You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—(4.5 ★’s)
You asked how large my sorrow is, And I answered, like a river in spring flowing east. —Li Yu (李煜)
The Dragon Republic is a tale of many things—festering anger and broken trust, learning to fight for hope and bearing failure’s inevitable rust, yes, but more than anything else, it is a tale of rankling inequity and unspeakable iniquity, of looking at the colour of one’s skin or the size of their head or the shape of their eyes, and deeming them lower, lesser, inhuman and primitive and stupid; of declaring a person chosen and evolved and another, unformed mud; of feeling righteous in reaching for what they have and carelessly trampling them beneath your shining heels.
As a Middle Easterner, I know first hand that stories like this are too common in Asia. We bear that legacy of pain on our shoulders—our backs are bent beneath their weights and our heads beaten down. Too often does the world gloss over the atrocities of the past, too often the response to history is “but that’s all in the past.”
Well, it is not.
You can tell the world to move on, you can shout it and chant it and point to the silent weapons and loud reforms promising freedom and equality, but how can one move on when we still live in an unfair world revolving around privilege, a world where the colour of your skin or the soil you were born on decide what you can and cannot have? The promises and well-intended declarations of “look to the future because what’s passed is in the past”? All they do is veil the injustice that forms the roots of this world, and by forgetting our history there is no way to shape a better future.
That is why The Poppy War trilogy matters. That is why this Chinese inspired military fantasy should be read and discussed and remembered. With The Dragon Republic, Rebecca Kuang aims to make you, dear reader, terribly uncomfortable. This is a book that is grim and dark and sucks your energy away like a black hole devouring all light. It’s not a wickedly delightful grimdark fantasy relishing rage and revenge, but one that unveils the leeches feeding and growing on your vengeance and makes you so furious yet so helpless that you are crushed underneath the weight of the world, exhausted and powerless even as you know that there is no fate, only choice.
“Happy New Year,” Kitay said. “May the gods send you blessings and good fortune.” “Health, wealth, and happiness. May your enemies rot and surrender quickly before we have to kill more of them.”
I’m not sure if I love or hate that Kuang can take glorious concepts such as ethereal worlds and gods and a revolution, and drag them down to earth so viciously that they turn into tangible, worldly, manageable affairs of everyday life. It’s rather frustratingly admirable, I admit.
But with a plot that does not fall into the passivity trap of TPW, added intrigue, improved writing, and awe-inspiringly deeper dive into intended themes like trauma and addiction, TDR managed to steal my heart in the way I’d been all but begging for, despite slightly lacking in development of some relationships (not characters, which were all stunningly layered and shaped)—but we’ll get to that in time.
If you write a book inspired by true events, you bet I, the history nerd, will dedicate an entire section to analysis of its influences and themes. Forget the characters and relationships and whatnot, this is the real reason why TPW trilogy is worthy of note. From civil war to western colonisation, Kuang unflinchingly tackles every dark nook and cranny of its Chinese influence to the ground, taming it and capturing it and putting it on disturbing display for our guarded eyes.
In my review of The Poppy War, I mentioned how I believed these books were largely inspired by the Qing dynasty which was the last imperial dynasty of China, and this sequel further strengthens my conclusion.
For one thing, the book’s Poppy Wars and their Hesperian relations are reminiscent of the Opium Wars, which were Europe’s early attempts at western colonisation of China during the reign of the Qing dynasty. Not only that, but Kuang also shows the shift in Europe’s attempts at colonisation through history, from forceful penetration in the 19th century to the economical coercion and civilising mission of the following years. The racism and greed inherent in those intervening, invasive hands seeking control of the resources of prosperous eastern lands excused by beliefs in the superiority of the White race is an infuriating and uncomfortable topic to witness for anyone of any ethnicity, and Kuang fearlessly lays its every preposterous audacity bare.
However, she has also jumbled the timeline of events and mixed nations’ and figures’ roles enough that I had to spend an insane amount of time piecing this puzzle together. To share my findings, I’ll have to give you a quick history lesson touching upon a few needed prominent moments:
Once upon a time the Qing dynasty ruled over China from 1636 to 1912. During its later years, the British who love tea bought their supply from China—but because they didn’t want to pay for it with their silver, they made up for it with cotton and opium exports from India, in which they’d just gained control. As opium addiction became an issue in the land though, the Chinese government declared a ban on all opium trade. The Great Britain was obviously bothered so, you guessed it, they showed up with their ships and guns in June of 1840 and demanded unjustified rights. The following years brought suffering and two Opium Wars for China as it was overpowered by the west, the US, France, and Russia all taking advantage of its weakness to press for favourable trade treaties and generally getting away with whatever the hell they wanted.
