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brynhammond 's review for:
Empress
by Shan Sa
The ‘great man theory’ of history is out of fashion, and I don’t know how often historical fiction, either, sets out to portray greatness – whatever that is – in the political sphere. In this book I found myself convinced I was in the presence of greatness, a person I want to call great, and to add to that uncommon experience, she’s a woman.
If any of that sounds easy, I don’t think it is. At a point in this book it dawned upon me that in historical fiction, I haven’t met a great woman before – at least in the world of political leadership and statecraft. That may be down to the hf I read, or not. I avoid hf with titles like Empress, Princess, Queen, Consort or Concubine, because I can’t live in the women’s quarters for fun: therefore I don’t know what’s inside those novels, but I do know that this novel – which I nearly didn’t read on title – bulldozed those prejudices of mine, in seconds flat. In here I found quite an awesome human being. And I thought, it isn’t only that the historical subjects are rare (great stateswomen), but in order to create them on the page, you must have to rigorously do your thinking behind your writing. I sensed a rigour of thought behind the presentation of this woman.
From early on Heavenlight (Wu Zetian) gives the impression that her abilities swamp those around her, and moreover, she has a confidence in this. When, later in life, she finds herself more effective in worldly affairs than her emperor husband, she steps up to the job without… cognitive dissonance. She’s never been a hanger-on of others (who happen to be men). This mentality must have been necessary for a woman who makes herself Emperor of China.
As I understand, Wu Zetian was hopelessly traduced and trashed in the historical sources, so that we can’t expect to recover the ‘truth’ about her. What Shan Sa has chosen to do is salvage her with possible interpretations – possible, and positive. The resultant portrait may or may not resemble the historical person, but again I’ll say, is possible, and even just for that is a useful exercise. For myself, in future, I’m going to have a hard time picturing Wu Zetian any other way than the Heavenlight of this novel.
On style. This is told in intense first person; it’s about her and from her; her feelings for others are conveyed, but not so much the others’ existence in themselves. No doubt our subjectivities are as self-centred as this – it isn’t that she struck me as a selfish person. There is a brevity (one large life in 300 pages): in the middle parts I felt this a skimming-over, but in the late parts this brevity worked as an extraction of the essential or the right lines (the author’s a painter). Maybe that was me, getting used to the style. It had enough exclamation marks to play toy soldiers with... I don’t like to complain of such trivialities in translations from the French, but they got hard to ignore. At times I was plunged into the emotional life of this novel; at other times it failed to engage me. Again, I don’t whether that’s me, and I’ll see what happens next time I read this.
I mentioned that I can’t stand to live in the women’s quarters: here the Inner Palace is a prison and an insane asylum, and that meant I was fine. These women are overwrought, but they are seen to be made insane. It’s fair enough.
I’d note the parallels of youth and age in her sex life. As a young girl she suffers an obsession for one of the emperor’s older wives; when she herself is fifty she is once again infatuated with a fourteen-year-old girl. For years she serves as emperor’s wife; in her widowhood she acquires a young man, and he is kept, for her uses, in such a turned-upside-down way, equivalent to how the emperor treated his concubines… that I think Shan Sa is interested in exploring these matters.
I’m a fan of the use of translated names. Zetian is Heavenlight, and so we notice the light themes that coalesce about her. Children of hers are named Splendor, Future, Miracle. Lucky they are, because she can have little to do with her children, and these names were far more memorable for me than, in my ignorance, the Chinese. It exploits the ironies: Wisdom? uh-uh. Intelligence? a distinct lack of. It adds to the atmosphere and the intelligibility of the world, it tells us about their values. The city Chang’an is Long Peace. Our experience is more real when we know what the names mean, as, obviously, the novel’s inhabitants know.
If any of that sounds easy, I don’t think it is. At a point in this book it dawned upon me that in historical fiction, I haven’t met a great woman before – at least in the world of political leadership and statecraft. That may be down to the hf I read, or not. I avoid hf with titles like Empress, Princess, Queen, Consort or Concubine, because I can’t live in the women’s quarters for fun: therefore I don’t know what’s inside those novels, but I do know that this novel – which I nearly didn’t read on title – bulldozed those prejudices of mine, in seconds flat. In here I found quite an awesome human being. And I thought, it isn’t only that the historical subjects are rare (great stateswomen), but in order to create them on the page, you must have to rigorously do your thinking behind your writing. I sensed a rigour of thought behind the presentation of this woman.
From early on Heavenlight (Wu Zetian) gives the impression that her abilities swamp those around her, and moreover, she has a confidence in this. When, later in life, she finds herself more effective in worldly affairs than her emperor husband, she steps up to the job without… cognitive dissonance. She’s never been a hanger-on of others (who happen to be men). This mentality must have been necessary for a woman who makes herself Emperor of China.
As I understand, Wu Zetian was hopelessly traduced and trashed in the historical sources, so that we can’t expect to recover the ‘truth’ about her. What Shan Sa has chosen to do is salvage her with possible interpretations – possible, and positive. The resultant portrait may or may not resemble the historical person, but again I’ll say, is possible, and even just for that is a useful exercise. For myself, in future, I’m going to have a hard time picturing Wu Zetian any other way than the Heavenlight of this novel.
On style. This is told in intense first person; it’s about her and from her; her feelings for others are conveyed, but not so much the others’ existence in themselves. No doubt our subjectivities are as self-centred as this – it isn’t that she struck me as a selfish person. There is a brevity (one large life in 300 pages): in the middle parts I felt this a skimming-over, but in the late parts this brevity worked as an extraction of the essential or the right lines (the author’s a painter). Maybe that was me, getting used to the style. It had enough exclamation marks to play toy soldiers with... I don’t like to complain of such trivialities in translations from the French, but they got hard to ignore. At times I was plunged into the emotional life of this novel; at other times it failed to engage me. Again, I don’t whether that’s me, and I’ll see what happens next time I read this.
I mentioned that I can’t stand to live in the women’s quarters: here the Inner Palace is a prison and an insane asylum, and that meant I was fine. These women are overwrought, but they are seen to be made insane. It’s fair enough.
I’d note the parallels of youth and age in her sex life. As a young girl she suffers an obsession for one of the emperor’s older wives; when she herself is fifty she is once again infatuated with a fourteen-year-old girl. For years she serves as emperor’s wife; in her widowhood she acquires a young man, and he is kept, for her uses, in such a turned-upside-down way, equivalent to how the emperor treated his concubines… that I think Shan Sa is interested in exploring these matters.
I’m a fan of the use of translated names. Zetian is Heavenlight, and so we notice the light themes that coalesce about her. Children of hers are named Splendor, Future, Miracle. Lucky they are, because she can have little to do with her children, and these names were far more memorable for me than, in my ignorance, the Chinese. It exploits the ironies: Wisdom? uh-uh. Intelligence? a distinct lack of. It adds to the atmosphere and the intelligibility of the world, it tells us about their values. The city Chang’an is Long Peace. Our experience is more real when we know what the names mean, as, obviously, the novel’s inhabitants know.