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The Saint of Bright Doors
The Saint of Bright Doors
sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant.
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.
He walked among invisible devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.
Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.
He walked among invisible devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.
Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
368 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 11, 2023
About the author
Vajra Chandrasekera
57 books309 followersVajra Chandrasekera is from Colombo, Sri Lanka and is online at https://vajra.me. His debut novel The Saint of Bright Doors won the Nebula and Crawford awards, and was a New York Times Notable Book of 2023. His second novel Rakesfall is out in 2024.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 926 reviews
August 28, 2023
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera is one of the weirdest but brilliant books I’ve read in 2023. A lot of western people who read this might not realize that Vajra is actually doing something extremely controversial being a Sri Lankan Buddhist. This story is about Lord Gautham Buddha’s son Rahula, English Translation being Fetter (Lord Buddha named him so, considering him to be the very thing that would prevent him from attaining enlightenment, the very day Rahula was born before abandoning him and his wife) and Lord Buddha’s wife Princess Yashodara, in a reimagined fantasy setting. Sri Lanka being mainly a Buddhist country filled with Buddhist extremists, I wonder how well this book was accepted there. However, being a half Sri Lankan who has no interest in religions whatsoever I actually really enjoyed The Saint of Bright Doors which questioned and delved deep into Lord Buddha’s story that I too had.
The construction of the world is impressive and bewildering, just like the intricate South Asian mythology that forms the foundation of it all. In this fantasy world there is a realm of higher existence and a realm of demons, (which is extremely similar to Buddhist heaven and hell, for lack of better words) and Luriat presents ancient South Asian social hierarchies and their violent persecutions toward lower casts, captivating its rich and vibrant tapestry. The author’s cultural background imbues the narrative with palpable echoes of both religious devotion and communal structures.
In all honestly, I feel this would be a difficult book to follow if you don’t have a thorough understanding of Buddhism and it’s origin story and how powerful as a religion it is Sri Lanka. However even if you had an understanding of Buddhism The Saint of Bright Doors still defies predictability, leading readers into territory where full comprehension is elusive. Explanations are sparse, and even the ones provided prove challenging to fully comprehend. You have to just drift along with the narrative, akin to how Fetter navigates through the story.
I loved how Vajra presented Princess Yashodara in this book and how he integrated Sri Lankan Queen Kuweni’s story into Yashodara’s. While historical records acknowledge Princess Yashodara as a royal offspring, insights into her formative years and her trajectory subsequent to Lord Buddha’s enlightenment remain scant. (She became a Buddhist bhikkhuni, a female monastic, and attaining enlightenment herself, that much we know). Queen Kuweni, on the other hand was a Sri Lankan Raksha tribal princess who fell in love with the exiled South Indian Prince Vijaya. Their love story is akin to Romeo and Juliet in Sri Lanka because it ends up in tragedy. In order to gain power in Sri Lanka he marries princess Kuweni (who is disowned by her people because of this) but once he establishes himself as the king, he marries a “proper” South Indian Princess and discards Kuweni and their two children. Heartbroken and nowhere to turn to (as her people no longer considers her their own) she jumps to her death from a cliff or in some cases said to be have been killed by the Rakshas suspecting her to be a spy. This is the story Vajra has masterfully integrated into Princess Yashodara’s story, making her seem an evil woman hell bent on killing her former husband. I mean what woman wouldn’t? lol
Fetter’s character was meticulously molded, encapsulating his profound perplexity stemming from the startling revelation of being groomed by his own mother to potentially assassinate his father. His heartrending sense of abandonment, originating from the lack of nurturing from both parental figures, elicited a profoundly touching emotional response.
Fetter, also known as Rahula, held the potential to ascend as the next monarch in a potent Indian realm, considering that Lord Buddha, or Prince Gautama, had he not forsaken his princely role, would have assumed the throne. Furthermore, if Fetter was indeed the progeny of Princess Kuweni, he could have held leadership over one of the most influential clans in Sri Lanka. Regrettably, both these prospects were snatched away due to the actions of his parents. Vajra adeptly conveyed Fetter’s complex sentiments tied to his status as the “unchosen,” a theme that resonates strongly.
My only qualm about this book was that at times I felt bored and the pacing felt choppy and slow.
Other than that, I found immense pleasure in reading The Saint of Bright Doors. Its refreshing originality stood out as a source of great satisfaction and being an American Sri Lankan I felt connected and represented in The Saint of Bright Doors.
The construction of the world is impressive and bewildering, just like the intricate South Asian mythology that forms the foundation of it all. In this fantasy world there is a realm of higher existence and a realm of demons, (which is extremely similar to Buddhist heaven and hell, for lack of better words) and Luriat presents ancient South Asian social hierarchies and their violent persecutions toward lower casts, captivating its rich and vibrant tapestry. The author’s cultural background imbues the narrative with palpable echoes of both religious devotion and communal structures.
In all honestly, I feel this would be a difficult book to follow if you don’t have a thorough understanding of Buddhism and it’s origin story and how powerful as a religion it is Sri Lanka. However even if you had an understanding of Buddhism The Saint of Bright Doors still defies predictability, leading readers into territory where full comprehension is elusive. Explanations are sparse, and even the ones provided prove challenging to fully comprehend. You have to just drift along with the narrative, akin to how Fetter navigates through the story.
I loved how Vajra presented Princess Yashodara in this book and how he integrated Sri Lankan Queen Kuweni’s story into Yashodara’s. While historical records acknowledge Princess Yashodara as a royal offspring, insights into her formative years and her trajectory subsequent to Lord Buddha’s enlightenment remain scant. (She became a Buddhist bhikkhuni, a female monastic, and attaining enlightenment herself, that much we know). Queen Kuweni, on the other hand was a Sri Lankan Raksha tribal princess who fell in love with the exiled South Indian Prince Vijaya. Their love story is akin to Romeo and Juliet in Sri Lanka because it ends up in tragedy. In order to gain power in Sri Lanka he marries princess Kuweni (who is disowned by her people because of this) but once he establishes himself as the king, he marries a “proper” South Indian Princess and discards Kuweni and their two children. Heartbroken and nowhere to turn to (as her people no longer considers her their own) she jumps to her death from a cliff or in some cases said to be have been killed by the Rakshas suspecting her to be a spy. This is the story Vajra has masterfully integrated into Princess Yashodara’s story, making her seem an evil woman hell bent on killing her former husband. I mean what woman wouldn’t? lol
Fetter’s character was meticulously molded, encapsulating his profound perplexity stemming from the startling revelation of being groomed by his own mother to potentially assassinate his father. His heartrending sense of abandonment, originating from the lack of nurturing from both parental figures, elicited a profoundly touching emotional response.
Fetter, also known as Rahula, held the potential to ascend as the next monarch in a potent Indian realm, considering that Lord Buddha, or Prince Gautama, had he not forsaken his princely role, would have assumed the throne. Furthermore, if Fetter was indeed the progeny of Princess Kuweni, he could have held leadership over one of the most influential clans in Sri Lanka. Regrettably, both these prospects were snatched away due to the actions of his parents. Vajra adeptly conveyed Fetter’s complex sentiments tied to his status as the “unchosen,” a theme that resonates strongly.
My only qualm about this book was that at times I felt bored and the pacing felt choppy and slow.
Other than that, I found immense pleasure in reading The Saint of Bright Doors. Its refreshing originality stood out as a source of great satisfaction and being an American Sri Lankan I felt connected and represented in The Saint of Bright Doors.
January 21, 2023
I’ve never read anything like The Saint of Bright Doors – wildly inventive, totally mesmerizing, and it upended my expectations at every turn. It reads like an established author’s career-defining masterpiece, rather than a debut novel.
Vajra Chandrasekera paints a vivid picture of a city on the brink – told through the eyes of a man born and raised to be a master assassin, a catalyst of change in the world, bound for one singular purpose – but his skills dull from disuse and he strays from his destined path. The synopsis may not sound unique, but the tale and its telling are wholly original.
I was so impressed with Chandrasekera’s ability to craft a complex, political, and also surreal story in such an intelligible way. I was spellbound the entire time I spent with this book and I can’t wait to read it again, just to recapture some of the awe I felt the first time around.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf
Follow me on Twitter @specshelf
Vajra Chandrasekera paints a vivid picture of a city on the brink – told through the eyes of a man born and raised to be a master assassin, a catalyst of change in the world, bound for one singular purpose – but his skills dull from disuse and he strays from his destined path. The synopsis may not sound unique, but the tale and its telling are wholly original.
I was so impressed with Chandrasekera’s ability to craft a complex, political, and also surreal story in such an intelligible way. I was spellbound the entire time I spent with this book and I can’t wait to read it again, just to recapture some of the awe I felt the first time around.
My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
See this review and others at The Speculative Shelf
Follow me on Twitter @specshelf
April 11, 2023
I had high hopes for The Saint of Bright Doors, but unfortunately it did not work for me. I found the book to be overly pretentious for my taste, and the main plot points all felt so arbitrary. The reader is asked to accept the nonsensical and go with the flow because...that's just the way it is in this overly self-serious novel, apparently. As much as I wanted to like this novel, I just couldn't connect with it. I hope other readers will enjoy it more.
Read
December 6, 2023An extraordinary read. The worldbuilding is absolutely magisterial and deeply involving, both in the fantastical/magical aspects and the take on colonialism and its effects, on messiahs and religion-dominated societies, on people's ability to not think about what's right in front of them. It's relatively slow build but there's plenty of plot, and Fetter is a fascinating character, constantly divided in himself and torn between world, sometimes literally. Just a magisterial work of imagination that kept me completely gripped even when I wasn't sure what was going on, and the plot turn is terrific. Astonishing this is a debut.
Read
July 24, 2024Initially started this on my Kindle and set it down, as it skews more literary than my usual taste. On a recent trip with multiple long plane rides, I picked it back up, this time as an audiobook, and adored it. I was sucked in and endlessly fascinated, and I think it's one of the most impactful books I've experienced in a long time. The audiobook narrator is EXCELLENT, so if you're struggling through the book a bit, consider the audiobook.
Smarter and more educated people have said better things already here than I can about the book's cultural milieu and influences, so I won't even try. It's also been nominated for every SFF award this season, and won some, too. It's definitely worth taking a look at, or a listen to.
Smarter and more educated people have said better things already here than I can about the book's cultural milieu and influences, so I won't even try. It's also been nominated for every SFF award this season, and won some, too. It's definitely worth taking a look at, or a listen to.
June 21, 2023
This is a great example of a book I admire but didn't necessarily enjoy all that much. The Saint of Bright Doors is a very innovative work of South Asian fantasy about a man who was raised to assassinate his father and the city he finds brief refuge in. A city filled with mysterious doors that he wants to learn more about.
Stylistically this feels pretty unique. Moving between realism to almost dreamlike writing with transitions that don't always feel linear. It also feels very meta in a way that makes me feel like I'm missing a lot of the context. It feels inspired by the culture and politics of South Asia and blends the mystical and the modern in ways that can feel disorienting at times. I think a lot of it is intentional and there are a few bits of it where I think I know what the author is trying to get at.
As a reading experience, this was very much a mixed bag. There were moments where I was interested and engaged, but also large sections where I was kind of bored or unsure what was going on. I think this one will probably be polarizing, but I could see someone really loving it if it hits them the right way. The audio narration is good. I received an audio review copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
Stylistically this feels pretty unique. Moving between realism to almost dreamlike writing with transitions that don't always feel linear. It also feels very meta in a way that makes me feel like I'm missing a lot of the context. It feels inspired by the culture and politics of South Asia and blends the mystical and the modern in ways that can feel disorienting at times. I think a lot of it is intentional and there are a few bits of it where I think I know what the author is trying to get at.
