Sunday, 8 August 2021 10:02 pm
Book Review: The City of Brass
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deckardcanineThis is the first novel by S. A. Chakraborty and not exactly time-tested (2017), but descriptions were highly promising. The press release likened it to Uprooted, and Sabaa Tahir called it her favorite since The Name of the Wind. I did think of Tahir a bit while reading, not least for the setting.
The story begins in Cairo, when the Ottomans and Napoleon are vying for control of it. The focus is on Nahri, circa age 20, who can't remember her parents and doesn't even know what to call her first language. She can understand various languages she never heard before, and she has an extreme talent for sensing and healing injuries and illnesses in herself and others. She'd like to get a doctorate someday, but in the meantime, she survives on burglary and scams. Despite her superpowers, she doesn't believe in anything supernatural -- until her exorcism "attempt" draws the attention of a djinn and a hostile ifrit.
The djinn, nicknamed Dara, soon determines that Nahri is the last scion of a much-missed royal djinn dynasty, the Nahids. Being ever loyal to the Nahids, he puts aside his disdain for half-human "shafit" and insists that she come to his former hometown, Daevabad, capital of Daevastana, roughly where Afghanistan is today. As bad as her unpopular life has been, Nahri doesn't want to leave familiar environs indefinitely for a distant, djinn-filled land, but monsters stronger than Dara wouldn't try to kill her there. The duo's journey is fraught with peril, and their mutual annoyance begins to approach romance.
Now, most djinn are not as powerful as you might imagine. The curse of Suleiman (the biblical Solomon to westerners) greatly diminished them so that they would stop treating humans like playthings. Dara is exceptional among them, and a lot of questions about him remain unanswered at the end of this first volume of the Daevabad Trilogy. One thing is clear: A lot of people, including Suleiman, would not approve of him making out with Nahri.
About half the chapters use the POV of another character, Alizayd al Qahtani, younger prince of Daevastana. He's about Nahri's age, so even though the two don't meet until more than halfway through the volume, you can bet he'll be a romantic rival to Dara. Ali has long trained to head the Royal Guard and excels with a zulfiqar, a sword that can produce flames and poison as he wills. He is also more bookish and devoutly religious (evidently Islamic) than the rest of his family, making him a stick in the mud, albeit a rather likable one.
Once Nahri and Dara reach Daevabad, King Ghassan appears very welcoming of both, despite ancestral enmity. (You think humans in the Middle East hold long grudges? Imagine if they lived several centuries.) Nahri enjoys luxuries in the palace but can't help feeling like a prisoner as well as an alien. And while she is ostensibly safer here, she becomes aware of how tenuous her situation is.
The djinn are divided into six tribes characterized by different places of origin, from the Sahara to India and China. In this volume, only three tribes play a big role, and they sure don't see eye to eye. Nahri and Dara are Daevas ("fire worshipper" is the applied slur). Ghassan is pure Geziri, from the Arabian Peninsula ("sand fly"), and Ali is half Ayaanle, from East Africa ("crocodile"). The al Qahtanis seized control from the Nahids, so a lot of the conflict amounts to Daeva versus Geziri.
Nobody has it worse than the shafit. To call them second-class citizens does not do them justice; they're not allowed to leave the city or defend themselves in pretty much any way. Ali grows in pity for them but is unsure how much to support their underground resistance in light of his family.
The most prominent recurring theme is that for all the animosity going around, the major characters can't neatly be divided into heroes and villains. Everyone has a point. Ghassan comes closest to outright villainy among the djinn, and his tyranny is largely pragmatic and flexible in some ways. He really was fond of Nahri's mother. Even the ifrit have relatable emotions. This just about guarantees a not-so-happy ending, insofar as there is an ending yet.
After that semi-ending, we get a valuable if incomplete glossary, with plenty of terms for Middle Eastern trappings I didn't know. Then, oddly enough, comes what was meant to be a prologue, focusing on Ali's older brother, Muntadhir, about seven years earlier. The publisher was right not to put it up front; it feels out of place and doesn't reveal much more about the characters or backstory. Perhaps Chakraborty had planned to do more with Muntadhir, who initially comes across as just a drunken playboy and dubious emir but cares deeply about Ali. He is also hinted to be gay, and given the likely demographic makeup of the book's readership, that's best not dwelt on.
I won't swear that readers closer to Chakraborty's background would get more out of TCoB. For my taste, it benefits about equally from exoticism and familiarity. It's exciting enough that I finished faster than usual, and this time I didn't skip the excerpt from the sequel, which I intend to read. There's a lot to recommend here.
