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The Saint of Bright Doors Q1 – General Overview
How do you feel overall with this book? Did you enjoy the reading experience? Did this book make you want to read more of Chandrasekera’s work? Did you find it an easy or difficult read and did you come away from it thinking about the book more, or did it leave little impression on you?
Comments
Top level - I liked it, and found the intricacy of social detail very absorbing. To have a society so stratified by multiple layers of race, language, history and other dimensions was both bewildering and fascinating.
Other thoughts - it was a slower read than I had expected, which is no bad thing but took me by surprise when I realised I wasn't racing through it. I had anticipated from the title that there would be more passage through the bright doors, so the fact that we learn almost nothing about them for maybe half the book was intriguing
I also liked it. It had a real sense of South Asia that was refreshingly alien to my jaded Eurocentric experience. But that's probably for another question.
The book didn't prompt deeper thoughts in me, or change my world-view: the concerns of the characters were very small and personal, for all the world-spanning effects of the family feud. The greater events in the book were mostly a backdrop, with Fetter mostly untouched by them.
The Bright Doors were one such backdrop feature. They were a cool background feature, but they had next to no impact on the events in the book. If they weren't there, would much have changed in the book?
My initial impression was quite positive. I found the prose-style compelling. I rather liked the world-building, overall, for being a bit unusual. I thought the bright doors conceit was pretty interesting, and I liked its ‘weird fiction’ quality. I didn’t really know what to make of the kind of godly family aspect of the book, but was willing to give it a chance.
Now at the halfway point, I still like the prose. Many of the other elements I liked haven’t developed much. The world is still intriguing, but a quarter of the book has gone by and there’s been no further development of the setting by the author, which is a drag. It remains quite impressionistic.l - I was hoping for more. The bright doors aspect similarly hasn’t developed much - is it just a conceit? I can’t tell the characters apart. I’m rather lost I terms of what the plot is right now - there seem to be several unconnected plots. Wondering if I should persevere.
I quite enjoyed this book - thanks for suggesting it. I would definitely read another book by Vajra Chandrasekera, but I'm not sure I will seek it out. More if I run into it I will pick it up to read. Like @Apocryphal I found the second quarter dragged.
I quite enjoyed the setting, which I found familiar but unrecognisable (?). I posted a quote by Dick recently about how that is something important for SF. However I think that familiarity with this cosmology is uncommon in my society, and so for a lot of people I suspect that it just appears "exotic."
I have spent some time thinking about its take on things. I'll discuss this more in relation to other questions, or get back to it after I have responded to them.
For some reason I couldn't grasp this book. It writhed and fought me tooth and nail, like Merlin fighting Mad Madam Mim. I got about 10% of the way through and gave up. Hopefully I can go back to it later and try again. It took me three tries before I could read Hitchhikers Guide , so there is precedent...
My apologies, kcaryths!
“The Perfect and Kind is not looking at Fetter. He’s looking at me. He can’t see me - it’s not possible - but he is looking regardless.”
Is this an author insertion? Who else would the narrator be?
That's the kind of thing it kept doing to me, utterly throwing me off my game.
No need to apologise at all. This book did not do well for me either. I found myself completing it because of the quality of the writing, but I didn't enjoy much of the reading experience. I DNF'ed my first Chandrasekera book so this one was at least one I was up to finishing, but I don't think I'll be looking for more of his works to read.
> Every so often this book flips into the first person present. I haven’t wrapped my head around this yet.
> “The Perfect and Kind is not looking at Fetter. He’s looking at me. He can’t see me - it’s not possible - but he is looking regardless.”
>
> Is this an author insertion? Who else would the narrator be?
Good questions. They're answered soon in the book.
The book often reminded me of the Broken Earth books by Jemisin. Here we had a similarly impressionistic modern setting in which all the characters were basically super-human, and a story about a parent-child relationship. I preferred this to the Broken Earth on several levels. Firstly, it wasn’t trying to beat me over the head with a morality lesson. Second, the characters (such as they were - not very distinct mostly) were easier to care about because they weren’t pretentious dickheads. Third, the story wasn’t belaboured, dragged out into three books by delaying the big reveal by having bathroom breaks. Also, the big reveal was more meaningful. However, I did find BE to be a more readable and coherent work.
@Apocryphal I wanted to ask you if you think the importance of books being coherent and readable changes when listening rather than reading a book. I'm rereading Foucault's Pendulum by Eco right now, and for me it just rips along. No longueurs. Of course it makes no real sense, but it is coherent, and that is the point. I'm thinking this might be a reason that it is difficult to translate back and forth among table top and book.
Anyway curious to hear anyone's thoughts. BC
Personally I find that only some books work for me in audio format. That's partly because I tend to listen while doing household stuff like cooking or washing up, or if I'm in the car on my own, whereas with ebook/paperback I am more focused on actually reading. So you could justifiably argue that I am not giving them a reasonable amount of attention.
But I do think there's more to it than that. Obviously some books have visual content which doesn't translate - I'm currently (re) reading a book about the pre-Roman Celtic pathway network across large parts of Europe, and maps are an important part of the presentation.
But also, I don't find that I can enjoy books where the quality of language (poetic, rhetorical etc) is a key feature - for me it just doesn't work to hear the content in the same way as seeing it. Or books where the plot and setting is complex. So typically I listen to books which are straightforward and direct, where it doesn't matter if I miss a bit because of attention on other stuff, or the noise of a kettle boiling. This calendar year I've listened to a decent amount of historical fiction, including some of the Sharpe series, and currently the first few of Douglas Reeman's Bolitho series.
I think your parallel point about gaming and reading is also a fascinating one, but I'm not well qualified to comment on that.
@BarnerCobblewood When I'm reading a book, I'm more inclined to not miss important facts, so it's easier for me to develop a more complete picture of what the author intended (if that's possible - not always!). With audio books, it's much easier to get lost and not find your way back to the plot - so I prefer books with more straight-forward plots when I'm listening.
But listening to more complex books is certainly possible, even enjoyable, especially if it's a second read. And there are some aspects of listening that are just plain enjoyable regardless of the material - like the sound of a human voice.
With audio books, you go at the pace of the reader, who is a professional most times. So there's no stumbling, no head-bobs when you're sleepy re-reading the same paragraph over and over again. Also, since I'm often listening while doing other things, like gardening, I don't usually find them boring (unless I get lost and don't know what's going on). Some people complain that Kim Stanley Robinson's Green Mars is boring - gets lost in the science and geology and doesn't really go anywhere plot-wise for long stretches. But in audio, you just plow through all this at the pace of the professional reader.
I am a very fast reader, and read with complete focus - If they are any good, generally sinking deep into the book and letting my imagination create that world, which I experience directly. I do not enjoy listening to books; first because the readers are far too slow, and I get bored and my attention wanders, and secondly because I do not get the direct experience I get from reading.
Thanks everyone. I read like @clash_bowley. This question was sparked by my reading to other people. As I mentioned I'm reading Foucault's Pendulum, and the listener, while enjoying each session, cannot keep what is happening straight. Based on these comments, and my gut feeling, I don't think that it's a problem with them, but with the medium (oral rather than reading). I suspect there might be something similar happening with people who are introduced to RPGs through computer games, rather than the old way of reading books. I'm playing with some new people, who are quite literate, but they don't like to read the way that I think many of like to, or were raised to. Also there might be something about learning at a table where we participate in other people's learning, vs at a computer where we respond to a task master. Culture something etc.
I'm working on a heart-breaker, so I'll have to think about this when it comes time to show it to other people.