As a reading experience, this was very much a mixed bag. There were moments where I was interested and engaged, but also large sections where I was kind of bored or unsure what was going on. I think this one will probably be polarizing, but I could see someone really loving it if it hits them the right way. The audio narration is good. I received an audio review copy of this book via NetGalley, all opinions are my own.
May 31, 2024
This one is incredible. A literary fantasy that stands out for its use of language, inventiveness and the complexity of its world, coming from a fully non-western perspective and commenting on politics and religion in South Asia rather than the well-worn American issues. Major Le Guin vibes for me, by an author from a very different walk of life but with a similar command of language, understanding of the real world rather than reliance on fictional tropes, and complexity of setting and theme.
The book centers on a young man named Fetter, who has rejected his upbringing as an assassin meant to kill his father, and who is apparently a riff on the Buddha’s son Rāhula. (There is a lot of commentary on Buddhism in this book, which looks very different from a Sri Lankan perspective than a western one—religious violence is a major theme.) If you’re looking for a plot-driven novel, you’ll be disappointed; the first half mostly drifts from one intriguing scenario to the next, and while the second half grabbed my attention more, plot is never the primary aim. It’s not really character-driven either, with a bit more distance than your usual genre fiction, but the characters are deftly and believably drawn and I did wind up caring about them. (There’s a horrifying moment late in the book where the author definitely identifies all my favorites.)
Instead, I’d say this book is driven most by setting, themes, and style. And it’s a fascinatingly detailed and complex setting, developed in a compact way that leaves plenty beneath the surface; the themes feel fresh and urgent; and Chandrasekera’s command of language can turn a reader green with envy, especially given this is a debut. There’s a degree of magic realism or simply surrealism, which you have to just roll with but which makes for a beautiful journey, with some use of deliberate paradox that you have to accept to see the deeper meaning. There’s an extended sequence in the second half that others have called Kafkaeseque but that reminded me for whatever reason for the Sunderbans sequence in Midnight’s Children, a sort of unreality mixed with hyperreality in which the whole world becomes a prison. But honestly, I loved most of the book’s sequences, and the sharp contrasts among the different settings and ways of life—the author’s vision and knowledge seems unlimited. And although I’m sure plenty of the political and religious commentary went over my head, it was exciting to see elements I recognized (from the real world, not other fantasy), like the monks on TV whose causes include things like starving themselves to protest the “wrong” castes entering particular lines of work, and be able to go, “oh, yeah! Gandhi did that!”
In the end, a uniquely brilliant book that isn’t what most genre fans are looking for, and that’s hard for me to fully describe, but one that blows open the doors to what fantasy can do. I’m not sure what to say about the fact that this is Chandrasekera’s first book: where is left to go from here?
The book centers on a young man named Fetter, who has rejected his upbringing as an assassin meant to kill his father, and who is apparently a riff on the Buddha’s son Rāhula. (There is a lot of commentary on Buddhism in this book, which looks very different from a Sri Lankan perspective than a western one—religious violence is a major theme.) If you’re looking for a plot-driven novel, you’ll be disappointed; the first half mostly drifts from one intriguing scenario to the next, and while the second half grabbed my attention more, plot is never the primary aim. It’s not really character-driven either, with a bit more distance than your usual genre fiction, but the characters are deftly and believably drawn and I did wind up caring about them. (There’s a horrifying moment late in the book where the author definitely identifies all my favorites.)
Instead, I’d say this book is driven most by setting, themes, and style. And it’s a fascinatingly detailed and complex setting, developed in a compact way that leaves plenty beneath the surface; the themes feel fresh and urgent; and Chandrasekera’s command of language can turn a reader green with envy, especially given this is a debut. There’s a degree of magic realism or simply surrealism, which you have to just roll with but which makes for a beautiful journey, with some use of deliberate paradox that you have to accept to see the deeper meaning. There’s an extended sequence in the second half that others have called Kafkaeseque but that reminded me for whatever reason for the Sunderbans sequence in Midnight’s Children, a sort of unreality mixed with hyperreality in which the whole world becomes a prison. But honestly, I loved most of the book’s sequences, and the sharp contrasts among the different settings and ways of life—the author’s vision and knowledge seems unlimited. And although I’m sure plenty of the political and religious commentary went over my head, it was exciting to see elements I recognized (from the real world, not other fantasy), like the monks on TV whose causes include things like starving themselves to protest the “wrong” castes entering particular lines of work, and be able to go, “oh, yeah! Gandhi did that!”
In the end, a uniquely brilliant book that isn’t what most genre fans are looking for, and that’s hard for me to fully describe, but one that blows open the doors to what fantasy can do. I’m not sure what to say about the fact that this is Chandrasekera’s first book: where is left to go from here?
July 23, 2023
I would like to thank Edelweiss, Macmillan Audio, and Tor for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.
Truly, I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately this story was simply not for me. This literary work was gorgeous and at times mesmerizing to read, but (again, for me) it fell flat, energetically. And while I absolutely love the audiobook's narrator, Sid Sagar, this was a frustrating and slow slog through yet another new release title that seems to celebrate its obscurity. I'm honestly quite tired of these books now.
So why didn't I DNF when I should have a zillion weeks ago? Simple. Because after acquiring the audiobook, it was impossible to leave Sid Sagar unfinished. For the first time in my life, I could say without a doubt that I could listen to someone, specifically this man, read a shopping list forever and actually mean that lol!
So, yeah, this rating is bittersweet, because I loved sooooo many fascinating, fantastical things populating this work- spirit/esoteric phenomena, enviro and magical elements, diversity and culture, lore, people- but I did not actually enjoy this book as a whole, no matter how hard I tried to get into it.
This particular story just wasn't for me, but I will 100% read Vajra Chandrasekera's next release because there is extraordinary talent here and I know that it will only be a matter of time before I vibe with something VC will publish in the future!
Truly, I wanted to love this book, but unfortunately this story was simply not for me. This literary work was gorgeous and at times mesmerizing to read, but (again, for me) it fell flat, energetically. And while I absolutely love the audiobook's narrator, Sid Sagar, this was a frustrating and slow slog through yet another new release title that seems to celebrate its obscurity. I'm honestly quite tired of these books now.
So why didn't I DNF when I should have a zillion weeks ago? Simple. Because after acquiring the audiobook, it was impossible to leave Sid Sagar unfinished. For the first time in my life, I could say without a doubt that I could listen to someone, specifically this man, read a shopping list forever and actually mean that lol!
So, yeah, this rating is bittersweet, because I loved sooooo many fascinating, fantastical things populating this work- spirit/esoteric phenomena, enviro and magical elements, diversity and culture, lore, people- but I did not actually enjoy this book as a whole, no matter how hard I tried to get into it.
This particular story just wasn't for me, but I will 100% read Vajra Chandrasekera's next release because there is extraordinary talent here and I know that it will only be a matter of time before I vibe with something VC will publish in the future!
January 20, 2023
An absolute masterclass in worldbuilding. This book entranced me from page one. I'm obsessed with the author's style, with the way he invites us to visit this very real world. It's surreal and strange, a world that could be ours (they have phones and planes and even the UN) but retains the mystical. I honestly can't put my thoughts together to form a coherent review, as this really was a unique reading experience unlike anything I've read before.
June 15, 2024
A mesmerising fantasy about a young man raised to kill his immortal, all-powerful father, which gives him a lot to talk about in his support group of fellow (un)Chosen ones. Vajra Chandrasekera draws on recent Sri Lankan history, Buddhist mythology, and pandemics, to tell a story about totalitarianism and colonialism and erasure and queerness and parental control and the push-pull of destinies. There were undoubtedly connotations and references I didn't pick up on here, but I was swept away by Chandrasekera's lived-in world-building, his command of prose, and the assurance with which he sets up tropes and expectations only to take them out at the knees. The way the ending is like a cinematic push out shot, reminding you of how much bigger the world is and how much you and the characters don't/can't know... Chef's kiss.
This isn't the book for you if you like more traditional Chosen One narratives or plot-driven books. However, if you want something that's pushing at the genre foundations of fantasy, and like stories that have a hyperreal/dreamlike quality to them, I really recommend giving this a try.
This isn't the book for you if you like more traditional Chosen One narratives or plot-driven books. However, if you want something that's pushing at the genre foundations of fantasy, and like stories that have a hyperreal/dreamlike quality to them, I really recommend giving this a try.
May 16, 2024
This is a South Asian urban fantasy that is heavily connected to Buddhist's backstory. I read it as a part of the monthly reading for May 2024 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group. The book was nominated for Hugo and Locus (for Debut novel) awards in 2024.
The beginning looks like a run-of-the-mill fantasy, the way the first paragraph is:
The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from him. This is his first memory, the seed of many hours of therapy to come. It is raining. His shadow is cast upon reddish soil thick with clay that clings to Fetter as he rolls in it, unable to raise his head, saved from drowning in mud only by the fortunate angle of his landing. The arch of Mother-of-Glory’s knee frames what he sees next. His shadow writhes slowly on its nail. Mother-of-Glory dips her hands in that mud to gather up the ropy shadow of his umbilical cord and throttles his severed shadow with a quick loop, pulled tight. The shadow goes to its end in silence—or if it cries out, if shadows can cry out, that sound is lost in the rain.
It turns out that Fetter has several supernatural abilities, like he has to force himself to stand on the ground, for can turn weightless (or even massless), and fire cannot hurt him and a few others. He also is able to see demons, who are everywhere, but who mostly aren’t especially active, clinging to buildings’ walls.
He was born with the purpose, of becoming an assassin and killing his own absentee father as a final revenge for his mother. She trains him in this profession, pointing out that he ought to commit the Five Unforgivables, as set by the religious order of his father:
The Five Unforgivables are, in order of severity, matricide; heresy leading to factionalism; the sancticide of votaries who have reached the fourth level of awakening; patricide; and the assassination of the Perfect and Kind. By definition, they cannot be forgiven and cannot be redeemed.
So, from the very start readers know that Fetter should kill both his parents, and one of them trains him for it, quite a dark turn, for “The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence.”
However, quite soon we follow Fetter as he grows up and settles in Luriat, the city of bright doors, to live quite an ordinary modern life, watching TV, using a phone, having an affair with another man, learning more about the city and the world, including the fact that he is a second class citizen in local hierarchies of race and caste. Here the bright doors are introduced: they are elsewhere in the city, seemingly ordinary (usually painted in bright colors to stand out) but they cannot be opened and if a person visits their supposed other side, they’ll see there is nothing there…
So, at a first sight, it is more or less a usual growing-up fantasy novel, nothing spectacular – and it was what I thought until I’ve read this great review. For it turns out that Fetter is Rāhula, the only son of Siddhārtha Gautama (commonly known as the Buddha) and Mother-of-Glory is Yaśodharā, the wife of Prince Siddhartha. All characters have an established set of legends about them. I guess for Western readers, who are much more versed in Christianity than Buddhism, it is like a story of the Virgin Mary preparing her other kids to assassinate Jesus Christ! As such, it completely sets the story on its head.