My next read: The Brothers Karamazov. My dad says he liked it but had difficulty keeping the characters straight, so I'll be careful.
The story begins in Cairo, when the Ottomans and Napoleon are vying for control of it. The focus is on Nahri, circa age 20, who can't remember her parents and doesn't even know what to call her first language. She can understand various languages she never heard before, and she has an extreme talent for sensing and healing injuries and illnesses in herself and others. She'd like to get a doctorate someday, but in the meantime, she survives on burglary and scams. Despite her superpowers, she doesn't believe in anything supernatural -- until her exorcism "attempt" draws the attention of a djinn and a hostile ifrit.
The djinn, nicknamed Dara, soon determines that Nahri is the last scion of a much-missed royal djinn dynasty, the Nahids. Being ever loyal to the Nahids, he puts aside his disdain for half-human "shafit" and insists that she come to his former hometown, Daevabad, capital of Daevastana, roughly where Afghanistan is today. As bad as her unpopular life has been, Nahri doesn't want to leave familiar environs indefinitely for a distant, djinn-filled land, but monsters stronger than Dara wouldn't try to kill her there. The duo's journey is fraught with peril, and their mutual annoyance begins to approach romance.
Now, most djinn are not as powerful as you might imagine. The curse of Suleiman (the biblical Solomon to westerners) greatly diminished them so that they would stop treating humans like playthings. Dara is exceptional among them, and a lot of questions about him remain unanswered at the end of this first volume of the Daevabad Trilogy. One thing is clear: A lot of people, including Suleiman, would not approve of him making out with Nahri.
About half the chapters use the POV of another character, Alizayd al Qahtani, younger prince of Daevastana. He's about Nahri's age, so even though the two don't meet until more than halfway through the volume, you can bet he'll be a romantic rival to Dara. Ali has long trained to head the Royal Guard and excels with a zulfiqar, a sword that can produce flames and poison as he wills. He is also more bookish and devoutly religious (evidently Islamic) than the rest of his family, making him a stick in the mud, albeit a rather likable one.
Once Nahri and Dara reach Daevabad, King Ghassan appears very welcoming of both, despite ancestral enmity. (You think humans in the Middle East hold long grudges? Imagine if they lived several centuries.) Nahri enjoys luxuries in the palace but can't help feeling like a prisoner as well as an alien. And while she is ostensibly safer here, she becomes aware of how tenuous her situation is.
The djinn are divided into six tribes characterized by different places of origin, from the Sahara to India and China. In this volume, only three tribes play a big role, and they sure don't see eye to eye. Nahri and Dara are Daevas ("fire worshipper" is the applied slur). Ghassan is pure Geziri, from the Arabian Peninsula ("sand fly"), and Ali is half Ayaanle, from East Africa ("crocodile"). The al Qahtanis seized control from the Nahids, so a lot of the conflict amounts to Daeva versus Geziri.
Nobody has it worse than the shafit. To call them second-class citizens does not do them justice; they're not allowed to leave the city or defend themselves in pretty much any way. Ali grows in pity for them but is unsure how much to support their underground resistance in light of his family.
The most prominent recurring theme is that for all the animosity going around, the major characters can't neatly be divided into heroes and villains. Everyone has a point. Ghassan comes closest to outright villainy among the djinn, and his tyranny is largely pragmatic and flexible in some ways. He really was fond of Nahri's mother. Even the ifrit have relatable emotions. This just about guarantees a not-so-happy ending, insofar as there is an ending yet.
After that semi-ending, we get a valuable if incomplete glossary, with plenty of terms for Middle Eastern trappings I didn't know. Then, oddly enough, comes what was meant to be a prologue, focusing on Ali's older brother, Muntadhir, about seven years earlier. The publisher was right not to put it up front; it feels out of place and doesn't reveal much more about the characters or backstory. Perhaps Chakraborty had planned to do more with Muntadhir, who initially comes across as just a drunken playboy and dubious emir but cares deeply about Ali. He is also hinted to be gay, and given the likely demographic makeup of the book's readership, that's best not dwelt on.
I won't swear that readers closer to Chakraborty's background would get more out of TCoB. For my taste, it benefits about equally from exoticism and familiarity. It's exciting enough that I finished faster than usual, and this time I didn't skip the excerpt from the sequel, which I intend to read. There's a lot to recommend here.
My next read: The Brothers Karamazov. My dad says he liked it but had difficulty keeping the characters straight, so I'll be careful.