She Who Became the Sun

‘It wasn’t that she didn’t have it; it was only that she didn’t have it yet. Putting all her determination behind the thought, she told herself: As long as I keep moving towards my great fate, and keep doing what I need to do, one day I’ll have it.’

As a debut novel centering historical China, this book undoubtedly deserves praise. It is a bold task to take a monumental occasion in history and rewrite it into your own words. The first third of the book was quite compelling and Parker-Chan does have a decently lyrical style, even if they do go overboard sometimes with descriptions. (I’ve never been a huge fan of ‘setting the scene’.) Only part of the novel follows Zhu the monk, however; other parts are devoted to Ouyang, the second main character, as well as Esen and Ma, relevant secondary characters. But compelling though as this book was, I found some large faults in the characters and even in the main premise of the novel.First, the characters: they all suck. Now this, by itself, need not be a negative point for a book. It often takes a skilled writer to write a cast full of morally grey characters and have the reader deeply engage with them. Unfortunately, this was not the case for me. They are stagnant, superficial, and not at all compelling. I did not care about any of the characters, and though they all had reasons for being repugnant, none were ‘grey’ enough to make them convincing as fleshed-out characters. One character, Ma, was actually not too bad as a person—but her character felt incredibly flat and the author seemed to put her in a role greater than her character felt suited for. Now, this is the first book in a series, so I don’t doubt there will be more character development later on, but let me turn to my biggest issue with the book.It is this: Zhu. First a monk, then a warrior turned emperor-to-be (I don’t think that counts as a spoiler since it’s the series title, don’t blame me), Zhu’s storyline is what kicks off the narrative and what centers it. Initially, I enjoyed reading about her time in the monastery, learning how to fit in and play the ‘role’ of her deceased brother convincingly. This book is fantasy, but it was still incredibly confusing how many moments there were in the novel about Zhu (or even other characters!) briefly glancing at someone’s eyes and being able to essentially read their intentions as clear as day. I don’t think I’m that terrible at social cues, but that’s not how it works… (For example: ‘As Zhu saw the future the rest of them had yet to grasp…’; she does have a literal sixth sense, but reading emotions and seeing ghosts are very different.) The camaraderie she develops her with characters like Xu Da was fun to read and did bring out a new side to Zhu. However, this doesn’t change that her defining character trait is being ambitious and power-hungry—to a major fault.I had two problems with Zhu’s ambition. First, ambition comes with a necessary cost. What will you sacrifice to get your hands on power? Though the narrative tries to answer this question, it does not do so convincingly. Part of the fun in Zhu’s character, I assumed, would be to see her overcome challenges and obstacles. Instead, everything goes perfectly for her. Ambition or … fate? The book seems to suggest that you can choose your fate, but I’d rather think Zhu was just in the right place at the right time, and had a lot of lucky coincidences. So can you choose your fate, or not? The book equivocates on this point for pretty much the entire novel. She does devise strategy and is shown to be clever, but at no point did I doubt that things would work out for her. The author presents it frustratingly though—first there is a problem, and we are left with the characters to work it out, but then the character has an ‘a-ha’ moment off-screen, despite us reading their thoughts, and the reader is left in the dark to await the ‘twist’. I didn’t feel thrilled, just annoyed that the author kept pulling the rug under me. In the wildly popular game Undertale, the player character must make their way through increasingly difficult dungeons, dealing with all sorts of monsters, and thereby gaining small pieces of ‘determination’ along the way. It feels realistic and logical, and you feel the player character’s motivation surging as they near their finish line. Here, instead, we have Zhu who has been crazy ambitious from the start, with little convincing motivation to sustain it, and for whom nothing ever poses a real challenge.My second issue with Zhu’s ambition lies with her motivation. At the beginning of the novel, we see a compelling starving but resourceful Zhu, determined to survive against her odds. Yes, historical China, like many places in space and time, devalued girls and thus Zhu’s survival could be considered almost an act of rebellion against the expectations placed on her. But her motive to survive comes from… what, spite, that her brother got a fortune of ‘greatness’ and she got ‘nothing’. Despite this fortune teller most likely just being a biased charlatan, for some reason, Zhu makes this a core part of her identity. First, she takes over Zhu Chongba’s identity. But nothing is enough—she keeps increasing the stakes for herself. Why? Why does Zhu want to be so powerful? Just because of that initial spite? I don’t see the narrative offering a better reason. If Zhu is to be a flawed, morally complex character, providing her with a decently understandable background motivation would help a lot. As it is, she just seems weirdly obsessed with power and does a lot of terrible things, none of which endear her to me as a character.I’ll stop there with my rant on Zhu, but I do want to comment on one more theme that is central in the novel. The author claims that they wanted this to be not a war novel but a story about gender. They go so far as to say that both the main characters (Zhu and Ouyang) are trans and genderqueer. First, while the theme of gender is definitely central to the story, my impression was that this