Poppy War and Shogun
Mar. 5th, 2024 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakR.F. Kuang: The Poppy War. First volume of a trilogy, I'm told. If the Radiant Emperor duology was an fantasy take on the end of the Yuan and the beginning of the Ming dynasty, this one is a fantasy take on first half of the 20th century China, though the title and the whole backstory aft first misled me to place it in the 19th tcentury (well, in a fantasy version of same). Our protagonist, Rin, has a not entirely dissimilar arc in that she starts as one of the oppressed and exploited, the lowest of the low on her society's picking order, manages via sheer determination and work to get into a scholarly institution where she acquires some important skills but isn't fully integrated, leaves prematurely because a brutal war literally arrives at the doorstep, joins the war effort which also unleashes her increasing ruthlessness. This said, there are also important differences; Rin doesn't give herself a new identity that becomes hers, she has a secret origin unknown to herself she only starts to discover (not the hidden princess type of origin, I hasten to add; her origin ties into the general themes of colonialist oppression and increasingly genocidal wars), much of her story also deals with her being a mutant, err, a shaman, and learning how to work her mutant shaman powers, and aside from willpower and hardcore work ability, she doesn't share personality traits (at least in this book) with Zhu. Not least because Rin is prone to hero worshipping (this doesn't end well in either of the two cases where she does this, though for different reasons), her fantasy China is even more drastically brutal (that's where the early 20th century comes in), and when she crosses that ethical line into Magneto-Dom it's for Erik Lehnsherr reasons, not because she wants to be great and rule the realm. Actually, female Magneto isn't a bad description of how she ends up by the end of the first volume. She even has an old friend who used to be her only friend going "what the hell? I get your reasons, but this is too far" on her. Though I'm not sure this is her Xavier, because her two intense emotional relationships in this story are with two other guys who were in different ways her narrative foils.
It's compellingly written, and I will read the rest of the trilogy, but not before a break, because I wasn't kidding about the brutality. By which I don't mean the Quentin Tarantino hyper blood splattering type but the Schindler's List type. Good grief. Again, not meant as a critique, because never mind fantasy, the first half of the 20th century has more than enough rl examples of that kind of brutality, but it does mean I want a break before immersing myself in that universe again.
Shogun, episodes 1 - 3: the new tv version which in my part of the world is available on Disney +. The book is my Aged Parent's favourite novel of all times, I'm fond of it myself, and I like the 1980s tv series, so I was both curious and looking forward to finding out how the new version handles the tale. (I was also annoyed by a positive review which betrayed its writer can't have read the novel and probably was working from vague memories of not even the 1980s tv series but from confusing it with the Tom Cruise vehicle "The Last Samurai", because pretty much everything they praised as being original to the new version is actually from the novel.) So far, so good, with a few very little nitpicks which are more due to personal foibles of mine:
- the 1980s tv version made the decision of a) letting the Japanese character speak Japanese, only very rarely subtitled (I think three or so times), and b) remain entirely in Blackthorne's pov, so the audience knows only as much as he does and gets translated only what he gets translated; the former was still really rare for American tv back then, and the later was an effective storytelling choice for a tv miniseries, but it did mean we lost all the Japanese characters' backstories, and interactions with each other when Blackthorne isn't present. Of which there are a lot in the book, because most of the prominent Japanese characters are also pov characters (with the exception of Toranaga until the very last chapter, because friend and foe trying to guess what's going on in Toranaga and what his plan is is part of his mystique and only revealed at the end. What the new version does is also let the Japanese characters talk in Japanese with each other, but subtitled, and restore their pov scenes and backstories (and in some cases present them to the audience long before Blackthorne hears about them - thus we meet not just Mariko but all the Japanese pov characters, including ones who weren't even named in the 1980s tv version like Omi, before Blackthorne does)
- meanwhile, it's said once per episode that the Europeans are talking Portuegese with each other when they're talking English (no one in the novel ever talks English, because our English hero, John Blackthorne, is the sole Englislh character - he originally serves with a Dutch crew with whom he talks in Dutch, and otherwise talks in Portueguese and Latin with Mariko, Alvito and Rodrigues; knowing Portuguese is something useful for a pilot in an age where the Portueguese are past their greatest prime but still the big seafaring nation) and no one tries fake accents to signal which European nation they're from: THANK YOU, producers
- with the exception of the accented Rodrigues, who in the novel is a Portuegese pilot sailing for the Spanish and in this new tv version is a Spanish pilot sailing for the Portuegese (maybe because the actor? Honestly, I have no idea why they made that switch otherwise)
- or wait, I think I do: this was early during the 60 years ro so Portugal was ruled by Spain and not happy about it, which comes up in a few conversations between Blackthorne and Rodrigues in the book, but presumably the creators of the new tv thought given all the complicated Japanese politics, plots and counterplots making the meat of this story, complicated European politics are a step too far for the audience?