The beginning looks like a run-of-the-mill fantasy, the way the first paragraph is:
The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from him. This is his first memory, the seed of many hours of therapy to come. It is raining. His shadow is cast upon reddish soil thick with clay that clings to Fetter as he rolls in it, unable to raise his head, saved from drowning in mud only by the fortunate angle of his landing. The arch of Mother-of-Glory’s knee frames what he sees next. His shadow writhes slowly on its nail. Mother-of-Glory dips her hands in that mud to gather up the ropy shadow of his umbilical cord and throttles his severed shadow with a quick loop, pulled tight. The shadow goes to its end in silence—or if it cries out, if shadows can cry out, that sound is lost in the rain.
It turns out that Fetter has several supernatural abilities, like he has to force himself to stand on the ground, for can turn weightless (or even massless), and fire cannot hurt him and a few others. He also is able to see demons, who are everywhere, but who mostly aren’t especially active, clinging to buildings’ walls.
He was born with the purpose, of becoming an assassin and killing his own absentee father as a final revenge for his mother. She trains him in this profession, pointing out that he ought to commit the Five Unforgivables, as set by the religious order of his father:
The Five Unforgivables are, in order of severity, matricide; heresy leading to factionalism; the sancticide of votaries who have reached the fourth level of awakening; patricide; and the assassination of the Perfect and Kind. By definition, they cannot be forgiven and cannot be redeemed.
So, from the very start readers know that Fetter should kill both his parents, and one of them trains him for it, quite a dark turn, for “The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence.”
However, quite soon we follow Fetter as he grows up and settles in Luriat, the city of bright doors, to live quite an ordinary modern life, watching TV, using a phone, having an affair with another man, learning more about the city and the world, including the fact that he is a second class citizen in local hierarchies of race and caste. Here the bright doors are introduced: they are elsewhere in the city, seemingly ordinary (usually painted in bright colors to stand out) but they cannot be opened and if a person visits their supposed other side, they’ll see there is nothing there…
So, at a first sight, it is more or less a usual growing-up fantasy novel, nothing spectacular – and it was what I thought until I’ve read this great review. For it turns out that Fetter is Rāhula, the only son of Siddhārtha Gautama (commonly known as the Buddha) and Mother-of-Glory is Yaśodharā, the wife of Prince Siddhartha. All characters have an established set of legends about them. I guess for Western readers, who are much more versed in Christianity than Buddhism, it is like a story of the Virgin Mary preparing her other kids to assassinate Jesus Christ! As such, it completely sets the story on its head.
August 16, 2023
The Saint of Bright Doors is unlike anything else I’ve ever read in some regards. And yet it also strongly brought to mind some other stories. Particularly, American Gods. On the surface, this is a strange comparison. The settings have absolutely nothing in common; The Saint of Bright Doors is very much a South Asian story, while American Gods is, obviously, firmly rooted in America. But there is something about Fetter and his approach to life that reminded me strongly of Shadow. But seem disconnected from reality in some way. Both are wielded by powers they don’t understand, but who they can’t seem to help but go along with. Both endure some serious weirdness. Reading both books felt something like a dark, gritty fever dream.
This is the kind of book that you can’t expect to follow completely. There aren’t a lot of explanations, and even those we are given feel difficult to grasp. The best way to enjoy this type of book is to let yourself float through it, much as Fetter does. The world building is both stellar and baffling, as is the mythos underpinning everything. Fetter’s parents are terrifying in their power and incomprehensibility. Fetter has been trained by his mother from birth toward the sole purpose of killing his father, who is as close to a god as one can become. His life is fraught with danger and fear and impossible tasks. He finds a bit of camaraderie in the city in the form of a support group for unchosen ones, people with some kind of divine heritage who did not end up becoming the next Chosen One of their respective religions. And then he finds the Bright Doors, door throughout the city that have been transmuted in some way, and his fascination with them becomes nearly all-consuming. That is, until the task for which he was groomed suddenly reinserts itself into his life.
This is a world of transcendence and demons, of castes and pogroms. It’s a dark world, but a fascinating and colorful one. I could feel the religious and societal inspirations from the author’s heritage. The ephemeral feel of the story from Fetter’s perspective, as someone who drifts through life in a way, was difficult to connect with at first. Thankfully, it grew on me. And then there was a twist of storytelling at the end that made that unmoored tone suddenly make sense, which really elevated the story for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Saint of Bright Doors. It was refreshingly original, in spite of those comparisons I drew between it and American Gods. Because while those similarities in main characters exist, the stories themselves are radically different. Especially in terms of setting and world building. That being said, if you happen to love American Gods, I think The Saint of Bright Doors could be your next favorite book.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Tordotcom, in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are completely my own.
This is the kind of book that you can’t expect to follow completely. There aren’t a lot of explanations, and even those we are given feel difficult to grasp. The best way to enjoy this type of book is to let yourself float through it, much as Fetter does. The world building is both stellar and baffling, as is the mythos underpinning everything. Fetter’s parents are terrifying in their power and incomprehensibility. Fetter has been trained by his mother from birth toward the sole purpose of killing his father, who is as close to a god as one can become. His life is fraught with danger and fear and impossible tasks. He finds a bit of camaraderie in the city in the form of a support group for unchosen ones, people with some kind of divine heritage who did not end up becoming the next Chosen One of their respective religions. And then he finds the Bright Doors, door throughout the city that have been transmuted in some way, and his fascination with them becomes nearly all-consuming. That is, until the task for which he was groomed suddenly reinserts itself into his life.
This is a world of transcendence and demons, of castes and pogroms. It’s a dark world, but a fascinating and colorful one. I could feel the religious and societal inspirations from the author’s heritage. The ephemeral feel of the story from Fetter’s perspective, as someone who drifts through life in a way, was difficult to connect with at first. Thankfully, it grew on me. And then there was a twist of storytelling at the end that made that unmoored tone suddenly make sense, which really elevated the story for me.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Saint of Bright Doors. It was refreshingly original, in spite of those comparisons I drew between it and American Gods. Because while those similarities in main characters exist, the stories themselves are radically different. Especially in terms of setting and world building. That being said, if you happen to love American Gods, I think The Saint of Bright Doors could be your next favorite book.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher, Tordotcom, in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts expressed are completely my own.
January 25, 2023
This was such an immersive experience I'm having trouble finding words to describe it. I didn't know I had an issue with book series splitting their worldbuilding into multiple books until I finished this and realized what a richly packed story it is in just one book.
Fetter's mother ripped his shadow away from him at birth and raised him to be the perfect weapon to destroy his sainted, all powerful father. He now roams the city of Bright Doors, Luriat, shadowless, unaffected by gravity and attending group meetings with the fellow unchosen.
Chandrasekera writes in a visually immersive, established and absolutely beautiful voice. This is one of those debuts where the author comes out guns blazing with a consistent, polished narration and I loved every second of it. He's able to evoke feeling without overexplaining and with just a few words gave me heart palpitations and made me genuinely scared in multiple spots. I can't go into detail without spoiling but there were parallels with one of my favorite books (coincidentally from the same publisher) that made me put my kindle down for a moment (in a good way).
I loved Fetter. He was real, relatable and I just fall for any character whose inner monologue gets a little petty on occasion. The worldbuilding was rich and satisfying to learn about and again, I found myself suprised at it being just enough considering it's not part of a series. (Do I need to stop reading series for a bit? Maybe.) It was chock full of interesting and unique concepts and overall a fun time.
That brings me to pacing as the only thing I had issues with. It felt a bit choppy and slow in some places, and left me confused about the stakes. In the end it did get wrapped up and explained so I honestly can't complain much.
If you're like me and love lush worldbuilding and to really get lost in a book, I highly recommend The Saint of Bright Doors.
Thank you to tordotcom and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy.
Fetter's mother ripped his shadow away from him at birth and raised him to be the perfect weapon to destroy his sainted, all powerful father. He now roams the city of Bright Doors, Luriat, shadowless, unaffected by gravity and attending group meetings with the fellow unchosen.
Chandrasekera writes in a visually immersive, established and absolutely beautiful voice. This is one of those debuts where the author comes out guns blazing with a consistent, polished narration and I loved every second of it. He's able to evoke feeling without overexplaining and with just a few words gave me heart palpitations and made me genuinely scared in multiple spots. I can't go into detail without spoiling but there were parallels with one of my favorite books (coincidentally from the same publisher) that made me put my kindle down for a moment (in a good way).
I loved Fetter. He was real, relatable and I just fall for any character whose inner monologue gets a little petty on occasion. The worldbuilding was rich and satisfying to learn about and again, I found myself suprised at it being just enough considering it's not part of a series. (Do I need to stop reading series for a bit? Maybe.) It was chock full of interesting and unique concepts and overall a fun time.
That brings me to pacing as the only thing I had issues with. It felt a bit choppy and slow in some places, and left me confused about the stakes. In the end it did get wrapped up and explained so I honestly can't complain much.
If you're like me and love lush worldbuilding and to really get lost in a book, I highly recommend The Saint of Bright Doors.
Thank you to tordotcom and NetGalley for this advanced reader copy.
October 28, 2023
This was a worthwile read, different and an interesting (to say the least) MC family life. I am 100% sure there were lots of metaphors I missed but was able to immerse myself into an odd blend of modern+mythology.
Fetter was set up to be conflicted throughout the book, conflicted by how he was raised and who he wants to be now, conflicted by the modern world smashing into demons, gods and funky doors and conflicted by his parents. He did not dissappoint and his struggles with all of it was well done.
Probably a 4 star book when generous but it was somewhat confusing and the end with his missing shadow did not clear anything up.
Fetter was set up to be conflicted throughout the book, conflicted by how he was raised and who he wants to be now, conflicted by the modern world smashing into demons, gods and funky doors and conflicted by his parents. He did not dissappoint and his struggles with all of it was well done.
Probably a 4 star book when generous but it was somewhat confusing and the end with his missing shadow did not clear anything up.
May 28, 2024
What an ending! My only complaint is that I wish this book were twice as long.
I would maybe compare to The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (lush emotionally resonant queer fantasy) but that book was so structured; this one is so purposefully unstructured. And Fetter only knows so much - and only wants to know so much.
Really though - the way this ends… damn!
I would maybe compare to The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez (lush emotionally resonant queer fantasy) but that book was so structured; this one is so purposefully unstructured. And Fetter only knows so much - and only wants to know so much.
Really though - the way this ends… damn!
December 22, 2023
Another confusing masterpiece from 2023!
Rtc!
HIGHLIGHTS
~a support group for UnChosen Ones
~messiahs who really deserve murdering
~pearl-divers
~far too much paperwork
~a Very Deadly wisdom tooth
2023 seems to be the year of the baffling but amazing masterpiece; this is the second book I’ve read so far this year that has confused but amazed me.
BY ALL MEANS, KEEP ‘EM COMING!
The Saint of Bright Doors is more than a little tricky to summarise. It starts in a reasonably familiar mode, albeit with its own beautifully unique flavour; a young boy with supernatural abilities is trained as an assassin, raised to kill his distant, powerful father. Ah, yes, we think, settling in comfortably. We know this story! Let us embark upon it again, as retold through Chandrasekera’s eyes and hands and voice.
Well, my darlings, this is not, in fact, that story. At all.
Because when Fetter gets to the big city, he just…stays there. Makes a quiet little life for himself. A boyfriend; a support group for other UnChosen Ones; helping out immigrants with their paperwork. He loses interest, and belief in, any great destiny of his own. After the, ah, unique way he was raised, he just wants some peace, to be normal, keep his head down and not make waves.
He ends up Involved anyway.
