add a little conflict/interest/suspense to the story is handled by the author by making her protagonist … how can I put it… just so… ace! Other characters continually point out that Emma is "cold-blooded"* and able to take virtually anything without emotional effect, The heart of a story is the emotional journey taken by the protagonist  - what is the point of a protagonist without emotion? I am truly baffled.  (I lie, sometimes she is moved - she is often shocked into gaumless "No way"s at the sight of great wealth). Emma learns everything soooo easily and is sooo remarkable and is sooo wonderful that even the Gods are second to her and don’t think twice when she is placed in ridiculous position amongst them because one of them is in love with her.  And no, that MBA by correspondence she has nearly finished is NOT proof she will be capable of administering a celestial realm - how are we supposed to suspend disbelief for something THAT ridiculous?!

The closest our protagonist gets to conflict/potential for emotional growth (the whole point of a decent, let alone good, story) comes in the form of a spurious, bodice-ripper, Mills and Boon style love-upon-which-she-must-not-act romantic plot, which becomes the main plot of the book. Yet again the author removes the actual conflict by making the protagonist just too in lerve! Death is nothing if she can be with her man! URGH. She’s 28 for goodness sake and he’s several thousand years old but they act like teenagers (or, as every single character seems to get a chance to say multiple times  "Fools" - isn’t it romantic to be foolish boys and girls?)

You may have noted by now that I found this book and it’s characters exceedingly annoying. I’m sure there will be people who love it but it needs to be marketed to them and put on the romance shelves, not the fantasy shelves. We are given so little of the celestial war that the Gods plotline becomes little more than an explanation of the romantic interest’s extraordinary wealth. Similarly, the significance of the very promising, well written action scenes is reduced to an excuse for physical contact between the forbidden lovers and the occasional expression of deep concern and therefore lerve when someone is injured (which we know will be fixed in no time either by a little magic or because Emma is sooo extraordinary).  It reminds me very much of the many romance novels I produced on audio, from Mills and Boon to Danielle Steele, in which the "every day" servant girl (did I mention Emma is the nanny…ick), "refreshing" in her down-to-earth, wide-eyed-at-wealth character, falls in love with a man and then has his immense wealth and power forced upon her (she’s too "real" to accept it willingly) as proof of his devotion.

It’s not that I don’t want romance in my drama novels - it can be a rich addition as a PART of a dramatic plot but that is not what we have here - the romance usurps the entire novel. For a romantic subplot to be a realistic part of a drama a few different things are needed (in no particular order):

• a plot which would stand up on it’s own without the romance and is the main focus of the novel (i.e., the characters must have some goal beyond falling in love)
• two characters which are well fleshed out before they fall in love so that the reader can actually be invested enough in the characters to also be invested in the success of their relationship
• characters which are able to spend more than a couple of paragraphs without melodramatically lusting after the object of their forbidden affection.  Why? Because if the characters themselves don’t find the plot interesting enough to grip them, how on earth is the reader meant to be engaged?

So, how does it fair as a romance novel? Probably very well judging by the novels which sell well. The values in romance novels is almost always "anything for true lerve" and that is certainly the case here, both Emma and her romantic interest show the most appalling character not just in indulging in a nanny-widower relationship but even use the child as a "shield" for physical contact between the two - I won’t explain, it’s just.. yuck. The romance between them has both the intensity and sense of longevity that a teenage crush has - Emma’s willingness to die for him is explained, many teenagers in love feel that strongly - but there is no sense of a foundation that would last. They lust after each other, they are in the classic MINO** circumstance by way of her being the nanny and so the classic widower-nanny thing happens, they may state that this is a once (well actually twice) in a lifetime love but we aren’t shown that. One of the characters, when giving his blessing to the union, says that he resisted at first because he had been close to the first wife (and mother of the child which Emma is nanny to) and he had thought Emma was trying to take her place - frankly I don’t know what changed his mind.  The coy "family moments" which we are given over and over and the giving of gifts and taking of trips and public declarations of love really do make him look like a foolish old man (and not in the sweet way the author means when over-using that term).  There is no sense of having witnessed a love develop - as we are shown in one of the most extraordinarily uncomfortable examples of cheating the rule of third person intimate POV I have ever witnessed, it was "love at first sight" so that the author could get on with the melodrama of self-denial.  Not that showing real love develop is easy - but when you have decided to give yourself the entire Chinese folklore universe to play in - why of why would you restrict yourself to the POV of such a small, small person as this woman who feels no emotion for anything but money and good looks (I’m deliberately not including the child)?