- speaking of Japanese politics: the new tv show starts with the death of the Taiko which is something characters remember later in the novel, which I think is a good choice to establish Toranaga and the whole regency set up for newbies from the get go
- seeing Fujikos tragic backstory play out in real time in the first episode instead of being told by Mariko to Blackthorne mid novel: ouch, in a good way, because it immediately establishes her as a character in her own right
- Mariko's son! (He's in the novel, though not often, but was cut for the tv version)
- introducing Mariko via that scene with Fuji and then with scenes with Toranaga and with her husband also gives us her character and some parts of her backstory (though with the key event still withheld) instead of introducing her via her encounter with Blackthorne is really good show, not tell choice establishing her as the co-lead from the start
- ditto mention of Blackthorne's children; being a patriot, he named them Tudor and Elizabeth, I kid you not, and they kept that
- though otherwise this version is pretty careful to tone down any traits of Blackthorne's that could alienate him from a modern audience, with the exception of his original "savages" reaction to the Japanese, since him learning otherwise is basically his biggest arc; but whereas book!Blackthorne freaks out when Mariko, after he declined the offer of sex with a woman, asks him whether he'd rather have a man, and has a homophobic temper tantrum right then and there, new tv Blackthorne just raises an eyebrow and murmurs "where have I ended up?" ; where book!Blackthorne is definitely thinking about the Brits taking over the Portueguese/Spanish business with the Japanese when he hears about the Black Ship (in addition to using the information as leverage, which he does in all version of the story), tv Blackthorne has yet to display colonialist yearnings; where book Blackthorne is a convinced Protestant whose objection to Catholics is, well, that they're Catholics, tv Blackthorne is a free thinker who doesn't want to be told what to believe and will only find out whether God exist when he dies. (I mean, yes, there were free thinkers and even atheists in the Renaissance, obviously, but you see what I'm getting at here. Book Blackthorne is a man of his time. TV Blackthorne could be a present day guy EXCEPT for his original hygiene (though that's toned down, too, from the books and the first tv version, where he literally has to be forced into hot water because he does not want to bathe, not persuaded) and weirdly his calling, in episode 3, the Japanese doctor a warlock. At which point I rolled my eyes and thought, show, yes, he believes in bleeding and the four humors, but he does know what a doctor is and can identify the Japanese man as being one. The guy isn't abroad for the first time, he's a professional pilot, and also, not from a fantasy realm. He would not call a doctor a warlock. Actually, given that he's half Dutch in the novel and that the Dutch were among the most advanced in medical science in Europe... never mind.
- neither in the book nor in the first tv version nor in this new one is John Blackthorne ever a "white savior", just for the record (see above re: stupid review); he becomes entangled in Japanese events, but not in any commanding capacity, and more like an outsider who has to figure out how to make himself useful in order not to end up dead very quickly, and this new tv show so far does a good job on showing he's a great pilot and good at improvising, and also brave, but by no means as good or better at anything the Japanese characters excell at. (And he won't be for the remainder of the story, either.)
In conclusion: I'm enjoying this new version, and look forward to the remaining episodes.
It's compellingly written, and I will read the rest of the trilogy, but not before a break, because I wasn't kidding about the brutality. By which I don't mean the Quentin Tarantino hyper blood splattering type but the Schindler's List type. Good grief. Again, not meant as a critique, because never mind fantasy, the first half of the 20th century has more than enough rl examples of that kind of brutality, but it does mean I want a break before immersing myself in that universe again.
Shogun, episodes 1 - 3: the new tv version which in my part of the world is available on Disney +. The book is my Aged Parent's favourite novel of all times, I'm fond of it myself, and I like the 1980s tv series, so I was both curious and looking forward to finding out how the new version handles the tale. (I was also annoyed by a positive review which betrayed its writer can't have read the novel and probably was working from vague memories of not even the 1980s tv series but from confusing it with the Tom Cruise vehicle "The Last Samurai", because pretty much everything they praised as being original to the new version is actually from the novel.) So far, so good, with a few very little nitpicks which are more due to personal foibles of mine:
- the 1980s tv version made the decision of a) letting the Japanese character speak Japanese, only very rarely subtitled (I think three or so times), and b) remain entirely in Blackthorne's pov, so the audience knows only as much as he does and gets translated only what he gets translated; the former was still really rare for American tv back then, and the later was an effective storytelling choice for a tv miniseries, but it did mean we lost all the Japanese characters' backstories, and interactions with each other when Blackthorne isn't present. Of which there are a lot in the book, because most of the prominent Japanese characters are also pov characters (with the exception of Toranaga until the very last chapter, because friend and foe trying to guess what's going on in Toranaga and what his plan is is part of his mystique and only revealed at the end. What the new version does is also let the Japanese characters talk in Japanese with each other, but subtitled, and restore their pov scenes and backstories (and in some cases present them to the audience long before Blackthorne hears about them - thus we meet not just Mariko but all the Japanese pov characters, including ones who weren't even named in the 1980s tv version like Omi, before Blackthorne does)
- meanwhile, it's said once per episode that the Europeans are talking Portuegese with each other when they're talking English (no one in the novel ever talks English, because our English hero, John Blackthorne, is the sole Englislh character - he originally serves with a Dutch crew with whom he talks in Dutch, and otherwise talks in Portueguese and Latin with Mariko, Alvito and Rodrigues; knowing Portuguese is something useful for a pilot in an age where the Portueguese are past their greatest prime but still the big seafaring nation) and no one tries fake accents to signal which European nation they're from: THANK YOU, producers
- with the exception of the accented Rodrigues, who in the novel is a Portuegese pilot sailing for the Spanish and in this new tv version is a Spanish pilot sailing for the Portuegese (maybe because the actor? Honestly, I have no idea why they made that switch otherwise)
- or wait, I think I do: this was early during the 60 years ro so Portugal was ruled by Spain and not happy about it, which comes up in a few conversations between Blackthorne and Rodrigues in the book, but presumably the creators of the new tv thought given all the complicated Japanese politics, plots and counterplots making the meat of this story, complicated European politics are a step too far for the audience?