I’m honestly astonished by how much Chandrasekera manages to pack in to under 400 pages. It’s as though an 800 page doorstopper has been distilled down to its purest and most potent possible form; nothing is rushed, everything has as much space as it needs, but it’s all so concentrated, powerful, especially coming at us through Chandrasekera’s prose, which grabs you by the throat like a garotte. I read the entire book in 24 hours, ravenous for every word, and I can tell it’s going to be a long time before I stop thinking about it.
This is a book that is equal parts about magic and fascism; about supernatural doors that can’t be opened and the weaponisation of organised religion; about devils (sorry, I mean laws and powers) and the inherent, inextricable violence of colonialism. And the thing is, I’ve read books that deal with these topics before (okay, maybe not the doors) but this feels very different, somehow – less cinematic, maybe, more human, messier, more difficult. The Saint of Bright Doors is not the story of a hero either creating or joining the resistance, and neatly cutting off the head of the snake in a dramatic climax; it doesn’t follow the pattern we’re used to, and Chandrasekera uses that to shock us open to a very different way of doing things. This is a book that plunges the reader into a state of dreamy dissonance in which anything and everything seems possible – and is.
I don’t know how to put it better than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
Rtc!
HIGHLIGHTS
~a support group for UnChosen Ones
~messiahs who really deserve murdering
~pearl-divers
~far too much paperwork
~a Very Deadly wisdom tooth
2023 seems to be the year of the baffling but amazing masterpiece; this is the second book I’ve read so far this year that has confused but amazed me.
BY ALL MEANS, KEEP ‘EM COMING!
The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from him.
The Saint of Bright Doors is more than a little tricky to summarise. It starts in a reasonably familiar mode, albeit with its own beautifully unique flavour; a young boy with supernatural abilities is trained as an assassin, raised to kill his distant, powerful father. Ah, yes, we think, settling in comfortably. We know this story! Let us embark upon it again, as retold through Chandrasekera’s eyes and hands and voice.
Well, my darlings, this is not, in fact, that story. At all.
Because when Fetter gets to the big city, he just…stays there. Makes a quiet little life for himself. A boyfriend; a support group for other UnChosen Ones; helping out immigrants with their paperwork. He loses interest, and belief in, any great destiny of his own. After the, ah, unique way he was raised, he just wants some peace, to be normal, keep his head down and not make waves.
He has put away childish things. His mad, violent childhood; the indoctrination; his training as a child soldier in his mother’s war against his father: these things, these people are in his past.
He ends up Involved anyway.
I’m honestly astonished by how much Chandrasekera manages to pack in to under 400 pages. It’s as though an 800 page doorstopper has been distilled down to its purest and most potent possible form; nothing is rushed, everything has as much space as it needs, but it’s all so concentrated, powerful, especially coming at us through Chandrasekera’s prose, which grabs you by the throat like a garotte. I read the entire book in 24 hours, ravenous for every word, and I can tell it’s going to be a long time before I stop thinking about it.
This is a book that is equal parts about magic and fascism; about supernatural doors that can’t be opened and the weaponisation of organised religion; about devils (sorry, I mean laws and powers) and the inherent, inextricable violence of colonialism. And the thing is, I’ve read books that deal with these topics before (okay, maybe not the doors) but this feels very different, somehow – less cinematic, maybe, more human, messier, more difficult. The Saint of Bright Doors is not the story of a hero either creating or joining the resistance, and neatly cutting off the head of the snake in a dramatic climax; it doesn’t follow the pattern we’re used to, and Chandrasekera uses that to shock us open to a very different way of doing things. This is a book that plunges the reader into a state of dreamy dissonance in which anything and everything seems possible – and is.
I don’t know how to put it better than that.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
May 30, 2024
This book is gorgeous and unsettling and strange and I'm not sure how to even start talking about it. I'm a little obsessed--which is odd, because I wasn't even sure I liked it while I was reading it the first time through. At the time I thought it was ingenious but not necessarily enjoyable, but now I want to put it in everyone's hands and tap my foot while they read so that I can grill them on what they thought about it.
Saints, the divine, and even passed-over prophets are thick on the ground in The Saint of Bright Doors; the world is poetic and immersive but just a few degrees to one side of relatable; it doesn't take turns between the traditional and the modern so much as it shows the chaotic fallout of myth and modernity's collision and messy overlap. It wasn't comfortable to read but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's brilliant even when it's not pleasant.
The pervasive feeling that went with immersion in this book was "unmoored"; the setting, the time, the characters--everything about this story stands out for sitting uneasily in the mind, or at least for being ill at ease with itself. I started out thinking that I was reading a folkloric-leaning fantasy set in a pre-industrial age and was unsettled when Fetter and his mother get into a car and go somewhere; not a carriage, a car. So I adjusted my sense of the world and the time--only to have it jostled again when we find that the gods walking as mortals have not just very earthly yens (and means) for power and control, but also crowdfunding campaigns and televangelists.
"Fetter has seen the convoys of the elite, with their long rows of vehicles, servants, bodyguards, drummers, elephants, spear-carriers, heralds, and motorcycles. Uniforms were a keystone of such displays."
Just *try* anchoring that to an easy referent for place and time.
Our main character--maybe an antihero? though nothing in this book is so clean-cut and uncomplicated--is Fetter. That someone named a child Fetter tells you a bit about the story you're getting into. Fetter is the cast-off son of a man who started out as a pirate and made himself into a messiah before abandoning his child and partner. Fetter's mother is obsessed with his [Fetter's] father and has raised Fetter to be a tool for revenge. She pulls his emotional strings and manipulates him at every turn; both she and his father--though really, a staggering number of the people in this world--are hopelessly self-involved and never bother to see Fetter for who he is.
But who is he? Fetter's not sure either. He is insecure, desperate to be valued (mostly by people whose esteem is safely out of reach); he can be petty and is unsure of himself, painfully uneasy in his own skin and uncomfortably ready to trample anyone who looks like a competitor for the approval he craves, and he's inured against trust and honesty by a childhood full of object lessons in their dangers. For all that it's obvious he came upon his brokenness honestly, Fetter is still a difficult character to sympathize with.
SoBD is lush and layered and gritty and absolutely nothing is simple. Luriat, the city to which Fetter heads to escape his past, seems like a bastion of modernity and decency at first, a stark relief when contrasted with his backwards village, deeply disturbing mother, and her folk magic practices.
"'What do you want to do with your days?' It's a question they ask every week at the support group for the unchosen, the almost-chosen, the chosen-proximate."
"Here in Luriat, foreign prophetic visions are detritus, not destiny."
Luriat offers free services to its residents, so that no one has to work unless they wish to afford nicer things, but that civilized decency coexists with, and in fact requires, overlooking pogroms, waves of refugees, and internment camps.
"It is through responding to these crises and disasters, he learns, that Luriat's free services came into being: small hard-won victories immediately compromised by the frames of race and caste that control access to them."
There's incisive post-colonial criticism to go with the adept social commentary--and oh, goodness, the layers:
Once upon a time, a light-skinned invader from a foreign land showed up on an island with conquest and hegemony in mind, bringing along a shame-based religion. That time was both 10,000 years ago and 20ish years ago. That man stole what he wanted and then brought the old ways and the modern industrial age crashing together and he (literally, in a way only fantasy can realize) stole that island people's land and past from them and erased their memories of the old ways, remaking the world in his image.
Fetter is fascinated with the bright doors in the city of Luriat but it slowly becomes clear that he's something of a door himself, a portal through which the clashing, uneasy relationship between mother & father, tradition & modernity, or myth & capitalist realpolitik is acted out. I still don't know what to make of the way the story ended and whether I think it's the closest this novel comes to having a weak spot or was just right and couldn't have happened any other way.
What a book! 4.5 stars
I received an ARC from Tor and Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
"I see white-armed antigods stalking. Almost nobody here is masked or distancing, so a fresh outbreak of plague is on its way."
P. S.: This is apropos of nothing, but until I was mulling over how to describe The Saint of Bright Doors, I would have sworn it had next to nothing in common with The Archive Undying, a book I read shortly afterward. But the more I groped for words for SoBD, the more I saw broad-strokes parallels in the things that struck me about each book: both have protagonists that are compelling but not comfortable to spend time with, both look at people warped by early close relationships that were exploitative and lacked boundaries, both follow the adult lives of people left behind in the life-altering wake of a god, and they both use narration-POV changes late in the book to startling effect. (SoBD feels decidedly South Asian and AU is set in a world with a Southeast Asian feel and giant robots, so... the parallels do end.)
Saints, the divine, and even passed-over prophets are thick on the ground in The Saint of Bright Doors; the world is poetic and immersive but just a few degrees to one side of relatable; it doesn't take turns between the traditional and the modern so much as it shows the chaotic fallout of myth and modernity's collision and messy overlap. It wasn't comfortable to read but I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. It's brilliant even when it's not pleasant.
The pervasive feeling that went with immersion in this book was "unmoored"; the setting, the time, the characters--everything about this story stands out for sitting uneasily in the mind, or at least for being ill at ease with itself. I started out thinking that I was reading a folkloric-leaning fantasy set in a pre-industrial age and was unsettled when Fetter and his mother get into a car and go somewhere; not a carriage, a car. So I adjusted my sense of the world and the time--only to have it jostled again when we find that the gods walking as mortals have not just very earthly yens (and means) for power and control, but also crowdfunding campaigns and televangelists.
"Fetter has seen the convoys of the elite, with their long rows of vehicles, servants, bodyguards, drummers, elephants, spear-carriers, heralds, and motorcycles. Uniforms were a keystone of such displays."
Just *try* anchoring that to an easy referent for place and time.
Our main character--maybe an antihero? though nothing in this book is so clean-cut and uncomplicated--is Fetter. That someone named a child Fetter tells you a bit about the story you're getting into. Fetter is the cast-off son of a man who started out as a pirate and made himself into a messiah before abandoning his child and partner. Fetter's mother is obsessed with his [Fetter's] father and has raised Fetter to be a tool for revenge. She pulls his emotional strings and manipulates him at every turn; both she and his father--though really, a staggering number of the people in this world--are hopelessly self-involved and never bother to see Fetter for who he is.
But who is he? Fetter's not sure either. He is insecure, desperate to be valued (mostly by people whose esteem is safely out of reach); he can be petty and is unsure of himself, painfully uneasy in his own skin and uncomfortably ready to trample anyone who looks like a competitor for the approval he craves, and he's inured against trust and honesty by a childhood full of object lessons in their dangers. For all that it's obvious he came upon his brokenness honestly, Fetter is still a difficult character to sympathize with.
SoBD is lush and layered and gritty and absolutely nothing is simple. Luriat, the city to which Fetter heads to escape his past, seems like a bastion of modernity and decency at first, a stark relief when contrasted with his backwards village, deeply disturbing mother, and her folk magic practices.
"'What do you want to do with your days?' It's a question they ask every week at the support group for the unchosen, the almost-chosen, the chosen-proximate."
"Here in Luriat, foreign prophetic visions are detritus, not destiny."
Luriat offers free services to its residents, so that no one has to work unless they wish to afford nicer things, but that civilized decency coexists with, and in fact requires, overlooking pogroms, waves of refugees, and internment camps.
"It is through responding to these crises and disasters, he learns, that Luriat's free services came into being: small hard-won victories immediately compromised by the frames of race and caste that control access to them."
There's incisive post-colonial criticism to go with the adept social commentary--and oh, goodness, the layers:
Once upon a time, a light-skinned invader from a foreign land showed up on an island with conquest and hegemony in mind, bringing along a shame-based religion. That time was both 10,000 years ago and 20ish years ago. That man stole what he wanted and then brought the old ways and the modern industrial age crashing together and he (literally, in a way only fantasy can realize) stole that island people's land and past from them and erased their memories of the old ways, remaking the world in his image.