To be fair, this novel may be suffering from "series-itis" - this is book one in a series called "Dark Heavens" and it may be that Chan has been asked by the publisher to pad her story out to make it a trilogy or whatever it will be. It is possible that Chan has a great story over all and it will eventually develop into something interesting beyond just a romance but I just cannot bring myself to read another word coy, conflict-less, protagonist-flattering word.

*the author uses that particular phrase for a different and quickly obvious reason with which the author clearly thinks she is teasing us. There is a LOT of this dropping hints and teasing out when the protagonist will find something out (accompanied by Emma incessantly whining about not being told something) long, long after we have worked it out and are either annoyed with Emma for not working it out herself or just bored with the whole topic.

**MINO: Marriage In Name Only is the name given by Mills and Boon authors which describes any situation in which the characters live together but are not together for [insert reason here] and is the most popular settings for romance novels

Sword of God by Chris Kuzneski Read more about this book…

I have finally struggled through to the end of this book but I have to admit that at least the last 150 pages (yes that’s close to half of it) was to find out if it would EVER get round to the point of the plot-line which is advertised on the back of the book. I have not read James Patterson’s “Murder Club” books but if he really thinks that “Kuzneski’s writing has raw power” and was referring to this book (which admittedly he may not have been), I’m not going to risk it. It is possible that the author has deliberately littered his pages with cliched phrases, derivative characters and clunky exposition because he thinks it appropriate for the “blockbuster” style he is trying to write but frankly that is an insult to both “blockbuster” writers and their audience.

I am no snob when it comes to novels - years producing audio books from all kinds of novels knocked any potential for that out of me. When I read a novel I read for the same reason I watch a film or a television series - to be immersed in a story. If the quality of the writing isn’t perfect but the story is engaging then that’s fine by me - goodness knows there are many “well written” or “literary” novels which will put you to sleep! Give me a good story over good grammar any day. Unfortunately, Sword of God gives you neither.

The plot is the good ol’ retired-military-man-is-the-only-man-who-can-stop-the<insert topical nationality/culture> terrorist’s plot. Yes there are a few more twists and turns than that but nothing substantial (unless you find it unusual for a US military man to become a bad guy due to military manipulation and trauma… sigh). On top of that, the writing in Sword of God actually gets in the way of what story there is. For example, I know readers of these military type novels love copious details about military hardware and process but plonking them down right in the middle of potential action scenes, destroying any flow which may have existed, is just inexcusable especially when it is done over and over. Similarly there is no excuse for high school phrasing to end sections as in: “She didn’t think it could get any worse. But she was wrong.” (p253) and the book is full of it.

I will admit that, perhaps, if I hadn’t been lured to buying the book under the pretence of it being a very different kind of plot, I might have been more open to the story, if only because I wouldn’t have been quite so focused on waiting for that plot-line to re-appear. Which brings me to something probably more interesting than this book: blurbs.

Blurbs for books are not written by authors but, obviously, by publishing staff keen on sales. I used to edit them for the backs of our audio books and was often struck by how they reflected the contents of the books to varying degrees. The blurb for this one is truly false advertising. In fact here it is:

Tunnelling deep under one of the most holy cities in the world, an ambitious young archaeologist slowly works her way towards an unthinkable goal. Somewhere ahead is a chamber containing the collected fragments of an ancient scripture, a find of unimaginable significance…

Meanwhile, halfway round the world, a covert military bunker holds a macabre secret. An elite special-forces officer seems to have been brutally murdered - but how, and more disturbingly, why? Any hope of solving the mystery rests on the grisly clues that remain.

