I adore Guy Cavriel Kay's writing, and I am not as critical a reader as you are (and I mean critical in a good sense here), so my rating for "Under Heaven" was 5 stars. This said, one of my best friends (who just returned to the States after teaching English in China for three years) could not finish it - she said she just could not get into the story and the writing style did not work for her
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I guess where I was going with the line is this: he's telling the fictionalized story of a true rebellion, but to get to that story, he's made up a frame of characters and McGuffin to get to what I feel is the real thing. I know Tai and Li-Mei aren't based on real people, whereas the Emperor and his court were.
(the excerpt below is from the GGK essay I linked to. I think it explains wby he chose not to use "real" people. I understand that you disagree with his reasoning;)
....... I have come to dislike the hijacking of real lives as vehicles for an author's guesswork or deliberate distortions. I don't see saying, 'It is just a novel!', or offering an apology in an Afterword, as a 'get away with anything' card. I prefer to shape a character inspired by Spain's El Cid or the astonishing Tang poet, Li Bai, in Under Heaven, rather than pretend I have access to the mindset of the real figure. And I don't want to hitchhike a ride on the celebrity of a famous person. 'Spinning' the story a little towards an invented setting and characters feels ethically valid and creatively liberating. A win-win. ........
In all truth, I don't have a problem with the fictionalized versions of real people, nor do I have an issue with pure fictional characters. My issue stems from story construction. Look at it this way
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No worries. :) I'm sorry I didn't explain myself better to begin with!
How did you feel about the resolutions of Tai and Li-Mei's stories? I mean, they do get a happily-ever-after stamp, which is kind of nice, and I love how Tai went back to help bury the dead every year, but I thought those endings were rather rushed...
What do you consider "the ending"? For me, it was chapter XXV (Jian and Liu's last scene, and the abdication of the old emperor) around p. 499. Everything after that was wrapping-up, and considering how many different characters and story-lines he had to finish, 70 pages just wasn't enough. I wanted to know MORE about all those people, because Kay is just so damn good at creating memorable characters we care about.
I am glad we also GOT an epilogue as long as this one was (Kay is usually not big on long epilogues); and the last page page was heart-breakingly beautiful.
I can't wait to hear what you thought about "Tigana." Hopefully you'll have a chance to read it in 2011!
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I have come to dislike the hijacking of real lives as vehicles for an author's guesswork or deliberate distortions. I don't see saying, 'It is just a novel!', or offering an apology in an Afterword, as a 'get away with anything' card. I prefer to shape a character inspired by Spain's El Cid or the astonishing Tang poet, Li Bai, in Under Heaven, rather than pretend I have access to the mindset of the real figure. And I don't want to hitchhike a ride on the celebrity of a famous person. 'Spinning' the story a little towards an invented setting and characters feels ethically valid and creatively liberating. A win-win.
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I read "Under Heaven" as the story of Tai and Mei-Li, with the Rebellion as a background, so I had no beef with it :-)
Happy Anniversary!
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How did you feel about the resolutions of Tai and Li-Mei's stories? I mean, they do get a happily-ever-after stamp, which is kind of nice, and I love how Tai went back to help bury the dead every year, but I thought those endings were rather rushed...
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I am glad we also GOT an epilogue as long as this one was (Kay is usually not big on long epilogues); and the last page page was heart-breakingly beautiful.
I can't wait to hear what you thought about "Tigana." Hopefully you'll have a chance to read it in 2011!
Reply
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