Fetter is fascinated with the bright doors in the city of Luriat but it slowly becomes clear that he's something of a door himself, a portal through which the clashing, uneasy relationship between mother & father, tradition & modernity, or myth & capitalist realpolitik is acted out. I still don't know what to make of the way the story ended and whether I think it's the closest this novel comes to having a weak spot or was just right and couldn't have happened any other way.
What a book! 4.5 stars
I received an ARC from Tor and Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.
"I see white-armed antigods stalking. Almost nobody here is masked or distancing, so a fresh outbreak of plague is on its way."
P. S.: This is apropos of nothing, but until I was mulling over how to describe The Saint of Bright Doors, I would have sworn it had next to nothing in common with The Archive Undying, a book I read shortly afterward. But the more I groped for words for SoBD, the more I saw broad-strokes parallels in the things that struck me about each book: both have protagonists that are compelling but not comfortable to spend time with, both look at people warped by early close relationships that were exploitative and lacked boundaries, both follow the adult lives of people left behind in the life-altering wake of a god, and they both use narration-POV changes late in the book to startling effect. (SoBD feels decidedly South Asian and AU is set in a world with a Southeast Asian feel and giant robots, so... the parallels do end.)
Want to read
October 7, 2022This is all about mysterious fantastical doors and I am very ready to be obsessed
July 6, 2024
Original fantasy novel, a take on (another universe's) Buddhism, Sri Lanka-flavoured. A debut novel on the short list for this year's Hugo award. It is very good in many ways, but it also left me quite cold and disconnected, not caring for any of the characters or plot, and this is also why it took me so long to actually finish it. I just did not care about what was going to happen next.
On the good side, the writing is elegant, the vocabulary deep, and there is a vividness to the south Asian-flavoured fantasy world. The concept of fundamentalist Buddhism, done far more deeply (and differently) than a western-raised writer likely would have, is very memorable. I am sure there are lots of cultural references to (presumably) Sri Lanka ("our strange and wonderful island" even if now inland) going whoosh way past my head. The many layers of social criticism here are thought provoking.
I respect it a lot because of the above, and likely I will recommend it to friends and other random victims of my book pushing, but I did not much *like* it. I know I enjoy more books when I connect with the voices, feelings of the characters, and Fetter was a cypher, blank throughout the book. We are told of his feelings and motivations, which are natural and understandable, but my empathy was never involved. I do not know why, not sure if it was a lack of skill, the mythic quality of the story, or if it was just an intentional style of emotional detachment competently achieved.
The tone and texture of the worldbuilding were another issue for me. I am not a reader who needs the laws of magic to be listed and carefully formulated, but there was a mythic tone and a mythic intention to this story (the Buddhist thing, I guess. Shadows captured and physical people were just floating around. Demons causing diseases), which contrasted with the modern world building in other parts (mobile phones and social media, crowdfunding, identity cards, pandemics and masks, doors that break the laws of physics), and that was an odd blend that did quite click and made me think, "oh wait, what does knowing that do to the laws of physics and would not tech evolve differently then?"...This might be just a me thing. (Incidentally totally different universe, different geography, different empires and histories, and then a reference to "bright United Nations blue" which was just mood breaking...).
I did not like the ending either, there is a kind of reveal, meant to be a surprise, and I thought it was all too subtle until the reveal and then too obvious past the reveal and overexplaining a bit.
So, in all, this is an interesting book, and I am going to keep an eye on his career. It is a debut novel, and I keep repeating it because the inevitable comparison is to Wells and Leckie (I am ignoring a famous Hugo Award winner here, intentionally) at the peak of their not-inconsiderable storytelling powers, and that is not an even field to judge an ambitious debut novel.
Incidentally, this year, for the very first time ever, I decided I wanted to read ALL the Hugo nominees for novel and short fiction categories (not the Lodestar, though, and not the series. I was not that ambitious, thankfully). Finished, done, I am proud and boasting of it, but not again. I have just been reminded that I am not a reader who enjoys challenges, projects, duties, or even plans. My random shuffle butterfly chasing methods of picking whatever I want to read next are just more satisfying. (Now, I just have to remember to actually vote and how one logs in...)
On the good side, the writing is elegant, the vocabulary deep, and there is a vividness to the south Asian-flavoured fantasy world. The concept of fundamentalist Buddhism, done far more deeply (and differently) than a western-raised writer likely would have, is very memorable. I am sure there are lots of cultural references to (presumably) Sri Lanka ("our strange and wonderful island" even if now inland) going whoosh way past my head. The many layers of social criticism here are thought provoking.
I respect it a lot because of the above, and likely I will recommend it to friends and other random victims of my book pushing, but I did not much *like* it. I know I enjoy more books when I connect with the voices, feelings of the characters, and Fetter was a cypher, blank throughout the book. We are told of his feelings and motivations, which are natural and understandable, but my empathy was never involved. I do not know why, not sure if it was a lack of skill, the mythic quality of the story, or if it was just an intentional style of emotional detachment competently achieved.
The tone and texture of the worldbuilding were another issue for me. I am not a reader who needs the laws of magic to be listed and carefully formulated, but there was a mythic tone and a mythic intention to this story (the Buddhist thing, I guess. Shadows captured and physical people were just floating around. Demons causing diseases), which contrasted with the modern world building in other parts (mobile phones and social media, crowdfunding, identity cards, pandemics and masks, doors that break the laws of physics), and that was an odd blend that did quite click and made me think, "oh wait, what does knowing that do to the laws of physics and would not tech evolve differently then?"...This might be just a me thing. (Incidentally totally different universe, different geography, different empires and histories, and then a reference to "bright United Nations blue" which was just mood breaking...).
I did not like the ending either, there is a kind of reveal, meant to be a surprise, and I thought it was all too subtle until the reveal and then too obvious past the reveal and overexplaining a bit.
So, in all, this is an interesting book, and I am going to keep an eye on his career. It is a debut novel, and I keep repeating it because the inevitable comparison is to Wells and Leckie (I am ignoring a famous Hugo Award winner here, intentionally) at the peak of their not-inconsiderable storytelling powers, and that is not an even field to judge an ambitious debut novel.
Incidentally, this year, for the very first time ever, I decided I wanted to read ALL the Hugo nominees for novel and short fiction categories (not the Lodestar, though, and not the series. I was not that ambitious, thankfully). Finished, done, I am proud and boasting of it, but not again. I have just been reminded that I am not a reader who enjoys challenges, projects, duties, or even plans. My random shuffle butterfly chasing methods of picking whatever I want to read next are just more satisfying. (Now, I just have to remember to actually vote and how one logs in...)
June 8, 2023
The contents of the book are even louder than the cover (which is saying something because the cover is bright and colorful and eye-catching). It’s chaotic and hard to follow. As much as I was drawn in by the lush descriptions of people and places and doors, the politics, religion, and the “nature of the universe” was so hard to follow and frequently failed to answer the ever-important “so what?” that I’m pretty sure my brain just turned off and let the nice rhythm of the audiobook narration wash over me.
I always have a hard time with stories that lack a main driving plot, and this one was no exception. It was interesting to see an almost satirical look at how people bend over backwards to “other” each other (the caste system in this fictional city was wild and incomprehensible by design) and the pointed jabs at wealthy socialites landed well. But once we finally wandered around so much that we circled back to the problem presented at the beginning, it ended so suddenly that I was just confused. And then it was over. And I was left trying to cobble together any meaningful thoughts to put in this review.
{Thank you Tor.com for the ARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review; all thoughts are my own}
I always have a hard time with stories that lack a main driving plot, and this one was no exception. It was interesting to see an almost satirical look at how people bend over backwards to “other” each other (the caste system in this fictional city was wild and incomprehensible by design) and the pointed jabs at wealthy socialites landed well. But once we finally wandered around so much that we circled back to the problem presented at the beginning, it ended so suddenly that I was just confused. And then it was over. And I was left trying to cobble together any meaningful thoughts to put in this review.
{Thank you Tor.com for the ARC and Macmillan Audio for the ALC in exchange for my honest review; all thoughts are my own}
August 14, 2023
This is a difficult book to summarize, but the outlines of the story are fairly simple: A boy is raised by his mother to be a weapon against his father. Fetter's mother ripped his shadow away at his birth to make him an assassin, and she grooms him to murder his father, around whom a religion has grown.
The story gets really interesting once Fetter eventually escapes his mother, and ends up in the Luriat, a city of wonderful and terrible things coexisting. Fetter falls in with a group of other Chosen Ones, and Fetter builds a life for himself, even as he begins to probe the mystery of the city's Bright Doors, and has long conversations with his mother on a phone not connected to anything.
Luriat is an amazing construction. Full of bureaucracy, cults, rising rebellion/revolution, discontent, economic disparity, and possibly magical relics, and set in a world of conquest and colonialism.
Fetter grows into an interesting person as he begins building a life separate from his mother's obsession, while also trying to stay under the radar of his father's people. He and the other Chosen ones are an odd and interesting bunch, with their support meetings, messy lives, and plots.
And though there is a rising resistance, spearheaded by those Fetter knows, he's not central to that cause, or any cause. In fact, he's just trying to live his life, and not kill anyone. Much of the novel is Fetter processing things around him, and it doesn't quite follow the trope of a Chosen One who accepts and fulfills his destiny and the city/the kingdom's governing body is replaced by something else, hopefully better.
Instead, Fetter kind of bumbles around, and keeps trying to make decent choices as he learns more about his parents and their actions, and along the way author Vajra Chandrasekera treats us to the complexities of religion, politics, colonialism, bigotry, repressive governance, identity, immigrants' experience, and a lot more.
Set in a dystopia, the book veers into surrealism at times, and mystery, and weirdness. At the same time as it sometimes confounded me, I was intrigued and entertained.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Tor Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for my review.
The story gets really interesting once Fetter eventually escapes his mother, and ends up in the Luriat, a city of wonderful and terrible things coexisting. Fetter falls in with a group of other Chosen Ones, and Fetter builds a life for himself, even as he begins to probe the mystery of the city's Bright Doors, and has long conversations with his mother on a phone not connected to anything.
Luriat is an amazing construction. Full of bureaucracy, cults, rising rebellion/revolution, discontent, economic disparity, and possibly magical relics, and set in a world of conquest and colonialism.
Fetter grows into an interesting person as he begins building a life separate from his mother's obsession, while also trying to stay under the radar of his father's people. He and the other Chosen ones are an odd and interesting bunch, with their support meetings, messy lives, and plots.
And though there is a rising resistance, spearheaded by those Fetter knows, he's not central to that cause, or any cause. In fact, he's just trying to live his life, and not kill anyone. Much of the novel is Fetter processing things around him, and it doesn't quite follow the trope of a Chosen One who accepts and fulfills his destiny and the city/the kingdom's governing body is replaced by something else, hopefully better.
Instead, Fetter kind of bumbles around, and keeps trying to make decent choices as he learns more about his parents and their actions, and along the way author Vajra Chandrasekera treats us to the complexities of religion, politics, colonialism, bigotry, repressive governance, identity, immigrants' experience, and a lot more.
Set in a dystopia, the book veers into surrealism at times, and mystery, and weirdness. At the same time as it sometimes confounded me, I was intrigued and entertained.
Thank you to Netgalley and to Tor Publishing Group for this ARC in exchange for my review.