Eventually, people got fed up and, with various revolts, the 1911 Revolution succeeded in overthrowing the Qing. After more civil war and unrest, the Beiyang government was established as China’s central authority with Yuan Shikai being the first formal President of the Republic of China. But, seeking more of the ever-alluring power and monopolising the power of the new national government, Yuan made a short-lived attempt to make himself Emperor, died, power struggles ensued, and China ended up with two warring governments: the Communist Party of China (or CPC, based in North China) and the Nationalist Party of China (or KMT, based in South China, created by Sun Yat-sen who had previously opposed and then compromised with Yuan).
History is complicated and confusing, but there is one thing you need to know whenever it comes to the affairs of the east: that, after a point, you will always find the west peeking its head. So as China fought to unify itself, two things relevant to this historical fiction series were happening: on one hand, the foreign armies stationed in North China that had been brought in to suppress the rebellion were in danger of warring to gain power over the divided land for their “advanced nations” and on the other hand, the Soviet Union proceeded to pledge its assistance for unification of China. Thus, while everyone sought to retain both a compliant native government and equal opportunity for investment, the Soviet leadership initiated a dual policy of support for both Chinese parties, backing CPC with money and spies and aiming to reorganise KMT along the ideals of the Comintern—an international organisation founded by Russia that advocated world communism.
After years of division, Japan’s invasion of China in 1937 due to its decades-long imperialist policy to become a colonial power itself, led to a temporary unification of KMT and CPC as China fought the Second Sino-Japanese War with the help of the Soviet Union and the United States. And then there was death and tragedy and the Rape of Nanjing and WWII and the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki...and you know how it goes—lives were destroyed, crimes were committed, and history was tainted and painted in black.
What happened with the Chinese Civil War after that is not in the domain of this book, so I’m leaving the story there.
As is evident, Kuang has taken events spanning across two centuries, shifted them and changed them and summarised them in a few decades: Mugen (Japan) became the main enemy in the Poppy Wars instead of Hesperia (Europe) and the Second Sino-Japanese War became the Third Poppy War, happening years earlier during the Qing dynasty instead of after its collapse. Vaisra is a Yuan Shikai (a Qing military strongman establishing the first modern army and a more efficient provincial government in North China) who did as Sun Yat-sen had done and sought foreign help, sending his people to learn from the Hesperians. The Consortium is the Comintern, observing and meddling in the precise same way. I could go on, matching every character and action with its historical counterpart because I am mad enough to have spent hours doing just that, but I will spare your poor braincells.
Despite the changes that brought the fiction to the historical, TDR ultimately maintains the main themes of its inspirations and boldly explores their implications. From fear and eradication of rumours of sorcery, to anti-Christianity and the cold treatment of western ambassadors during the Qing dynasty; from the colourism dividing North and South China with a line of prejudice and privilege, to idealist liberal movements that are in truth hypocritical and blind to the reality of the depth of injustice; from arrogant civilising missions, colonisations, and rapacity of the west, to beliefs in the superiority and chosen status of a race over the lowly and inhumane view of another, Kuang pours heart and soul into ink and parchment to develop each facet of the picture she draws.
“Do not shirk from war, child. Do not flinch from suffering. When you hear screaming, run toward it.”
And that, my friends, is why this book matters. It matters because it does not let you ignore what was and what is, still, laid in our foundations.
[image]
Characters: Development & Relationships
If you strip away the powerful themes and exquisite world, you will be left with the characters—and they are just as faceted as the aforementioned aspects of the book.
“When you have the power that you do, your life is not your own.”
✿ Rin: It’s quite rare to read healing journeys gone wrong, weaving the ways characters slip instead of succeed in their battle with mental illness, so I appreciate how Kuang delves into Rin’s mentality, her excuses behind addiction, and her immediate flight when encountering grief and guilt. With Rin’s internal struggles, we soberingly witness the philosophy of violence and watch as its haunting consequences unfold.
But in all honesty, even as I love Rin’s lethal, unapologetic quickness and zero tolerance, she’s too much of a follower—needing to be disciplined, craving her abusers, picking paths rather than carving her own—to capture my heart yet. I do love that her incompetence is acknowledged, though; something that has me very hopeful for the path the story seems to be taking.
