saturdayreaderinpink 's review for:

He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

4.0

challenging dark hopeful tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

General Thoughts

Wang Baoxiang quickly catapulted to favorite character status for me.

I mean, the title does reference him. And Parker-Chan does an excellent job with unreliable narrator in regards to him. His relationship with the Third Prince and Minister were so distinct to me. Funnily enough, I began to dislike Ouyang, though it’s not the writings fault. I missed Ma here too, though I understand why she took up less space.

I understand gender better thanks to these books. I recommend them to anyone who wants to better understand queer people, the subjectivity of the stories we tell ourselves, and anyone who just loves a hero’s journey type thing. I liked this one less than the other because of personal preference:

I read for interpersonal resolution, and people kept dying (for plot reasons) before that resolution could happen. Baoxiang was also upset about this, which was the whole point, even though it’s still his fault.

Look, if Parker-Chan publishes more, I expect I’ll be reading them!

These books are really excellent studies on nuanced levels of privilege based on how someone is situated in their society— and how that position impacts every aspect of their life: relationships, ambitions, perspectives, and personal stories. It’s subtle. It’s good character writing.

A huge theme throughout the series is understanding. Can you be loved if you’re not understood? What does it mean to be loved or to love someone who chooses to look away— who loves you, but when convenient, chooses not to see the full you. It’s not violent, it’s not unloving, and it’s likely not even intentional. But understanding, choosing to do it or not to, is a core theme in the relationships between these characters (which in of itself shapes each characters goals, and thus, the plot.)

And though this book is dark, its ending isn’t ominous. This book’s conclusion is hopeful.

Favorite Quotes

She could understand why. To be in contact with someone else’s pain was to risk feeling it yourself, unless you severed the connection by hating them. When most people’s greatest desire was to avoid pain, of course they would rather hate.

He’d been seeing the imprints of someone who persisted because he was remembered, and sought after, and yearned for, by a person who couldn’t imagine life without him. It had all been in his mind, he thought, shuddering. He’d been talking to a void. He’d done everything he had done for someone who wasn’t there.

His bodily agony was a wild paroxysm. He was being screwed into the dark awfulness of his soul, and he knew, furiously, that if only he could find it, there would be pleasure in the pain. Somewhere inside there would be the righteousness he had come for—the vicious satisfaction, and the twisted, cruel joy of knowing he was about to plunge the entire world into his own living nightmare of pain and suffering. He was groping for the pleasure, clawing through the darkness for it. It was at his fingertips; it was slippery, elusive, threatening to dissolve into wretchedness straining effort, he forced himself upon it. His trembling relief, that what he’d wanted did finally feel good, somehow felt as desperate as terror.

In Zhu’s opinion, General Zhang hadn’t been the paragon of nobility that Ouyang had seemed to think he was. Perhaps his heart had been unwilling to betray his brother, but his flesh had been willing enough. The very first time General Zhang had fucked his brother’s wife, he’d committed both himself and his brother to a path upon which one of them would die. Any further hesitation after that point didn’t make him good. All it showed was his reluctance to take on the guilt of being the one to act first.

She heard an echo of Xu Da’s voice from that long-ago rooftop: They say he cherishes him even more than his own brother. But what Zhu remembered most clearly about that day wasn’t Esen-Temur himself. It was how the Abbot had forbade Ouyang from accompanying the others into the hall because he was a eunuch. Esen-Temur had made a brief protest. Perhaps he really did cherish Ouyang. But in the end even he had left him behind to stand alone in his shame.

How could Esen believe that his refusal to be what everyone wanted him to be was easy, or cowardly, when this was the price he paid? Esen was silent. For a moment Baoxiang let himself believe that this time, because he was asking for it—because he needed it—Esen would see. Then Esen said in a voice tight with anger, “Pull yourself together.” Of course, Baoxiang thought dimly. That was why Esen had been rough. His anger wasn’t at what his friends had done. It was at Baoxiang, for letting them do it. With a curdled feeling, he saw that Esen had waited that long to speak only so he could resist the urge to hit Baoxiang himself. Esen wasn’t Baoxiang’s protector. He was a young warrior, like those other young warriors. He felt the same as they did. Stunned, Baoxiang realized: You hate me, too

All these fools with their hidden desires. All their denial ever accomplished was to open a door for someone to understand them better than they understood themselves. Someone who would use that understanding to hurt them.

He felt as skewered as the chicken liver. The thing he thought he was stealing was being given to him as a gift. It gave him a skinless feeling of shame.

Content Warnings