March 25, 2024
DNF at 70%
Thank you to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for a review.
I’m sorry I can’t finish this. I hardly ever DNF this far into the book but I am so disinterested in finishing this. I didn’t hate 100% of it, so I’m going to start with the points I did enjoy.
The setting of the story is very interesting. I loved hearing about the different cultures and religions that the residents of the cities belonged to. The book had so much potential to (even minimally) explain/expand on ANY of these concepts. I also liked certain aspects of the MC and his upbringing. The first three chapters were so promising, and you get a glimpse at how the MC was raised to be a tool for his mother’s machinations. Again, so so so much potential.
Unfortunately, the book drops the ball on all of this. The world-building is so minimal and nothing is explained. I understand that all the nonsense rules are supposed to be symbolic of how convoluted governments of this type are. It just comes across as lazy writing.
The “plot” is non-existent and the MC just goes with whatever happens to him. He is written with the “chosen one rejects his destiny”, but it is taken way too far; the MC doesn’t have any drive to do anything. He always seems to simply be there while things happen around him. It quickly becomes frustrating because he was had so much potential.
I was so excited for this book, but unfortunately it fell very flat for me. I hope this finds readers who will enjoy it.
Thank you to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for a review.
I’m sorry I can’t finish this. I hardly ever DNF this far into the book but I am so disinterested in finishing this. I didn’t hate 100% of it, so I’m going to start with the points I did enjoy.
The setting of the story is very interesting. I loved hearing about the different cultures and religions that the residents of the cities belonged to. The book had so much potential to (even minimally) explain/expand on ANY of these concepts. I also liked certain aspects of the MC and his upbringing. The first three chapters were so promising, and you get a glimpse at how the MC was raised to be a tool for his mother’s machinations. Again, so so so much potential.
Unfortunately, the book drops the ball on all of this. The world-building is so minimal and nothing is explained. I understand that all the nonsense rules are supposed to be symbolic of how convoluted governments of this type are. It just comes across as lazy writing.
The “plot” is non-existent and the MC just goes with whatever happens to him. He is written with the “chosen one rejects his destiny”, but it is taken way too far; the MC doesn’t have any drive to do anything. He always seems to simply be there while things happen around him. It quickly becomes frustrating because he was had so much potential.
I was so excited for this book, but unfortunately it fell very flat for me. I hope this finds readers who will enjoy it.
May 23, 2024
More later, but I want to highlight this great review on the book's Sri Lankan and Buddhist cultural background.
//
First impression: I'm not sure what to make of this book. It's unquestionably thoughtful, blending the fantastic and the mundane in a subtle way that really works. It's also an absolutely exhausting read at times, following a passive character who's always at an emotional distance from the reader, and at times feels like a slow fever dream. It's somewhere in that murky literary speculative fiction twilight border. I admire it, but I waver on how much I enjoyed it. RTC.
//
First impression: I'm not sure what to make of this book. It's unquestionably thoughtful, blending the fantastic and the mundane in a subtle way that really works. It's also an absolutely exhausting read at times, following a passive character who's always at an emotional distance from the reader, and at times feels like a slow fever dream. It's somewhere in that murky literary speculative fiction twilight border. I admire it, but I waver on how much I enjoyed it. RTC.
January 31, 2024
"They did not conquer us by violence….
They were a cult. The first cult we had ever known. And we had no defenses against them. They infected us with strange ideas...They brought doctrines of shame and disgust for the body, and the glorification of the perfected mind"
I’m surprised, and a bit devastated, that this book doesn’t have more attention
Fetter lives in a world similar to our own, but with more magic and some real gods. He moved away from home and to the city of Luriat, where he has been helping people get their papers sorted and finding new friends in his group therapy sessions.
His group therapy session is filled with characters similar to Fetter, the "Unchosen", people who were trained for a sort of divine heritage but wound up not fulfilling the role. Fetter was raised to kill his father and his father’s people, as a child he killed many, but now as a young adult he is enjoying being independent and finding his own way. He has friends, and a boyfriend, and people who reach out to him for help. It is not uncommon to be told "ask Fetter", and Fetter is happy to be helpful, instead of killing.
Unfortunately for Fetter, nothing can be quite so simple, and he finds himself joining revolutions, wearing fake IDs, and infiltrating special research into the Bright Doors - mysterious doors that, after left closed too long, one day become unopenable to people forever.
Though this story is set in a magical world, the societal issues that plagued the world were very real, the most iconic part being when Fetter was wondering how his email wound up subscribed to a god.
The Bright Doors are mysterious doors that were left closed too long, and one day became unopenable
What makes this book interesting is the level of magical realism in the book. There are times when you as the reader are not sure how powerful the magic of Fetter, his friends, or his father really is. By the end of it I was wondering if it could be more of an urban fantasy. One thing that stood out in determining the level of magic in the world was in Fetter not having a shadow. In the beginning he is glad that most people, including his boyfriend do not seem to notice his lack of a shadow, yet as we get further into the book it is suggested that more people were aware of it than previously thought, with one police officer hilariously commenting "Where is your shadow, don’t people have those where you come from?"
Overall, the visuals in this story were really well done, the story was powerful, the main character was lovable and tragic, and the side characters were interesting enough to each have their own novel. Most importantly however there was a part towards the last quarter of the book where I literally jumped up and said, "WUT." outloud, which is always a sign of an exciting twist.
A great story and interesting read, I will be recommending it for my bookclub for sure. Also Chandrasekera is releasing another book this year, sign me up!!
September 16, 2024
This book meanders, definitely. But that's not the point. On a sentence, scene level, it's quite revelatory. The world building is truly impressive, a mix of modern and mythic, unmistakenly and intriguingly South Asian. I misread it as Indian more than Sri Lankan, since I am more familiar with contemporary Indian politics. But no matter, it works for both. This is a book that could only have been written in the 2020s - where plagues, pogroms, casteism and racism, bureaucracy, holy men, and madness exist simultaneously. I am shocked that something so sophisticated made it on the Hugo ballot.
April 9, 2023
3.5. Vajra Chandrasekera’s debut fantasy novel The Saint of Bright Doors is an innovative standalone story with much to recommend it. Fetter, the son of a cult leader raised by his mother to take down his father, is a complex character I’d absolutely read another book about. The idea of the bright doors — their mechanics and their implications — is completely fascinating and captivated me throughout. The supporting characters were sufficiently interesting to care about, and the plot moved along at a good pace though I would characterize this story as more character-driven than plot-driven overall. I really appreciate how this novel centers and normalizes queer relationships while simultaneously acknowledging the existence of homophobia; Chandrasekera does an incredible job of acknowledging the fact that anti-gay laws not having been enforced consistently or recently doesn’t mean they’re not threatening or that they don’t impact people. This is a novel that absolutely has something to say but doesn’t feel heavy-handed in its messaging, and is wonderfully immersive and well written. In short, I really liked this, and look forward to reading more from Chandrasekera.
All this said, a few things didn’t quite work for me. Mainly, I found some aspects of the worldbuilding a bit clunky. In particular, the inclusion of very specifically contemporary references — the internet, masking and distancing, fandoms, crowdfunding — felt out of place in this fantasy world, and I think the novel would’ve been stronger without them. There were also a few sections that felt like they dragged on more than they needed to given their non-centrality to the main plot.
Content warnings: violence, death, murder, fire / fire injury, religiously motivated bigotry, xenophobia, state-sanctioned violence, mentions of homophobia, mentions of blood
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing an ARC.
All this said, a few things didn’t quite work for me. Mainly, I found some aspects of the worldbuilding a bit clunky. In particular, the inclusion of very specifically contemporary references — the internet, masking and distancing, fandoms, crowdfunding — felt out of place in this fantasy world, and I think the novel would’ve been stronger without them. There were also a few sections that felt like they dragged on more than they needed to given their non-centrality to the main plot.
Content warnings: violence, death, murder, fire / fire injury, religiously motivated bigotry, xenophobia, state-sanctioned violence, mentions of homophobia, mentions of blood
Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for providing an ARC.
May 24, 2024
Gobsmacked at how good this is, without even the caveat of “for a first novel.” Fetter, the feral only child of a messiah, trained by his mother as assassin, destined to commit matricide and fratricide, navigates a dystopian Sri Lanka far too recognizable in the present. Each sentence is exuberant, profound, precise, often scathingly funny—fragments that kaleidoscope by the end into a brilliant, emotional whole.
I’m gonna steal So Mayer’s phrase, because I don’t know how to sum it up better than “a work of Le Guinian complexity about unbecoming a messiah.” The unreal meets the real, a slippery form of time travel, worlds layered atop each other, the past made and unmade, ordered and disordered, a dozen times over by our rapacious empires and our unchosen ones.
Given that Chandrasekera wrote this one to, quote, suit the market, I’m even more excited to see what he unleashes in Rakesfall this summer. And give his blog a follow—his essays have rapidly become some of the best in my rss feed.
I’m gonna steal So Mayer’s phrase, because I don’t know how to sum it up better than “a work of Le Guinian complexity about unbecoming a messiah.” The unreal meets the real, a slippery form of time travel, worlds layered atop each other, the past made and unmade, ordered and disordered, a dozen times over by our rapacious empires and our unchosen ones.
“They’re our mistakes, I suppose… it’s not surprising they’re so hungry to haunt us—the histories we forgot, the crimes we buried. Devils know I’ve buried mine.”
Given that Chandrasekera wrote this one to, quote, suit the market, I’m even more excited to see what he unleashes in Rakesfall this summer. And give his blog a follow—his essays have rapidly become some of the best in my rss feed.
July 2, 2024
More of a 3.5/5 stars
Fetter was supposed to be a chosen one. Trained and prepared by his mother, Mother-of-Glory, to hunt down and assassinated his father, Perfect and Kind. But Fetter ran away from all that. As young man in the city of Luriat, he's in therapy for other failed or rejected chosen ones. Each one of them related to some sort of all-powerful and/or religious figure who gave them preternatural abilities. So, Fetter goes on with his life: he helps new citizens get acclimated to Luriat, he goes out on dates with his boyfriend Hejmen, and tries to hide the fact that he has no shadow and can levitate in the air. However, Luriat is rife with political strife, and Fetter's father is coming to the city. And Fetter will be roped into something that make him question all manner of things about the world.
This a difficult book to rate. The Saint of Bright Doors is not a typical chosen one story, obviously. These days most writers seem to chafe at the concept. That being said, Vajra Chandrasekera does something unique with the story. Indeed, his story-telling style is even more different to a traditional chosen one narrative. This is very much a character-driven story, rather than a plot or concept-driven one. It is mostly about Fetter understanding--or trying to understand through all the lies, changes, and mysteries that have been heaped upon him--who and what he is. The setting of The Saint of Bright Doors takes inspiration from Sri Lanka, where Chandrasekera is from, though it may not be entirely obvious at first. The names of the lands and countries mentioned in this book do not correspond to anything in real life, but again, pay attention because you will definitely get some things as they are revealed. Within this world, there are beings that Fetter can see, but no one else but his mother can. They are traditionally called devils, but were originally known as the invisible powers. They walk among almost every part of the world and their origins are a part of the mystery of the book. Additionally, there are multiple countries and sects that have their own rules and languages about what constitutes what. There is never anything greatly detailed about this, though some things with the politics are explained a bit more, but it is clear that Luriat and the places around it have been affected by the aggression between these different sects and polities and there a history of multiple colonization briefly mentioned. In short, all of this is to let you know that Fetter's world is rocky and unstable, a powder keg waiting to go off from all this massive weight Fetter finds himself entangled in.