- speaking of Japanese politics: the new tv show starts with the death of the Taiko which is something characters remember later in the novel, which I think is a good choice to establish Toranaga and the whole regency set up for newbies from the get go
- seeing Fujikos tragic backstory play out in real time in the first episode instead of being told by Mariko to Blackthorne mid novel: ouch, in a good way, because it immediately establishes her as a character in her own right
- Mariko's son! (He's in the novel, though not often, but was cut for the tv version)
- introducing Mariko via that scene with Fuji and then with scenes with Toranaga and with her husband also gives us her character and some parts of her backstory (though with the key event still withheld) instead of introducing her via her encounter with Blackthorne is really good show, not tell choice establishing her as the co-lead from the start
- ditto mention of Blackthorne's children; being a patriot, he named them Tudor and Elizabeth, I kid you not, and they kept that
- though otherwise this version is pretty careful to tone down any traits of Blackthorne's that could alienate him from a modern audience, with the exception of his original "savages" reaction to the Japanese, since him learning otherwise is basically his biggest arc; but whereas book!Blackthorne freaks out when Mariko, after he declined the offer of sex with a woman, asks him whether he'd rather have a man, and has a homophobic temper tantrum right then and there, new tv Blackthorne just raises an eyebrow and murmurs "where have I ended up?" ; where book!Blackthorne is definitely thinking about the Brits taking over the Portueguese/Spanish business with the Japanese when he hears about the Black Ship (in addition to using the information as leverage, which he does in all version of the story), tv Blackthorne has yet to display colonialist yearnings; where book Blackthorne is a convinced Protestant whose objection to Catholics is, well, that they're Catholics, tv Blackthorne is a free thinker who doesn't want to be told what to believe and will only find out whether God exist when he dies. (I mean, yes, there were free thinkers and even atheists in the Renaissance, obviously, but you see what I'm getting at here. Book Blackthorne is a man of his time. TV Blackthorne could be a present day guy EXCEPT for his original hygiene (though that's toned down, too, from the books and the first tv version, where he literally has to be forced into hot water because he does not want to bathe, not persuaded) and weirdly his calling, in episode 3, the Japanese doctor a warlock. At which point I rolled my eyes and thought, show, yes, he believes in bleeding and the four humors, but he does know what a doctor is and can identify the Japanese man as being one. The guy isn't abroad for the first time, he's a professional pilot, and also, not from a fantasy realm. He would not call a doctor a warlock. Actually, given that he's half Dutch in the novel and that the Dutch were among the most advanced in medical science in Europe... never mind.
- neither in the book nor in the first tv version nor in this new one is John Blackthorne ever a "white savior", just for the record (see above re: stupid review); he becomes entangled in Japanese events, but not in any commanding capacity, and more like an outsider who has to figure out how to make himself useful in order not to end up dead very quickly, and this new tv show so far does a good job on showing he's a great pilot and good at improvising, and also brave, but by no means as good or better at anything the Japanese characters excell at. (And he won't be for the remainder of the story, either.)
In conclusion: I'm enjoying this new version, and look forward to the remaining episodes.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-05 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 08:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-05 10:30 pm (UTC)Thanks for the review of the Poppy War. I've got that in my e-book reading queue. Bable on audible. And Yellowface in Hardback. I'm reading Yellowface at the moment - R. F. Kuang's biting satire/takedown of the NYC publishing industry. (Sigh. She's not wrong - the NY Publishing Industry is insanely toxic. But it's controversial - because a lot of the people she loosely satirized are claiming she knows nothing of the "non-fantasy literary market" and is too academic. There was a kerfuffle on Twitter and Good Reads when it first came out.) So far? It's good. She's a compelling writer.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 04:24 am (UTC)If you want to support the author try Babel instead, her writing has improved and it's got some of the same themes being explored but without the war crimes.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 08:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-07 02:13 am (UTC)Frederick was so cowed by the literary dominance of French that he wrote in 1780 an essay, in French, criticizing his native German.
!
*g*
no subject
Date: 2024-03-07 07:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-07 12:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-06 11:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-24 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-03-24 06:51 pm (UTC)