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troutgirl 's review for:
Throne of Jade
by Naomi Novik
This is a perfect example of a thing that is no longer a thing: Chinoiserie. In the Regency/Napoleonic era in which this book is basically set, there was a tremendous vogue for all things prettily fake-Chinese -- which produced some remarkable pieces of decorative art while at the same time constituting the most trivializing kind of Orientalism. Think "inscrutable Chinamen with incomprehensible motivations spinning sinister plots in the Forbidden City" and you have the right idea.
That said, the non-PC part of me quite enjoyed this second episode in the series! After all, even Karl Marx famously confessed to loving the art of the ancient Greeks despite knowing perfectly well that it was only made possible by wholesale slavery.
One of the revelations of this volume is that Temeraire is developing into the Stephen Maturin of the series. It turns out that in China dragons (at least the higher sort) are considered scholars and companions rather than property or at best a particularly troublesome form of cavalry. You can see how this seed of thought -- considered gross Jacobinism by even the other British aviators -- is going to blossom in future volumes.
However I had an unusually hard time parsing "who did what" in this plot, probably because so much of it happens behind the scenes and driven by inscrutable Orientals. Like all Chinoiserie that lack of motivational depth ultimately leads to a less than satisfying artistic result.
That said, the non-PC part of me quite enjoyed this second episode in the series! After all, even Karl Marx famously confessed to loving the art of the ancient Greeks despite knowing perfectly well that it was only made possible by wholesale slavery.
One of the revelations of this volume is that Temeraire is developing into the Stephen Maturin of the series. It turns out that in China dragons (at least the higher sort) are considered scholars and companions rather than property or at best a particularly troublesome form of cavalry. You can see how this seed of thought -- considered gross Jacobinism by even the other British aviators -- is going to blossom in future volumes.
However I had an unusually hard time parsing "who did what" in this plot, probably because so much of it happens behind the scenes and driven by inscrutable Orientals. Like all Chinoiserie that lack of motivational depth ultimately leads to a less than satisfying artistic result.