As the race to uncover the truth begins, a plot unfolds that could burn all of civilization in the fires of holy Armageddon…

Sounds like the archaeologist plot and the “find of unimaginable significance” would have at least equal significance to the plot of this novel as the military plot, yes? Or at least SOME significance at all? The archaeologist does, early on in the novel, discover a sword which, it is hinted at, may be the sword of Mohammed which it is rumoured may be the sword Jesus will use on judgement day AND THAT IS THE LAST TIME THE SWORD IS MENTIONED. At no point does the sword or the ancient documents have ANY RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER to the plot beyond being reason for being in the convenient place at the convenient time. In fact, you could happily remove the archaeologist subplot entirely without effecting anything but the length of the novel. Sure, there would be a couple of loose ends, you’d need some other character to hand over one piece of evidence but that’s about the only important role she plays and could have been handled for more elegantly. Certainly there was no threat of holy Armageddon other than that the attempted terrorist act may have sparked a war which would be justified by the combatants as a “holy war” but there would certainly not have been anything supernatural about it. Very very disappointing.

REVIEW
Overall Score: 17/60
Story: 2/10 - derivative
Structure: 4/10 - all over the place, too much left undone or unsatisfactorily tied up.
Dialogue: 3/10 - cliche but not unbelievable for the characters, particularly bad when used for exposition
Characters: 3/10 - stereotypes (and I don’t mean archetypes, just stereotypes)
Descriptive style: 4/10 - cliched phrasing, lack of flow mostly due to badly inserted exposition
Exposition handling: 1/10 - clunky, incongruous, often resorts to straight lecturing, inconsistently breaks rules of POV in 3rd person intimate

Standing in my local secondhand bookshop I had a desire to read something about Japan and found myself looking at ever-so-slightly foxed copies of both "Geisha of Gion" and "Memoirs of a Geisha". I knew that Iwasaki had been Golden’s muse for "Memoirs", indeed she had sued him for revealing that fact, and so, ever the historian, I decided upon autobiography over fiction.

Geisha of Gion is a prettily drawn insight into the Karyukai of Kyoto and life within the Iwasaki Okiya, where Mineko, born Tanaka Masako, began training at the age of five. Her memory and descriptions of kimono and the details of her arts are exquisite. I particularly appreciated that she does not shy away from using the proper Japanese terms and then interpreting them for us, rather than simply using English substitutes as one often finds in books edited by Americans for Americans. If you are looking for a book filled with Japanese culture then it certainly meets that criteria and I certainly appreciated that element of the book. However that was not, in the end, the element which I found most intriguing.

One of the reasons autobiography is it’s own category rather than being lumped in with non-fiction is not only to classify it as written by the subject of the book but also because classifying autobiography as non-fiction is problematic. No matter how well researched, the content will always be from the point of view of that one, intrinsically biased, person (indeed there is no real research requirement unless the author wishes to impose one upon themselves, legal clearance that is doesn’t defame anyone is all that is really required.) Sometimes the author’s bias or desire to impress a particular belief upon the reader is so glaring that it adds an element of fascination in itself. While neither "Memoirs of a Geisha" nor its author are never mentioned by name, Geisha of Gion is nevertheless heavily influenced by Golden’s work. It is clear that Iwasaki wishes to correct some of the impressions left by Golden particularly in two respects: the suggestion that a geisha is a high class sex worker and that Iwasaki’s father simply sold her to the okiya against her will.

The first issue is simply stated and backed up by, amongst other cultural experts, my Japanese teacher Prostitutes exist, Iwasaki informs us, but they are oiran (courtesan), not geisha(entertainer or artist.) The mizuage (or coming of age ceremony) for the two types of women is different, for both it occurs when the geisha first menstruates and at both her best clients receive small pink cakes with a tiny red nipple on top, representing a breast. The difference lies in that for the geisha it is simply a celebration of her coming into womanhood and parties are held and gifts received, only for the oiran is the girl’s virginity sold to the highest bidder. Geisha do not give sexual favours for their fees. Geisha often have boyfriends (who sometimes become husbands) but sexual liasons are carefully managed and outside of the professional requirements of a geisha. How much of Iwasaki’s story is sanitized in this respect is of little consequence.

