Book-It 'o14! Book #14
Jul. 31st, 2014 03:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alivemagdoleneThe Fifty Books Challenge, year five! (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013) This was a library request.
Title: The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Karino, translated by Rebecca Copeland
Details: Copyright 2012, Cannongate
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): "From internationally bestselling crime writer Natsuo Kirino comes a mythical feminist noir about family secrets, broken loyalties, and the search from truth in a deceitful world.
In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow. On her sixth birthday, Kamikuu is chosen to become the next Oracle, serving the realm of light, while Namima is forced to serve the realm of darkness—destined to spend eternity guiding the spirits of the deceased to the underworld.
As the sisters serve opposite fates, Namima embarks on a journey that takes her from the experience of first love to the aftermath of scalding betrayal. Caught in an elaborate web of treachery, she travels between the land of the living and the Realm of the Dead, seeking vengeance and closure.
At the heart of this exquisitely dark tale, Kirino masterfully reimagines the ancient Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanaki. A provocative, fantastical saga, The Goddess Chronicle tells a sumptuous story of sex, murder, gods and goddesses, and bittersweet revenge."
Why I Wanted to Read It: This came up on a search for "Goddess+fiction" and sounded intriguing.
How I Liked It: A kind of retelling of a great myth with some original characters (particularly from a certain bent) can be wonderful and I was excited to read this. While Neil Gaiman has done some extremely annoying and problematic things (especially lately), I (for the most part) enjoyed his Sandman takes on various myths.
Kirino does capture the Gaiman magic and mystery, and some distinctly her own, particularly in her vision of the afterlife (and forms of reincarnation).
But the book has a kind of flat affect that I attributed to the translation (I am famously against translations by someone other than the author thanks to the god-fucking-awful/borderline-hilarious Brida affair) but reading other reviews, it's apparently not just the translation: Kirono has a habit of "telling not showing."
The story's plotting and structure is still multi-layered and unique enough to bear a flat telling, but when you're creating and recreating a myth of the Gods, you really can't afford to have anything less than at least a lively tone.
Notable: I'm generally looking for Pagans and Paganism with "Goddess+fiction", and this... isn't that. Much like Gaiman's work, it treats non-Abrahamic Gods as venerated fairytales in which to tweak (a reviewer on the back notes that Kirino casts the Gods as "capricious and temperamental, much as the Greek gods").
Having read Japanese creation myths (as well as other creation myths, including Greek) written by actual Pagans that come with according gravity and reverence, it'd be interesting if a Pagan author ever decided to take this route.
Title: The Goddess Chronicle by Natsuo Karino, translated by Rebecca Copeland
Details: Copyright 2012, Cannongate
Synopsis (By Way of Front and Back Flaps): "From internationally bestselling crime writer Natsuo Kirino comes a mythical feminist noir about family secrets, broken loyalties, and the search from truth in a deceitful world.
In a place like no other, on a mystical island in the shape of tear drop, two sisters are born into a family of oracles. Kamikuu is admired far and wide for her otherworldly beauty; small and headstrong Namima learns to live in her sister’s shadow. On her sixth birthday, Kamikuu is chosen to become the next Oracle, serving the realm of light, while Namima is forced to serve the realm of darkness—destined to spend eternity guiding the spirits of the deceased to the underworld.
As the sisters serve opposite fates, Namima embarks on a journey that takes her from the experience of first love to the aftermath of scalding betrayal. Caught in an elaborate web of treachery, she travels between the land of the living and the Realm of the Dead, seeking vengeance and closure.
At the heart of this exquisitely dark tale, Kirino masterfully reimagines the ancient Japanese creation myth of Izanami and Izanaki. A provocative, fantastical saga, The Goddess Chronicle tells a sumptuous story of sex, murder, gods and goddesses, and bittersweet revenge."
Why I Wanted to Read It: This came up on a search for "Goddess+fiction" and sounded intriguing.
How I Liked It: A kind of retelling of a great myth with some original characters (particularly from a certain bent) can be wonderful and I was excited to read this. While Neil Gaiman has done some extremely annoying and problematic things (especially lately), I (for the most part) enjoyed his Sandman takes on various myths.
Kirino does capture the Gaiman magic and mystery, and some distinctly her own, particularly in her vision of the afterlife (and forms of reincarnation).
But the book has a kind of flat affect that I attributed to the translation (I am famously against translations by someone other than the author thanks to the god-fucking-awful/borderline-hilarious Brida affair) but reading other reviews, it's apparently not just the translation: Kirono has a habit of "telling not showing."
The story's plotting and structure is still multi-layered and unique enough to bear a flat telling, but when you're creating and recreating a myth of the Gods, you really can't afford to have anything less than at least a lively tone.
Notable: I'm generally looking for Pagans and Paganism with "Goddess+fiction", and this... isn't that. Much like Gaiman's work, it treats non-Abrahamic Gods as venerated fairytales in which to tweak (a reviewer on the back notes that Kirino casts the Gods as "capricious and temperamental, much as the Greek gods").
Having read Japanese creation myths (as well as other creation myths, including Greek) written by actual Pagans that come with according gravity and reverence, it'd be interesting if a Pagan author ever decided to take this route.