The world-building is different than to what you would find in any other contemporary or urban fantasy. It's very Gene Wolfe-esque sans the unreliable narration, though there is a lot that Fetter does not know and wonders who is telling him the truth or not. There's no info-dumping; what is revealed is mostly through inference or implication. Wolfe's world-building was vast and grand scale, but his writing style only doled it out so much until it completely crystalized into something bizarre and wonderful. Chandrasekera does much of the same here, though his scale is not as grand as Wolfe's, and that's not a criticism. Speaking of Wolfe, The Saint of Bright Doors is to Buddhism is what The Book of the New Sun is to Catholicism.
What I mean is that the world-building and story of The Saint of Bright Doors is greatly inspired by Buddhism. I don't know a whole lot about Buddhism beyond the fundamentals of what an undergrad college class would teach, but the central story of the book and who and what Fetter, Mother-of-Glory, and Perfect and Kind represent are rooted in the original story of Buddhism. As the story progressed, Mother-of-Glory eventually revealed to Fetter her backstory and Perfect and Kind's. As she told this story, it gave me pause. She said that Perfect and Kind used to be a great journeyer and ruthless. When I first heard this, I thought that Perfect and Kind was based off Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire from ancient India. Ashoka was said to be brutal until his embracing of Buddhism and his son and daughter were said to have brought the religion to Sri Lanka. However, I learned that I was wrong. The true revelation came with the reason why Fetter was named Fetter. Perfect and Kind named him as such because his love for him was the last chain (fetter) that he had to break to renounce himself from the world and begin his Path Above.
"Wait a minute," I said. "This sounds familiar." So I went to Google. Sincere apologies to any Buddhists who read the following and discover that I have errored. It is not my intention and I am only going off what I can find in English on the Internet.
Apparently, "Rahula" was the name of the son of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Apparently, the name "Rahula" means "fetter," and he was named as such because he prevented Siddhartha from further Enlightenment. Additionally, the name of Yasodhara, Siddhartha's wife and Rahula's mother, means "bearer of glory."
The Saint of Bright Doors is a re-imagining of sorts of the original figures of Buddhism. I hesitate to call it a true re-telling/re-imagining as it doesn't quite fit those genres parameters and that Chandrasekera does not call himself a myth-retelling fantasist like Madeline Miller or all those other Greek retellings out there.
This is why I compared The Saint of Bright Doors more to The Book of the New Sun than anything else. Wolfe's Christ figure in his weird Catholicism was a masked torturer and executioner who desired really tall women, and Chandrasekera's Buddhist figures are a father and son who are both bisexual who both desired to "know" their worlds, but also change it.
Okay, enough of the Wolfe comparisons.
This Buddhist influence made me wonder what Chandrasekera was trying to do, especially when tied into the unchosen ones and how the world changes. No idea what Chandrasekera believes or doesn't believe in, nor is it my business, but I couldn't help but wonder. Is this a critique against Buddhism and it's different traditions, much like the Path Above and the Path Behind in the book? It's very possible that there is some sort of theology, philosophy, and/or cosmology in Buddhism going that I simply don't understand as an outsider. Whatever Chandrasekera is doing with whatever he is using, he certainly crafted and interesting story. The world-building is the strongest element of The Saint of Bright Doors. We learned that Mother-of-Glory had a hand in creating the Path Behind which, like the Path Above, also turned to pogroms and riots within Luriat which only adds more questions and tragedy. Some of the political stuff could get confusing at first, but Chandrasekera managed to iron it all out as it went on.
The prose has a psychological tinged to it, and there's a reason for this revealed later on. The pacing is a little on the slow side, and that may bother some. At some points, I will admit, I did wish it was a bit quicker, but not so much quicker for I really don't think that a really brisk pace could truly do justice to this story. Back to the prose, it manages to be within Fetter's head most of the time. If you think there's a conundrum with the story or Fetter that isn't being recognized, don't worry, it will definitely be revealed. When Fetter eventually returns to his original childhood task of trying to hunt down and kill Perfect and Kind, he starts to question why he returned to it. Just why did he do so automatically? Now, we're not always given an answer for these kinds of moments and that answer to that is partially given in the twist towards the conclusion. However, there were times where I think things weren't explained, not even in the aforementioned inferences or implications. I think sometimes that was intentional as Fetter is still trying to understand what anyone is even telling him. Even Mother-of-Glory appears to have lied or misconstrued a truth to him sometimes, as hinted in one moment by her ex-girlfriend (yes, she's bisexual too). Other times, however, I think things could've been explained a bit more.
Fetter is the most fleshed out character in this book aside from his parents. Koel and Caduv, two of Fetter's friends and fellow unchosen ones, are not as fleshed out, but still have some depth to them and involvement with the plot. The characters, I must admit, felt much flatter and Fetter's relationships with them did not come off as fully define. I felt that even his romance with Hejmen and attracted to Pipra were not fully defined or fleshed out. It more so just stated that he had feelings for both of them and that was it.
So what about that ending? Fetter does not accomplish what Mother-of-Glory ever wanted him to do, but he does change the world, as his father changed the world many, many times both ideologically and literally. However, he seems dissatisfied that force and violence were used to do it, at least that's what I gleamed. Things are changing though. While I do think it gives a satisfactory end to The Saint of Bright Doors, I didn't have quite the catharsis that people who enjoyed the book did, nor did I have the disappointment that those who disliked it did.
I think this is one of the stronger debuts out there, even if it wasn't a perfect score for me. That being said, I am greatly invested in reading Rakesfall. Chandrasekera said he probably couldn't have sold Rakesfall as a first novel, and that has me curious!
Fetter was supposed to be a chosen one. Trained and prepared by his mother, Mother-of-Glory, to hunt down and assassinated his father, Perfect and Kind. But Fetter ran away from all that. As young man in the city of Luriat, he's in therapy for other failed or rejected chosen ones. Each one of them related to some sort of all-powerful and/or religious figure who gave them preternatural abilities. So, Fetter goes on with his life: he helps new citizens get acclimated to Luriat, he goes out on dates with his boyfriend Hejmen, and tries to hide the fact that he has no shadow and can levitate in the air. However, Luriat is rife with political strife, and Fetter's father is coming to the city. And Fetter will be roped into something that make him question all manner of things about the world.
This a difficult book to rate. The Saint of Bright Doors is not a typical chosen one story, obviously. These days most writers seem to chafe at the concept. That being said, Vajra Chandrasekera does something unique with the story. Indeed, his story-telling style is even more different to a traditional chosen one narrative. This is very much a character-driven story, rather than a plot or concept-driven one. It is mostly about Fetter understanding--or trying to understand through all the lies, changes, and mysteries that have been heaped upon him--who and what he is. The setting of The Saint of Bright Doors takes inspiration from Sri Lanka, where Chandrasekera is from, though it may not be entirely obvious at first. The names of the lands and countries mentioned in this book do not correspond to anything in real life, but again, pay attention because you will definitely get some things as they are revealed. Within this world, there are beings that Fetter can see, but no one else but his mother can. They are traditionally called devils, but were originally known as the invisible powers. They walk among almost every part of the world and their origins are a part of the mystery of the book. Additionally, there are multiple countries and sects that have their own rules and languages about what constitutes what. There is never anything greatly detailed about this, though some things with the politics are explained a bit more, but it is clear that Luriat and the places around it have been affected by the aggression between these different sects and polities and there a history of multiple colonization briefly mentioned. In short, all of this is to let you know that Fetter's world is rocky and unstable, a powder keg waiting to go off from all this massive weight Fetter finds himself entangled in.
The world-building is different than to what you would find in any other contemporary or urban fantasy. It's very Gene Wolfe-esque sans the unreliable narration, though there is a lot that Fetter does not know and wonders who is telling him the truth or not. There's no info-dumping; what is revealed is mostly through inference or implication. Wolfe's world-building was vast and grand scale, but his writing style only doled it out so much until it completely crystalized into something bizarre and wonderful. Chandrasekera does much of the same here, though his scale is not as grand as Wolfe's, and that's not a criticism. Speaking of Wolfe, The Saint of Bright Doors is to Buddhism is what The Book of the New Sun is to Catholicism.
What I mean is that the world-building and story of The Saint of Bright Doors is greatly inspired by Buddhism. I don't know a whole lot about Buddhism beyond the fundamentals of what an undergrad college class would teach, but the central story of the book and who and what Fetter, Mother-of-Glory, and Perfect and Kind represent are rooted in the original story of Buddhism. As the story progressed, Mother-of-Glory eventually revealed to Fetter her backstory and Perfect and Kind's. As she told this story, it gave me pause. She said that Perfect and Kind used to be a great journeyer and ruthless. When I first heard this, I thought that Perfect and Kind was based off Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire from ancient India. Ashoka was said to be brutal until his embracing of Buddhism and his son and daughter were said to have brought the religion to Sri Lanka. However, I learned that I was wrong. The true revelation came with the reason why Fetter was named Fetter. Perfect and Kind named him as such because his love for him was the last chain (fetter) that he had to break to renounce himself from the world and begin his Path Above.
"Wait a minute," I said. "This sounds familiar." So I went to Google. Sincere apologies to any Buddhists who read the following and discover that I have errored. It is not my intention and I am only going off what I can find in English on the Internet.
Apparently, "Rahula" was the name of the son of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. Apparently, the name "Rahula" means "fetter," and he was named as such because he prevented Siddhartha from further Enlightenment. Additionally, the name of Yasodhara, Siddhartha's wife and Rahula's mother, means "bearer of glory."
The Saint of Bright Doors is a re-imagining of sorts of the original figures of Buddhism. I hesitate to call it a true re-telling/re-imagining as it doesn't quite fit those genres parameters and that Chandrasekera does not call himself a myth-retelling fantasist like Madeline Miller or all those other Greek retellings out there.
This is why I compared The Saint of Bright Doors more to The Book of the New Sun than anything else. Wolfe's Christ figure in his weird Catholicism was a masked torturer and executioner who desired really tall women, and Chandrasekera's Buddhist figures are a father and son who are both bisexual who both desired to "know" their worlds, but also change it.
Okay, enough of the Wolfe comparisons.
This Buddhist influence made me wonder what Chandrasekera was trying to do, especially when tied into the unchosen ones and how the world changes. No idea what Chandrasekera believes or doesn't believe in, nor is it my business, but I couldn't help but wonder. Is this a critique against Buddhism and it's different traditions, much like the Path Above and the Path Behind in the book? It's very possible that there is some sort of theology, philosophy, and/or cosmology in Buddhism going that I simply don't understand as an outsider. Whatever Chandrasekera is doing with whatever he is using, he certainly crafted and interesting story. The world-building is the strongest element of The Saint of Bright Doors. We learned that Mother-of-Glory had a hand in creating the Path Behind which, like the Path Above, also turned to pogroms and riots within Luriat which only adds more questions and tragedy. Some of the political stuff could get confusing at first, but Chandrasekera managed to iron it all out as it went on.