✿ Nezha: This idealistic, clueless, privileged, haunted, idiotically loyal baby boy has me so conflicted I want to simultaneously hug him adoringly and pummel him angrily. It’s a pity that his character and his dynamic with Rin did not get the time and attention they deserved, because they could’ve been my new obsession. But sadly, this relationship ended up being as lackingly developed as Rin and Altan in TPW.
Considering how impressively Kuang’s writing has improved though, with Altan’s promised theme of destructive tendencies now finally being shown and thoroughly written, I cannot wait to see Kuang grow even more and steal my breath with Rinezha as well as Nezha himself.
✿ Kitay: You know that character who walks through trauma and emerges as a bitter bastard on the other side? Yes, that one, the one I, however disturbingly, love—that is my Kitay going from an uptight, moral cinnamon roll to a viciously practical scholar slaying me with his sass. It was a little sad to see his righteousness come bite him in the arse, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it was also satisfying; what can I say, I’m evil.
✿ The Cike: Last but not least, tiny, innocent, brilliant, and dangerous Ramsa, sarcastic, irreverent, and thrill-seeking Baji, hypocritical, tragic Chaghan, and all of the Cike’s forced companionship and solid comradeship left a mark on my heart. They might not be warm, they might not be friendly, they might constantly hit one another, never pulling punches...but to me, they are a testament to the unlikely friends, no allies, that one can stumble upon in times of pain and crisis when all you have is one more broken soul who might hate you for the mirror you are of their own doomed predicament, but they would have your back if you have theirs because, really, you’re all the other’s got.
[image]
CW ➾ racism, colourism, colonisation, abuse, misogyny, PTSD, grief, substance use and addiction, self-harm, nonconsensual human experimentations and medical examinations, torture, rape, burning, genocide, mutilation, gore and violence
Books in series: ➴ The Poppy War (The Poppy War, #1) ★★★★☆ ➴ The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War, #2) ★★★★✯ ➴ The Burning God (The Poppy War, #3) ★★★★★...more
If The Gilded Wolves was a gentleman pickpocket slipping through the luxurious aristocratic parties of Paris, The Silvered Serpents is an anguisheIf The Gilded Wolves was a gentleman pickpocket slipping through the luxurious aristocratic parties of Paris, The Silvered Serpents is an anguished ghost dreaming of godhood, haunting the corridors of a palace of ice, hunting myths.
“I wish my love was more beautiful.”
Sometimes you read books for page-turner, grand action and fast-paced, epic twists and turns, yes, but sometimes, you read them for carefully plotted brilliance and mystical mysteries; sometimes you pick them up for delicate sleights of hand, secret recluses, and immersive writing that unveils the need in your heart. Sometimes, you seek a book that is more adverb than action—as Roshani Chokshi puts it.
This series is of the latter kind.
“Sometimes ghost stories are all that is left of history,” he said. “History is full of ghosts because it’s full of myth, all of it woven together depending on who survived to do the telling.”
With this second installment, Roshani takes a step further than science and magic forged as art, history and fiction entwined in puzzles. With The Silvered Serpents, she walks beyond history and into myth—the truths covered in cobwebs whispered and twisted and hidden behind forgotten doors, the truths that horrify and intrigue—embracing stories of all corners of the world, from Greek goddesses to Middle Eastern origins of Rapunzel. And more than myths, Roshani tells the tale of humanity, of belonging and being scorned, of murdered girls and stolen women, denied motherhood and gripped power, of malice cultivated between girls who were not allowed to dream, and of dead girls forced to guard treasure in invisible palaces.
The Silvered Serpents is in many ways the opposite of its predecessor; where TGW was light, TSS is gloomy, grief and guilt and transfixing agony bordering its edges. So it can also be said that this is a tale of pain, unflinching in its foray into darkness, of found families falling apart and loss tearing bonds into pieces, of love that does not always wear the face you seek, love that is not beautiful and peaceful and easy, love that wounds with its cruel, silent face in its desire to protect and save. This is a tale that plays with your heartstrings.
Maybe for girls made of snow, love was worth the melt. But she was made of stolen bones and sleek fur, grave dirt and strange blood—her heart wasn’t even hers to give. Her soul was all she had, and no love was worth losing it.
So put your shields up around your heart, because goodbyes are in order. For now, there is one more acquisition and five people headed their own ways who come back, each for different reasons, to complete one last treasure hunt. But “In debating the merits of pursuing hidden treasure, one must weigh the risk of whether it was never meant to be found and if so, why?” Because someone...someone wants to play god.
