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The Saint of Bright Doors Q4 – Doors and Devils
The title of the book is of course regarding the Bright Doors which play a prominent part of the story, and throughout we also encounter various devils which interact with Fetter and, to a lesser degree, others. Did these two plot devices work for you? Did the way they were used in the story enhance the reading experience or leave you feeling something different? Would you want to read more from Chandrasekera which explored these two themes or was this book enough to satisfy?
Comments
I liked the Doors concept, especially since (as I mentioned elsewhere) they were left unexplained and all-but-unused for large parts of the book. That got me speculating on their origins - were they, for example, some relic of the transformation of the world by the Perfect and Kind? Might they be used to undo what had been done? I especially liked the way they were kept in stasis by observation, and their operation could be held back for long periods with the right preparations. On the other hand, other than a neat way of allowing the Mother of Glory to kill someone, and sone veiled pointers about how they led to alternate / unused realities, I never quite got a real sense of how they had come into being and what their real intended use was. So I suppose there was a sense that some of their narrative potential was unexplored. I'd be happy to see Chandrasekera opening this up more.
The devils? They didn't work for me. By the end I had decided that they were supposed to be people coming back through a Bright Door, but that the door should have been delicately configured and balanced if they were to come back in their proper form - soi what was actually seen was a rather monstrous distortion. But then on the other hand they seemed linked to death and illness of various kinds, and I couldn't see how these two facets worked together. So I kind of ignored them, and they never really seemed to do much in the plot except crawl about a bit (and sometimes cause illness). I'd have liked more explanation of this facet of the book.
I'm with Richard. I found the doors and the devils pretty irrelevant to the story. They had no effect on the story. Are they part of the wider Buddhist mythology and therefore a standard part of fantasy stories, much like elves and dwarves are in European fantasy?
I was disappointed in that part. A great idea, squandered.
I thought the devils were pretty standard. I think the idea that functional things emerge from a world that is not actual is common to South Asian tantric thought, which of course spread throughout Asia and is present as a functioning cosmology from Japan to Russia (Russia, not former USSR), and south to the borders of Australia. The idea that the devils are invisible traces of people who never existed is also not so weird as it appears to Abrahamic cosmologies. Made me think of doctrines of karma, and reincarnation / rebirth, which are also common throughout those civilisations.
I have a lot of thoughts about the ways in which South Asian cosmology underlies this book, not sure how much to say though. I'm answering question 2 last.
Also, I'm not sure the title of the book is about the bright doors. I think it refers to Fetter, and so could be about how his father's prophecy is inexorable.
One part of the South Asian cosmology is that it uses patriarchal genealogy and kinship models which have determined social identity to discuss personal and actual identity, which are often held to be fluid, but only beyond this life. These discussions have been going on for thousands of years. Simple example: It is the relation to a King that makes a son a prince, not the relation to the mother, (Fetter) and this is taken up into representations of actuality, but the fact that the mother is source of life, without whom the father cannot be (Fetter), is also taken up and considered significant. In all cosmological speculations within this cultural sphere this meaning / significance is a field of contention, not an objective fact. This duality and tension has been treated with more finesse that is often given credit. I thought that this book did quite a good job of recognising that, and of also leading the reader to mis-recognise it.
I loved the Doors and I wish they were explored a bit more. The group researching the doors and trying to find ways to "fool" them into opening was really interesting to me. The devils confused me a bit as at times they felt like they didn't interact with the real world at all and then at other times they seemed to have an impact, and I couldn't figure out what caused the differences.
I feel like there could be a whole other story told that focused more on just the Doors - what lays behind, how they started etc. I'd find that pretty interesting and I thought that was where things were going to head when I started reading.