paulinereads10booksayear's review
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
opheliapo's review
1.0
This book has been sitting on my TBR for far too long. I think I was gifted it by a relative, and for some reason there was just an air about it that made me sure it was not going to be to my taste. But hey, never judge a book by its cover, right? Or its blurb. Or its reviews.
Maybe I have a sixth sense about bad books then, because every negative assumption I had about this one turned out to be true.
My main criticism, that to some extent encompasses all of my criticisms, is that Kim Edwards utilises what I have been calling ‘aesthetic apathy’.
The overall tone of the book is clearly supposed to be that of some mysterious ‘eastern wisdom’ (from a Texan writer, I might add). One of the reviews on the back of the book even describes it as being ‘like the work of a wise traveller’. It may have been intended that way, but the result is a thinly veiled style that barely disguises its own ignorance.
The flowery writing is clumsy to say the least. It gave me PTSD flashbacks to The Book Thief, it was so misplaced.
For example, in the first story, ‘The Great Chain of Being’, Edwards describes her protagonist’s wrists and ankles as being ‘as delicate as bone’. Ah yes. Wrists and ankles. Made of skin, and flesh, and muscle, and... bone. Does comparing something to itself really class as a simile? After reading that my eyes were as startled as two round organs located in my sockets.
Later, in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ Edwards describes the children’s language skills, explaining that they spoke ‘imperfectly but fluently.’ I think that she may have meant ‘fluidly’ here, or else she needs to get a hold of a dictionary, as you cannot be both imperfect at a language and fluent.
Finally, in ‘The Way it Felt to be Falling’ Edwards writes about how a young man threatens the protagonist, aggressively seizing her to the point of bruising. I was expecting the male character to be condemned at this point, but instead, when the bruises themselves are described, they are ‘delicate, shaped like a fan.’ EW. That is truly the definition of aesthetics over empathy. You do not describe the wounds of an abuser as beautiful, especially when the story is told from a third person perspective.
My next quarrel is with the cultural elements of this book. Edwards travels a lot around the world throughout these stories, though you might miss it, as I often found myself wondering where the hell we were, what time period we were in, and why the author felt the need to keep that information from us, when it was clearly so relevant.
Not to mention, some of the cultural aspects were a little misplaced, to say the least. There is definitely some stereotyping involved that made me uncomfortable, like the Korean war bride ‘Jade Moon’ in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ and Yukiko Santiago in ‘Aristotle’s Lantern’, who was the ‘daughter of a Japanese Samurai family’ and whose grandfather had ‘supported the imperial army and committed seppuku’. That last one is a bit of a pet peeve for me. If all I knew about Japanese culture was through modern, western literature, then I would think every Japanese person was a geisha-samurai who carried a katana and lived by their family’s ‘honour’.
Plus, almost every female protagonist or focal character was described, in some manner or another, as being pale and thin. Very multicultural.
Throughout it all, though, I just found the characters to be flat, and the plots to be underwhelming. There were ‘bad’ characters with surface level bigotry, and ‘misunderstood’ characters with no depth, and I just didn’t care for them or their journeys.
I will forget about this book.
Maybe I have a sixth sense about bad books then, because every negative assumption I had about this one turned out to be true.
My main criticism, that to some extent encompasses all of my criticisms, is that Kim Edwards utilises what I have been calling ‘aesthetic apathy’.
The overall tone of the book is clearly supposed to be that of some mysterious ‘eastern wisdom’ (from a Texan writer, I might add). One of the reviews on the back of the book even describes it as being ‘like the work of a wise traveller’. It may have been intended that way, but the result is a thinly veiled style that barely disguises its own ignorance.
The flowery writing is clumsy to say the least. It gave me PTSD flashbacks to The Book Thief, it was so misplaced.
For example, in the first story, ‘The Great Chain of Being’, Edwards describes her protagonist’s wrists and ankles as being ‘as delicate as bone’. Ah yes. Wrists and ankles. Made of skin, and flesh, and muscle, and... bone. Does comparing something to itself really class as a simile? After reading that my eyes were as startled as two round organs located in my sockets.
Later, in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ Edwards describes the children’s language skills, explaining that they spoke ‘imperfectly but fluently.’ I think that she may have meant ‘fluidly’ here, or else she needs to get a hold of a dictionary, as you cannot be both imperfect at a language and fluent.
Finally, in ‘The Way it Felt to be Falling’ Edwards writes about how a young man threatens the protagonist, aggressively seizing her to the point of bruising. I was expecting the male character to be condemned at this point, but instead, when the bruises themselves are described, they are ‘delicate, shaped like a fan.’ EW. That is truly the definition of aesthetics over empathy. You do not describe the wounds of an abuser as beautiful, especially when the story is told from a third person perspective.
My next quarrel is with the cultural elements of this book. Edwards travels a lot around the world throughout these stories, though you might miss it, as I often found myself wondering where the hell we were, what time period we were in, and why the author felt the need to keep that information from us, when it was clearly so relevant.
Not to mention, some of the cultural aspects were a little misplaced, to say the least. There is definitely some stereotyping involved that made me uncomfortable, like the Korean war bride ‘Jade Moon’ in ‘Spring, Mountain, Sea’ and Yukiko Santiago in ‘Aristotle’s Lantern’, who was the ‘daughter of a Japanese Samurai family’ and whose grandfather had ‘supported the imperial army and committed seppuku’. That last one is a bit of a pet peeve for me. If all I knew about Japanese culture was through modern, western literature, then I would think every Japanese person was a geisha-samurai who carried a katana and lived by their family’s ‘honour’.
