Paama flees her gluttonous husband, Ansige; two years later, he hires the master tracker Kwame to find her. Kwame reluctantly takes the job to finance his own wanderlust. These events draw the attention of the Indigo Lord, one of the powerful spirits called Djombi. He wielded the power of Chaos until it was taken from him and given to Paama, and he wants it back. An unnamed narrator, sometimes serious and often mischievous, spins delicate but powerful descriptions of locations, emotions, and the protagonists’ great flaws and great strengths as they interact with family, poets, tricksters, sufferers of tragedy, and—of course—occasional moments of pure chaos.
This is one of those books I’m pretty ambivalent about, but this isn’t anything to do with its quality per se, but what boils down to my final impression. Like, what I took away from it. This isn’t in the sense of “amg what deep profound insight did it bring to the table,” but more whether it is memorable.
And, well, it isn’t very. It’s one of those books that I find pleasant enough but which don’t leave any lasting impression. I read it, I reached the last page, and I was ready to forget all about it.
But, as I said, this doesn’t mean the book is bad–it could well mean a lot more to other readers–and overall it’s plenty readable. The prose is decent if simplistic, the first chapter caught my interest, and I didn’t hate any of the characters. It’s amusing, in an airy, fable kind of way, and it has a lovely cover. I’m not familiar with the original folktale this is apparently based on however, so those who are may get more out of it.
If there are any particular criticisms I want to level at Lord’s debut, it is that I felt there was too little conflict, if you will. The beginning was my favorite–setting up Paama’s leaving her husband and her husband’s subsequent humiliation when he tries to get her to come back to him–but much of the book is about the djombi Indigo Lord and his efforts to wrestle back the Chaos Stick from Paama, who has been rather arbitrarily chosen to bear it. To accomplish this, he shows her why the power’s not fit for human hands and why he, a djombi, is the rightful wielder: he shows her terrible disasters and adventures. The problem is that, though there’s a gulf between the way Paama thinks and the way the Indigo Lord thinks, there’s not much… tension. The author drums up the Indigo Lord as a djombi who’s forsaken his duties and position as a “good” spirit, and plays up his potential for cruelty and evil, but he turns out to be a paper tiger who only really wanted a friend. It’s not that I want a mustache-swirling antagonist, but I was hoping he’d be more of a threat and less of a fluffbunny. His rehabilitation, being reincarnated as a human, is more than a little silly and a little trite. What is it with supernatural powerful beings being made to go mortal for some fifty years? Paama’s marriage with Kwame also comes out of nowhere, and seems to be dropped in simply because it’s the kind of expectations we have for fairytales. Sure, in a way it fits–this started as a domestic story and is mostly a domestic story throughout (and that’s a very fine thing, actually; I love domestic done well)–but there’s little time for her relationship with the hunter-tracker to develop.
Redemption is great if you want something distracting to read or a break between heftier books, and I don’t say this like I mean it’s a vacuous, empty-headed novel but rather that it’s a breezy and fun read.
Darius Wilkins
/ April 18, 2012Thinking about the breezy, low conflict nature–and really, I think the conflicts were really about the speaker of the tale and the presumed expectations of her audience. Fables aren’t about the conflicts in the story. The ant and the grasshopper didn’t fight each other, insecta a insecto. Fables are almost an appetizer, a debate proposition, a party DJ, a way to get the juice moving between the speaker and people who hold different heuristics, and they manipulate the characters and the settings in retelling the story that illustrate their minds when the speaker is done. There is a meta-conflict here. There could be more conflict, and more hinges to invest the grease of emotional investment, but in a story, a conflict that doesn’t resolve itself feels incomplete in a way that accuses the speaker. On the other hand, a story that is aggressive, defines itself too well to be fun to talk about after the telling is over. The characters are without ambiguity. The solution is too well set in the socket, and it’s hard to talk about alternatives. I think this a book better read in company, over some tea.
Chance, of course, reminds me of Doro, and I think it’s illustrative to compare how Bulter and Lord decides to ground the ungrounded and why they’d write about why they’d write about male figures they do…
Kwame, for that little bit of attention at the very beginning of the book, and very end, I found interesting. Anton as well, in fact. In general, for the few words that Lord gave even a 6 year old girl was pretty good.
Guess it stuck a bit more on me. It didn’t blow me away like Among Others did, but it really was nicely lingering in the mind, like a fine, light premium green tea does in the mouth.
acrackedmoon
/ April 20, 2012I may change my opinion of this book quite radically, actually, if ever I were to reread it again. It’s one of those things you come away with quite differently, probably, after your tastes and perspective have changed quite a bit.