[image]
❆ First, Let’s Get the Criticism Out of the Way ❆
“I saw what I wanted to see,” he said, hoarse. “Only a desperate man trusts a mirage in the desert.”
In the spirit of honesty and even though I hate complaining, I will have to admit that, while I loved TSS, the writer and critic in me can’t stop thinking of all the ways this gem of anguished longing and impossible dreams could have been more than just a fave—it could have been an all-time fave! Sigh, me and my obsession with books being the best versions of themselves will one day kill me but, for now, on the matter of equally cutting the book into three to rate and proceeding to address the elephant in the room:
First ⅓ ⤑ ★★★★✯ Second ⅓ ⤑ ★★★☆☆ Third ⅓ ⤑ ★★★★✯
Here’s the thing: one reason why The Gilded Wolves had me enchanted from page one to page I-don’t-remember-how-many-pages-it-was-and-I’m-too-lazy-to-check-just-assume-I-wrote-the-number-of-the-last-page, was the lush and aristocratic, atmospheric setting which caught and trapped me in 1889 Paris so thoroughly I all but became a willing prisoner and fell in love with my captive (Stockholm syndrome right there)—the setting and the wonder and artistry of L’Eden that The Silvered Serpents does not have.
What he felt now was a different kind of incredulity. The kind where one has released a dream into the world, only to rediscover it on the ground, trampled and stained.
Don’t me wrong, Roshani’s writing is still breathtakingly immersive and I walked every path alongside my tragic gang of mischiefs, absorbed every landscape, breathed in every smell. And even as I was aware that the Parisian atmosphere would be missing in this sequel, I expected it to be replaced with a chillingly Russian one. It was not—well, it was, but for only a few chapters. What’s more, the characters spent a long time wandering around an abandoned ice palace trying to solve mysteries and taking too long to figure out what’s right in front of them. I am not saying the puzzles and clues were not clever, they always are with Roshani, what I’m saying is that so are the characters.
Knowledge was coy. It liked to hide beneath the shroud of myth, place its heart in a fairy tale, as if it were a prize at the end of the quest. Perhaps whatever knowledge was here was similar. Perhaps it wished to be wooed and coaxed forth.
What I’d have loved is for the plotting to have been entirely different, with plot points moved earlier/later in the book to bring out the full potential of this tale. What I’d have loved is for the Winter Conclave to have been a weeks-long event and for the cast to take residence in Russia (letting me drown in my requested setting vibes) and attempt to crack the mystery even as they have to navigate the politics of European Houses and soak in intrigue because oh the lost opportunity for politicking, world expansion, and dive into the dirty laundry of the greedy, imperialist Order! What I’d have loved is for the gang to then slip away with their supporters to the discovered location, the other Houses on their tail, and explore the haunted palace faster with less unnecessary procrastination. What I’d have loved is a confrontation upon the Order’s arrival and then everything that happened at the end.
I did not get what I’d have loved. I loved what I got (mostly) but while everyone declared book one to be confusing in plot (I did not) I found book two to be too simple in plot (no one else did).
[image]
❆ Now Allow Me to Fall Apart for the Characters ❆
“We need to separate Vasiliev from his bodyguards,” said Séverin. “Something that can pull men apart—” “Money?” asked Enrique. “Love!” said Hypnos. “Magnets,” said Zofia. Laila, Enrique, and Hypnos turned to stare at her. “Powerful magnets,” Zofia amended.
✦ Séverin: Séverin Montagnet-Alarie, Paris’s most influential investor and owner of the grandest hotel in France, is an idiot. My emotions swung between wanting to hug him, punch him, kiss him, scream at him, and do more confusing things to him—I settled for Laila making him squirm.
“You always see so clearly into the darkness of men’s hearts, Monsieur Montagnet-Alarie,” she said, before adding in a softer voice, “But I remember when you used to see wonder.” Séverin reached for his water goblet. “And now I see truth.”
This stubborn, irrational, beautiful boy filled with so much longing, this commanding, imaginative, observant boy who once saw wonder where he now sees pain, lets his grief and self hate drown him in the skeletons in Tristan’s closets and the demons beneath his bed, and refuses everyone’s hand, shunning his closest friends who have to step back lest the drowning man take them down as well. I can relate to his fear of being powerless, shutting himself away at the first sign of vulnerability. But what he does to escape his pain is seeking to escape humanity, practicing the cold, cruel tyranny of indifference because, “for the sake of what he needed to do, he had to be apart, not a part,” for the sake of gaining invincibility, he looks to leave mortality behind. “Ah, Majnun. The madman who lost himself to an impossible dream.”