Plus, almost every female protagonist or focal character was described, in some manner or another, as being pale and thin. Very multicultural.
Throughout it all, though, I just found the characters to be flat, and the plots to be underwhelming. There were ‘bad’ characters with surface level bigotry, and ‘misunderstood’ characters with no depth, and I just didn’t care for them or their journeys.
I will forget about this book.
banalgirl's review against another edition
3.0
Este livro faz com que as pessoas meditem sobre as suas vidas, sobre a vontade de perseguir os sonhos e ser feliz!
kategolledge's review
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
Short stories
jer's review
adventurous
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
lcsmcat's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
jem_of_the_brew's review
5.0
One of my favourite short story collections; Edwards' prose is gorgeous, her characters deeply life-like, and her settings and situations profound and often unsettling.
toastx2's review
4.0
I am not one who normally invests time in short stories. It is not that I dislike them, more that I find them unsatisfying. I get involved and dedicated to an idea and find it cut short. This is expected as it is the intent of the medium.
A result of this is that I either avoid them completely, or read them, and feel that my opinion is not a fair reflection of the work. So I rarely write reviews of collections like this.
This stated, Kim Edwards’ collection of shorts ‘The Secrets of a Fire King’ was excellent.
Thirteen vignettes are carried here, and for the most part, each was impressive. They are almost elusive amorphous fables, each having a lesson to learn from, but requiring interpretation. Most center around personal evolution, both emotional and spiritual, but none are heavy handed enough to just say “this novel is about XX”.
Folks who read this should be made aware that much of the work is darker than her other writings. Many of the tales have an undercurrent of tragic humanity that is gripping. This is no “Memory Keeper’s Daughter”.
One of the stories here stands out every time I think about it. The third story, ‘A Gleaming in the Darkness’ is my favorite. The story centers around a cleaning woman in a scientific laboratory. She is uneducated and obsessively idolizes the woman who runs the lab, Marie Curie. She wanders the lab and fiddles with jars and ampoules that glow beautifully in the darkness of the lab.
The second favorite was the title story ‘Secrets of a Fire King’. With out going into too much detail, it was fairly amazing. It details the love triangle between a man, woman, and boy who are in a traveling side show.
This collection is well worth picking up. Surprisingly, it is commonly found in stacks of discount books at Borders and other stores, so you may be able to get it very cheap. This is not a reflection of the authors work, instead Penguin Publishing’s failure to properly market this remarkable book. I do not know what they put into play during the marketing of this, but it obviously was not enough or was completely approached wrong.
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
A result of this is that I either avoid them completely, or read them, and feel that my opinion is not a fair reflection of the work. So I rarely write reviews of collections like this.
This stated, Kim Edwards’ collection of shorts ‘The Secrets of a Fire King’ was excellent.
Thirteen vignettes are carried here, and for the most part, each was impressive. They are almost elusive amorphous fables, each having a lesson to learn from, but requiring interpretation. Most center around personal evolution, both emotional and spiritual, but none are heavy handed enough to just say “this novel is about XX”.
Folks who read this should be made aware that much of the work is darker than her other writings. Many of the tales have an undercurrent of tragic humanity that is gripping. This is no “Memory Keeper’s Daughter”.
One of the stories here stands out every time I think about it. The third story, ‘A Gleaming in the Darkness’ is my favorite. The story centers around a cleaning woman in a scientific laboratory. She is uneducated and obsessively idolizes the woman who runs the lab, Marie Curie. She wanders the lab and fiddles with jars and ampoules that glow beautifully in the darkness of the lab.
The second favorite was the title story ‘Secrets of a Fire King’. With out going into too much detail, it was fairly amazing. It details the love triangle between a man, woman, and boy who are in a traveling side show.
This collection is well worth picking up. Surprisingly, it is commonly found in stacks of discount books at Borders and other stores, so you may be able to get it very cheap. This is not a reflection of the authors work, instead Penguin Publishing’s failure to properly market this remarkable book. I do not know what they put into play during the marketing of this, but it obviously was not enough or was completely approached wrong.
--
xpost RawBlurb.com
chyneyee's review
1.0
This book contains of fourteen different stories. Each story contains an eccentric character and most of the stories are very random. Sometimes, I don’t really understand what is the main idea that the author wants to tell to the readers. The stories were written in simple English with complicated plots. Some of the random stories are such as rats, birthday invitation, parachute, gold digging, and garden.
I feel none of the stories are interesting and I don’t understand what is the conclusion of those stories or what the author wants the readers to understand from those stories. I don’t see there is any interesting parts in each story that can capture readers’ interest in it. Also, it seems the men were all bad and the women were all victims or experiencing difficult life. Most of the stories were quite depressing.
I struggled my way to finish this book and tried to finish it as soon as possible so I can read a better book after this. My conclusion about this book: simple English but complicated plots, random stories, weird characters, depressing, difficult to understand and no clear theme in each story.
https://chyneyee.com/2013/08/30/the-secrets-of-a-fire-king-kim-edwards/
I feel none of the stories are interesting and I don’t understand what is the conclusion of those stories or what the author wants the readers to understand from those stories. I don’t see there is any interesting parts in each story that can capture readers’ interest in it. Also, it seems the men were all bad and the women were all victims or experiencing difficult life. Most of the stories were quite depressing.
I struggled my way to finish this book and tried to finish it as soon as possible so I can read a better book after this. My conclusion about this book: simple English but complicated plots, random stories, weird characters, depressing, difficult to understand and no clear theme in each story.
https://chyneyee.com/2013/08/30/the-secrets-of-a-fire-king-kim-edwards/