The Empress of Salt and Fortune
Dec. 25th, 2021 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo is a beautifully crafted novella, which builds up the story of an empress, who takes her destiny into her own hands and secures her succession in an unusual way. It's made up of multiple anecdotes from the empress' life, told by one of her servants to a non-gendered cleric who has come to catalogue the contents of a lakeside house where the empress spent several years in exile.
Each chapter opens with the catalogue description of one or more items, which prompts the servant, Rabbit, to tell a story related to that object's history. Those stories gradually combine to complete the picture of a complex, sometimes ruthless, sometimes compassionate, and very driven woman, and the relationships that defined her. We also learn about both the cleric and servant as the story progresses.
It's brilliantly constructed and very emotionally involving, despite the potential remoteness of the format. Lovely language, vivid descriptions, effective character development, and some welcome humour, provided by the cleric's companion, a talking hoopoe bird.
Highly recommended.
Each chapter opens with the catalogue description of one or more items, which prompts the servant, Rabbit, to tell a story related to that object's history. Those stories gradually combine to complete the picture of a complex, sometimes ruthless, sometimes compassionate, and very driven woman, and the relationships that defined her. We also learn about both the cleric and servant as the story progresses.
It's brilliantly constructed and very emotionally involving, despite the potential remoteness of the format. Lovely language, vivid descriptions, effective character development, and some welcome humour, provided by the cleric's companion, a talking hoopoe bird.
Highly recommended.