The second impression Iwasaki is at pains to make is that of her father’s character as a loving father, sadly misunderstood by her four older sisters who were also sold to the okiya and to this day are still angry and or bitter to varying degrees. I found it heartbreaking to read as this woman now in her thirties and a mother herself insisted that at the age of five she and she alone made the decision to go to the okiya to become a geisha like her sisters. Again and again she describes how her father resisted the okiya ‘mother’ when she requested their youngest daughter come into her service. She describes how when she first agreed to go to the okiya it was simply some kind of trial which she could have ended at any time - a special arrangement because the okiya mother was so desperate to have this child as her heir because she was so very beautiful. I have no doubt that Iwasaki believes everything she has written in this book but I simply don’t believe that her father had not entered into a similar contract as he did with his other four girls, nor do I believe her protestations that he was so concerned for her welfare. She describes how, at eight years of age, she went to court to be adopted by the the okiya mother (as she had to be to become the heir to the okiya) and took the Iwasaki name. The judge asked her to say which family she chose to belong to - after choosing the okiya, she promptly threw up. Clearly she was desperately torn by the decision and yet she wants desperately for us believe that her father was a loving man, or at least that her father loved her if not her sisters.

Of course if his situation was such that he needed to sell his daughters into service then that is sad but understandable and perhaps he was a loving man - unfortunately Iwasaki presents an enormous paradox regarding this. She explains fairly well the reason that he was forced to sell his first daughters (very much against their will to this day) and yet she is also keen to impress upon us how successful her parents were as artists, particularly her father - revered and also … making very good money, certainly at least by the time the third fourth and fifth daughters are sent. Nor does it explain why the couple went on to have so many more children - eleven in all (her mother is described as having a weak constitution) five of girls sent to the okiya. But Iwasaki does not present her father as an angel - she reveals man prone to sudden violence when angered but who treated her as special and mostly she was spared the violence. In fact she seems disturbingly proud when describing violence or raging committed by her father in defence of her after her brothers and sisters had teased her in some way or, in one shocking case, when a chicken has pecked at her and has its neck wrung in front of her when she is three years old. Clearly she cannot deny the violence and neglect her father displayed towards his children but she is determined to believe that she had a special place in his heart.

The overwhelming sense that she is special was no doubt encouraged by her father and by her being given the place of atotori - or heir to the okiya - at such a young age (she was wanted by the okiya because she was so breathtakingly beautiful even as a three year old doncha-know?) and narcissism permeates every line of this book. One is left with the impression of an extremely sad little girl who, desperate for attention, love and a place in the world, latched on to her place in the okiya and became, quite simply, a spoiled brat. This manifested in what was no doubt an extraordinary dedication to her arts but a failure to mature socially and emotionally. Iwasaki displays the same sudden explosive temper as her father and his mother before him had, sometimes in legitimate defence of herself but sometimes far too violent for the situation or sheer tantrums (such as the violent destruction of the fur coat of the wife of a man with whom she had an affair for many many years) and she describes each one with the same utter conviction that she was justified. When she describes the cattiness and cruelty of the other geisha, first within the okiya and later, seemingly, across the karyukai of the entire country, she puts every incidence down to pure jealousy and protests that she siply didn’t understand it. I’m sure jealousy was a large part of it and any woman knows how bitchy and cruel women can be to each other but the character displayed by the author is certainly one which would not endear itself to other girls and I have no doubt she did not help the situation.

Geisha of Gion is definitely worth the read, not only for the insight into this area of japanese culture but as a fascinating study of the effect this odd situation in which she suffers being abandoned by her birth parents but is sold into a life in which she is paid deference at an age when she has no abiility to understand it as anything other than that she is superior to all around her. There are many stories of being sold into service and being treated poorly (as were her sisters) but this is a different psychological story and a new one for me. It would be fascinating to read the accounts of other sisters - particularly Kuniko who lived in the okiya with Mineko. Kuniko did not have the potential (read beauty) as a geisha and so was essentially a maid but she had intelligence and so became an integral part of the behind the scenes in the okiya and, it seems, a much more grounded personality than her sister and would have quite the tale to tell.