He was like a cursed prince, trapped in the worst version of himself. And nothing she possessed—not her kiss freely given, nor her heart shyly offered—could break the thrall that held him because he had done it to himself.
✦ Laila: I was going to write a ballad for this empowering Indian gem of existence who would not let her death be in service to another’s character, her pain what he’d feed on to find his strength, this utter queen without a crown who reminds me of Nina Zenik after her glorious character development...but I’m too lazy so watch me pluck sentences out of the book and put them together because, truly, Roshani says it better than I ever could. “Laila was like a fairy tale plucked from the pages of a book—a girl with a curse woven into her heartbeat. A mirage glimpsed through smoke. A temptation in the desert that lulls the soul into thinking of false promises. The essence of her was walking into a room, and all eyes pinned to her, as if she were the performance of a lifetime. The essence of her was a smile full of forgiveness, the warmth in her hands, sugar in her hair.”
Laila was salvaged bones, and the snow maiden was only gathered snow. Love didn’t deserve to thaw their wits and turn their hearts to dust.
✦ Zofia: There are not many people who make me proud of my Gryffindor side, yet Zofia with her sympathies for a broken machine is one of them. She is my dangerously flammable Phoenix and favourite of the cast (next to Laila) not because of her autism (which is perfectly portrayed in her different way of processing the world, such as when the subtleties of language and art are lost on her) but because she strives to be brave even with fear of the unknown, to be independent and helpful even as she feels like a burden and knows that she needs others’ help. Zofia is a unique type of empowering female character and I relished seeing her shine in this sequel.
“If there were stairs to hell, would you venture down those?” “It depends on what was inside hell, and if I needed it.”
✦ Enrique: This charming, adorable, biracial boy is longing incarnate. He is the longing for a home to call your own and a place to belong when both sides of who you are shun you. He is the longing to be heard and and seen for all you have done and can do when no one holds you worthy for your truth. He is longing, and how can one not relate to him, not feel for him?
“When a man cannot see a person as a person, then the devil has slipped into him and is peering out of his eyes.”
✦ Hypnos: You know that friend who wants to help but does more unintentional harm than good because he is so clueless and lonely and has no idea how to have friends? Yes, this is him. The reason him and Enrique bonded so easily was because Hypnos, too, is a biracial vision of reaching hands, wanting to belong and prove his worth. But the difference is that, in many things, Hypnos is more casual and fun-seeking and, to be honest, I cannot stop thinking of how great a drag queen he could have been. My heart bled in glee every time he contributed to the group and was recognised.
“Why isn’t he going in?” muttered Hypnos. “Fear of dismemberment,” said Zofia. “If I were designing thief-catching mechanisms, I would have a device rigged to attack the first three people who entered.” Hypnos stepped behind Zofia. “Ladies first.”
[image]
❆ And Then There Is the Curse That is the Relationships ❆
That was how friendship felt to her, an illumination too vast for her senses to capture. Yet she did not doubt its presence. And she held that light close to her as step by step, she ventured down the stairs.
The relationships in TSS were probably the best part for me. Because what this book gave me was layered friendships falling apart at the seams and being stitched back together. What it gave me was lovers parting peacefully with mutual understanding soaked in pain, and bonds blooming in opposites, two halves of a whole, completing one another and showing each other the side they could not see on their own. Oh what it gave me was two hearts drenched in rage-filled anguish (which I’ve found to be my fave emotion) playing at cat and mouse.
He first glimpsed her through the mirror, like a fairy tale where the hero crept upon the monster, risking only a glance at her reflection lest she turn his heart to stone. Only this was its inversion. Now the monster glanced upon the maiden, risking only a glimpse of her reflection lest she turn his stone to heart.
I ask you, is this not the most beautiful declaration of love you’ve ever read? “Perhaps, all goddesses are just beliefs draped on the scaffolding of ideas. I can’t touch what’s not real. But I can worship it all the same.” Yup, I died too. Until my next session of gushing, goodbye and try not to die.
[image]
Thank you to my superhero for providing me with an eARC through Edelweiss!
Books in series: ⤳ The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1) ★★★★✯ ⤳ The Silvered Serpents (The Gilded Wolves, #2) ★★★★☆ ⤳ The Bronzed Beasts (The Gilded Wolves, #3) ☆☆☆☆☆...more