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A review by ohmage_resistance
Rakesfall by Vajra Chandrasekera
challenging
dark
medium-paced
This book is literary speculative fiction about two people who keep reincarnating and meeting each other over time, often in odd worlds or strange circumstances (it’s pretty surrealist). Thematically, it's about revolutions and how the world is haunted by violence and greed.. It was pretty interesting, I generally liked it.
It draws a lot on Sri Lankan history, especially in the first half of the novel, but universalizes things when it gets more sci fi towards the end. It's also pretty confusing, but not as bad as I thought it would be. If you can get through part one (the Annelid and Leveret part), you should be fine with the rest, although personally I'd recommend maybe skimming over a quick summary of Sri Lankan history if you have time. I also liked that Chandrasekera examined not only the cost of not only colonization/imperialism, but also of revolution (but also of not having a revolution), and he did it in a way that felt unexpected (though it probably shouldn’t be) and messy and grounded even when it’s at it’s most surreal/
I was originally waiting to check out the ebook to read this book (my last try with a more experimental book on audio didn’t go so well), and I finally got it. Unfortunately, I ended up with a lot more audiobook reading time than ebook reading time this last week, so I was having trouble getting around to it (especially after reading The Bone Ships, which isn’t a short book). I ended up just checking the audiobook out with the intention of cross referencing anything I got confused about with the ebook, but I ended up getting sucked in. I still want to reread Rakesfall in ebook to track down a lot of the allusions Chandrasekera was making, but the audiobook was actually pretty comprehensible.
I don't really know how to review this book, so I'm just going to compare it to some other books quick, starting with Chandrasekera's other book, The Saint of Bright Doors. Rakesfall was much more experimental than Saint. I did have some narrative level problems with Saint (mostly pacing related). I suspected that since Rakesfall was not trying to be a traditional narrative, I wouldn’t have those issues with it, and I was correct. I liked it more than Saint honestly, although IDK if thqt will be true for other people.
It also reminded me a bit of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez in the way it got meta about telling stories (narrative, genre, heck, there’s even a play going on in one part, although TV shows, documentaries, and folktales also come up). Stories that do this have trouble landing well for me, and I don’t think this one worked quite as well as Spear, but it wasn’t too far from it. (I think the play part worked the best, because Chandrasekera was aware who his audience would be, and I think he did a good job calling out the ways Americans often react to these violent stories of colonization.)
It was also pretty interesting to me, because I read a book that seemed to be doing a lot of the same things a few weeks ago (The Sunforge by Sascha Stronach) which completely didn't work for me (to the point where I was wondering if I even liked this level of experimental books), where Rakesfall did. (I should be clear, they're both experimental, nonlinear, about long lived characters, and have similar themes about colonization) I think Rakesfall did seem to me to be generally better executed (I think Chandrasekera is a better writer on a prose and thematic level), but I think the most important difference to me was that Rakesfall was written a bit more like interconnected short stories, I had time to ground myself in a narrative for a bit and get a grasp on it, where The Sunforge kept switching between different plotlines and timelines in each chapter so fast that I just couldn't get a good grasp on the characters or why I should care about them or why anything mattered. It didn’t feel like any of the ideas had time to be fully explored, where as Rakesfall would take the time to explore each setting/each brief story in depth, and examine the full ramifications of those ideas.
It draws a lot on Sri Lankan history, especially in the first half of the novel, but universalizes things when it gets more sci fi towards the end. It's also pretty confusing, but not as bad as I thought it would be. If you can get through part one (the Annelid and Leveret part), you should be fine with the rest, although personally I'd recommend maybe skimming over a quick summary of Sri Lankan history if you have time. I also liked that Chandrasekera examined not only the cost of not only colonization/imperialism, but also of revolution (but also of not having a revolution), and he did it in a way that felt unexpected (though it probably shouldn’t be) and messy and grounded even when it’s at it’s most surreal/
I was originally waiting to check out the ebook to read this book (my last try with a more experimental book on audio didn’t go so well), and I finally got it. Unfortunately, I ended up with a lot more audiobook reading time than ebook reading time this last week, so I was having trouble getting around to it (especially after reading The Bone Ships, which isn’t a short book). I ended up just checking the audiobook out with the intention of cross referencing anything I got confused about with the ebook, but I ended up getting sucked in. I still want to reread Rakesfall in ebook to track down a lot of the allusions Chandrasekera was making, but the audiobook was actually pretty comprehensible.
I don't really know how to review this book, so I'm just going to compare it to some other books quick, starting with Chandrasekera's other book, The Saint of Bright Doors. Rakesfall was much more experimental than Saint. I did have some narrative level problems with Saint (mostly pacing related). I suspected that since Rakesfall was not trying to be a traditional narrative, I wouldn’t have those issues with it, and I was correct. I liked it more than Saint honestly, although IDK if thqt will be true for other people.
It also reminded me a bit of The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez in the way it got meta about telling stories (narrative, genre, heck, there’s even a play going on in one part, although TV shows, documentaries, and folktales also come up). Stories that do this have trouble landing well for me, and I don’t think this one worked quite as well as Spear, but it wasn’t too far from it. (I think the play part worked the best, because Chandrasekera was aware who his audience would be, and I think he did a good job calling out the ways Americans often react to these violent stories of colonization.)
It was also pretty interesting to me, because I read a book that seemed to be doing a lot of the same things a few weeks ago (The Sunforge by Sascha Stronach) which completely didn't work for me (to the point where I was wondering if I even liked this level of experimental books), where Rakesfall did. (I should be clear, they're both experimental, nonlinear, about long lived characters, and have similar themes about colonization) I think Rakesfall did seem to me to be generally better executed (I think Chandrasekera is a better writer on a prose and thematic level), but I think the most important difference to me was that Rakesfall was written a bit more like interconnected short stories, I had time to ground myself in a narrative for a bit and get a grasp on it, where The Sunforge kept switching between different plotlines and timelines in each chapter so fast that I just couldn't get a good grasp on the characters or why I should care about them or why anything mattered. It didn’t feel like any of the ideas had time to be fully explored, where as Rakesfall would take the time to explore each setting/each brief story in depth, and examine the full ramifications of those ideas.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Racism, Suicide, Torture, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Murder, Colonisation, War
Moderate: Child abuse, Child death, Abandonment
Minor: Alcoholism, Slavery, Cannibalism, Death of parent
This book deals with a lot of dark topics in general.