The prose has a psychological tinged to it, and there's a reason for this revealed later on. The pacing is a little on the slow side, and that may bother some. At some points, I will admit, I did wish it was a bit quicker, but not so much quicker for I really don't think that a really brisk pace could truly do justice to this story. Back to the prose, it manages to be within Fetter's head most of the time. If you think there's a conundrum with the story or Fetter that isn't being recognized, don't worry, it will definitely be revealed. When Fetter eventually returns to his original childhood task of trying to hunt down and kill Perfect and Kind, he starts to question why he returned to it. Just why did he do so automatically? Now, we're not always given an answer for these kinds of moments and that answer to that is partially given in the twist towards the conclusion. However, there were times where I think things weren't explained, not even in the aforementioned inferences or implications. I think sometimes that was intentional as Fetter is still trying to understand what anyone is even telling him. Even Mother-of-Glory appears to have lied or misconstrued a truth to him sometimes, as hinted in one moment by her ex-girlfriend (yes, she's bisexual too). Other times, however, I think things could've been explained a bit more.
Fetter is the most fleshed out character in this book aside from his parents. Koel and Caduv, two of Fetter's friends and fellow unchosen ones, are not as fleshed out, but still have some depth to them and involvement with the plot. The characters, I must admit, felt much flatter and Fetter's relationships with them did not come off as fully define. I felt that even his romance with Hejmen and attracted to Pipra were not fully defined or fleshed out. It more so just stated that he had feelings for both of them and that was it.
So what about that ending? Fetter does not accomplish what Mother-of-Glory ever wanted him to do, but he does change the world, as his father changed the world many, many times both ideologically and literally. However, he seems dissatisfied that force and violence were used to do it, at least that's what I gleamed. Things are changing though. While I do think it gives a satisfactory end to The Saint of Bright Doors, I didn't have quite the catharsis that people who enjoyed the book did, nor did I have the disappointment that those who disliked it did.
I think this is one of the stronger debuts out there, even if it wasn't a perfect score for me. That being said, I am greatly invested in reading Rakesfall. Chandrasekera said he probably couldn't have sold Rakesfall as a first novel, and that has me curious!
June 17, 2024
This would be so much better with a plot
I picked up Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors because it's a finalist for the 2024 Best Novel Hugo award. Over and over as I worked through this year's Hugo finalists, I have found myself asking, "Why is this a Hugo finalist?" Not this time. The Saint of Bright Doors is exactly the kind of highly original and creative work I expect to get nominated for awards.
At the same time, I found myself thinking as I approached the end, "Thank God I will soon be finished!" It is creative, but it's very hard to read. I have a good deal of tolerance for literature that makes me work (see, e.g., here), but I need to be compensated for my trouble. In a novel I need the usual accoutrements of good fiction: engaging characters and a plot that keeps me wanting to know what happens next.
In my headline I already hinted at the problem with The Saint of Bright Doors -- it doesn't have a plot. OK, that's unfair. it does have a plot, but only a very attenuated one. For most of the novel it was entirely unclear to me what problem Fetter might have been trying to solve, or what, if any, progress he was making. I didn't care what he would do next. Forcing myself to keep reading was hard work, and I'm tired now. I was tired already before I had read a third of it.
Now, I will say that there is a delicious plot twist near the end, which I will consign to a spoiler tag. Before that twist my rating was going to be two stars, but it was brilliant and surprising enough to earn another star. If the novel had been a lot shorter, the twist would have been a sufficient pay-off to justify it.
The Saint of Bright Doors is a brilliant debut. But as a novel it was too demanding for me to truly enjoy.
Blog review.
I picked up Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors because it's a finalist for the 2024 Best Novel Hugo award. Over and over as I worked through this year's Hugo finalists, I have found myself asking, "Why is this a Hugo finalist?" Not this time. The Saint of Bright Doors is exactly the kind of highly original and creative work I expect to get nominated for awards.
At the same time, I found myself thinking as I approached the end, "Thank God I will soon be finished!" It is creative, but it's very hard to read. I have a good deal of tolerance for literature that makes me work (see, e.g., here), but I need to be compensated for my trouble. In a novel I need the usual accoutrements of good fiction: engaging characters and a plot that keeps me wanting to know what happens next.
In my headline I already hinted at the problem with The Saint of Bright Doors -- it doesn't have a plot. OK, that's unfair. it does have a plot, but only a very attenuated one. For most of the novel it was entirely unclear to me what problem Fetter might have been trying to solve, or what, if any, progress he was making. I didn't care what he would do next. Forcing myself to keep reading was hard work, and I'm tired now. I was tired already before I had read a third of it.
Now, I will say that there is a delicious plot twist near the end, which I will consign to a spoiler tag. Before that twist my rating was going to be two stars, but it was brilliant and surprising enough to earn another star. If the novel had been a lot shorter, the twist would have been a sufficient pay-off to justify it.
The Saint of Bright Doors is a brilliant debut. But as a novel it was too demanding for me to truly enjoy.
Blog review.
April 8, 2024
I grabbed this on a recommendation I now forget the specifics of, but which I am incredibly glad I listened to. Not a perfect book, but a beautiful one. It really does immerse you in a capital-w Weird setting in a way I haven’t gotten to enjoy in a while, and might the best in years at really weaving it in with a sense of the mundane and the bathetic. Pacing and character development and plot are a little all over the place, but still a great read.
The story follows Fetter, the only child of the Perfect and Kind, anointed messiah of the Path Above. His mother tears his shadow off of him at birth, and forever after he must choose to remain tethered to the earth and not float away into infinity. He is raised from birth as a tool to take vengeance on his father by committing each of his five unforgivable sins – culminating, of course, in holy patricide. His childhood is spent in indoctrination and murders – and oh, he’s also the only one he knows who can see the monstrous devils who share the world with humanity.
So anyway, all that gives him a lot to talk about in therapy.
The actual book follows Fetters’ life as an aimless young adult in the city of Luriat, with its layers of impenetrable government and byzantine system of castes and races inherited from successive colonizers, its regular pogroms and plagues, and its tendency for any doors left closed and unwatched for too long to instantaneously become permanently shut portals to Somewhere. Over the course of the book, he is dragged into a revolutionary conspiracy, learns his father is coming to the city, learns deep metaphysical secrets, is a pretty terrible boyfriend, becomes a suicide bomber, and learns to fly.
To start with the negative, the pacing of the plot is...okay, maybe not bad, but it’s really not trying for the things I’d expect it to. A whole act of the narrative is spent meandering through an absurd purgatory of refugee/prison/quarantine camps Fetter has been consigned to. Lovely writing, thematically important, does eat up a lot of page count which then leads to rest of the book being things happening very quickly one after the other with very little in the way of buildup or reflection. Time is enjoyably spent just detailing the experience of Fetter’s day to day life, but much of the supporting cast feel more like plot (or thematic) devices than characters. The book ends with the protagonist loudly reciting the big lesson he’s learned from the events of the book. So yeah, less than perfect book. Still, I found all the sins very easy to forgive.
As mentioned, this was the first fantasy book I’ve read in a while that felt properly fantastical, like it was created from first principles rather than being the latest in a hoary old lineage stretching back generations. Which might be complete bullshit, I don’t know – not like I’ve read a great deal of other South Asian fantasy to compare it to – but it worked for me. A big part of which is how very modern it is. This is a secondary world with prophets and plague-bearing anti-gods, forgotten timelines whose ghosts leak into the world, and a whole plethora of almost- and not-quite- messiahs. And also one with cellphones and UN-administered refugee camps, labyrinthine bureaucratic politics and scandals over inappropriate allocation of imported medical devices. It all feels like a reflection of the present and its own concerns rather than the thousandth-generation pastiche much of the genre does, I suppose – which is something I really did appreciate.
The world of the book – or, at least, the little slice of it the story is concerned with. There’s clearly grander and stranger things happening off in the distance – is one intensely concerned with caste and class, race and religion and breeding. Luriat is weighed down with the architecture and high culture of successive waves of colonialism, and its elites organize and govern the population according to a syncretic mix of all of their ideological castoffs. Politics – and in particular the use of plague and quarantine on one hand and sectarian pogroms on the other to control the populace – is pretty key to the whole book. It’s also just about entirely beyond Fetter. Not that he’s dumb, just that he’s apolitical, in the sense of treating government like an inexorable and inevitable fact of life to be worked with/around or avoided, not something you can understand or change. Which makes for fun reading as there’s clearly a whole Les Mis thing happening like 0.5 degrees to the left of the book’s plot.
Anyway, I’m still sad Pipra didn’t get more screentime, and the whole ending feels almost comically rushed, but absolutely a worthwhile read.
The story follows Fetter, the only child of the Perfect and Kind, anointed messiah of the Path Above. His mother tears his shadow off of him at birth, and forever after he must choose to remain tethered to the earth and not float away into infinity. He is raised from birth as a tool to take vengeance on his father by committing each of his five unforgivable sins – culminating, of course, in holy patricide. His childhood is spent in indoctrination and murders – and oh, he’s also the only one he knows who can see the monstrous devils who share the world with humanity.
So anyway, all that gives him a lot to talk about in therapy.
The actual book follows Fetters’ life as an aimless young adult in the city of Luriat, with its layers of impenetrable government and byzantine system of castes and races inherited from successive colonizers, its regular pogroms and plagues, and its tendency for any doors left closed and unwatched for too long to instantaneously become permanently shut portals to Somewhere. Over the course of the book, he is dragged into a revolutionary conspiracy, learns his father is coming to the city, learns deep metaphysical secrets, is a pretty terrible boyfriend, becomes a suicide bomber, and learns to fly.
To start with the negative, the pacing of the plot is...okay, maybe not bad, but it’s really not trying for the things I’d expect it to. A whole act of the narrative is spent meandering through an absurd purgatory of refugee/prison/quarantine camps Fetter has been consigned to. Lovely writing, thematically important, does eat up a lot of page count which then leads to rest of the book being things happening very quickly one after the other with very little in the way of buildup or reflection. Time is enjoyably spent just detailing the experience of Fetter’s day to day life, but much of the supporting cast feel more like plot (or thematic) devices than characters. The book ends with the protagonist loudly reciting the big lesson he’s learned from the events of the book. So yeah, less than perfect book. Still, I found all the sins very easy to forgive.
As mentioned, this was the first fantasy book I’ve read in a while that felt properly fantastical, like it was created from first principles rather than being the latest in a hoary old lineage stretching back generations. Which might be complete bullshit, I don’t know – not like I’ve read a great deal of other South Asian fantasy to compare it to – but it worked for me. A big part of which is how very modern it is. This is a secondary world with prophets and plague-bearing anti-gods, forgotten timelines whose ghosts leak into the world, and a whole plethora of almost- and not-quite- messiahs. And also one with cellphones and UN-administered refugee camps, labyrinthine bureaucratic politics and scandals over inappropriate allocation of imported medical devices. It all feels like a reflection of the present and its own concerns rather than the thousandth-generation pastiche much of the genre does, I suppose – which is something I really did appreciate.
The world of the book – or, at least, the little slice of it the story is concerned with. There’s clearly grander and stranger things happening off in the distance – is one intensely concerned with caste and class, race and religion and breeding. Luriat is weighed down with the architecture and high culture of successive waves of colonialism, and its elites organize and govern the population according to a syncretic mix of all of their ideological castoffs. Politics – and in particular the use of plague and quarantine on one hand and sectarian pogroms on the other to control the populace – is pretty key to the whole book. It’s also just about entirely beyond Fetter. Not that he’s dumb, just that he’s apolitical, in the sense of treating government like an inexorable and inevitable fact of life to be worked with/around or avoided, not something you can understand or change. Which makes for fun reading as there’s clearly a whole Les Mis thing happening like 0.5 degrees to the left of the book’s plot.
Anyway, I’m still sad Pipra didn’t get more screentime, and the whole ending feels almost comically rushed, but absolutely a worthwhile read.
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