book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a war novel or a gender novel in the middle and final thirds of the book, thus feeling imbalanced with neither aspect particularly shining. The plot in those parts dragged on. Second, am I the only one who feels strange that Parker-Chan’s insertion of gender into this book is just importing modern terminology onto historically-based figures? You know, the thing historians try to emphasize not to do? Sure, this isn’t a work of history but fiction, but tossing around modern terms and then depicting a female-bodied person who adopts a male identity as a response to sexist attitudes does not make her character more interesting; it dilutes the sense of the modern terms applied to her. Moreover, calling Ouyang ‘genderqueer’ or even ‘trans’ feels artificial. He is, as far as I can tell, a cis male. He was born male and identifies as male. His mutilation as a eunuch does make him become a kind of third-gender ‘other’ in the eyes of society, but one’s internal sense of gender has nothing to do with societal expectations. And that is perhaps my biggest contention with this book—both Zhu and Ouyang’s ‘gender’ journeys, let’s say, depend wholly on societal attitudes and not at all on internal reflection. One can in fact be both gender-variant, or gender non-conforming, and cis! Moreover, having a mutilated body, or let’s say lacking the right genital configuration (or being intersex, or struggling with body image, or dealing with past trauma, etc.), does not make you any less cis. I am not saying that they can’t be genderqueer, just that the writing does not serve to enrich the identities it claims.With that said, I don’t think the theme of gender is particularly well portrayed or even groundbreaking in this book. You have characters who suffer societal exclusion because of how they are perceived by society. Both chafe against this, but by the end of the novel, even Zhu seems to comes to accept her female body as a part of herself, which makes it even more confusing how she came to feel differently about it in the first place. Gender dysphoria isn’t something you can ‘talk’ away. Gender feelings can be complicated but while she mostly feels like an Other, towards the end she seems to almost accept her sex, if it were not for the fact that it prevents her from her goal. In spite of this, they are ambitious and fairly successful. Being a woman is equated with the fate of ‘nothingness’, and left mostly unquestioned by the characters; it remains as the status quo. By the end there is a slight attempt to overcome this, but given that it is the defining characteristic of the main character’s understanding of themselves, it feels a bit too late.Zhu also has a side romance with Ma, so despite being genderqueer there is still a ‘lesbian’ storyline, presented as such. But I’m not at all convinced that a person in 14th century China will look at a female-bodied person as Ma does and think: ‘…she saw someone who seemed neither male nor female, but another substance entirely: something wholly and powerfully of its own kind.’ We just need to look at how trans people are often reduced to what genitals they have, or what surgeries they’ve had, to see that this is how the majority of cis people think with regards to trans bodies. As I mentioned, Ma’s character was flat, and Zhu’s uncompelling, so overall the romance seemed also irrelevant and unpersuasive. Moreover, since Zhu is Not-Like-Other-Girls™, the narrative can’t really claim female empowerment as much as it seems to want to, unless Zhu's genderqueer feelings were just for show. Which is it? (Side note: why did the author decide to use she/her pronouns for Zhu for a majority of the novel? Is that supposed to reflect her own thoughts about herself? Spoken Chinese lacks gendered pronouns, but this novel is written in English, so the effect is hardly indifferent.) The other gay relationship in this book is also just a lot of pent-up pining and self-loathing, and not much substance to it at all besides a few teasing moments. I’m left to wonder: what’s the point, and why should I care?So much for my annoyance and dislike at large parts of the novel. Still, there were parts I enjoyed. The first third of the narrative flew by and was fascinating to read. The Ming dynasty period in China is one of my favorites, so getting to see the historical events antecedent to it were enjoyable. Parker-Chan also is skilled at showing the political and diplomatic sides of the plot—given their work as a diplomat, that makes a lot of sense. Zhu’s overzealous ambition did also motivate me a fair bit—my own desire to overcome impostor syndrome and get my shit together was intensified by reading this book, so thanks for that. Despite this, the political machinations were sort of second fiddle to the main story, which of course was not noteworthy for me. All in all, this book was a large disappointment. Will I read the second novel? I’m leaning towards no, but I won’t say never.

SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN is a queer reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, featuring a female monk (disguised) whose fate is intertwined with an eunuch who commands an army. It explores destiny, longing, and the weight of expectations which are often inextricable from gender, but also the adaptability of those who side-step that binary by choice, inclination, birth, or trauma. It’s subtle, nuanced, and occasionally blunt in just the right places to make sure the theme is unmistakable. 

The characters are vibrant and the politics are intricate without being overwhelming. Part of what keeps that balance is that different characters will think about the same events differently, providing for natural refreshers of what's happened and what's important, but without reusing descriptions. The rotation between Zhu, Ouyang, and (eventually) Ma is occasionally broken by brief sections following secondary or minor characters. Each change in perspective brings something to the scene that a different narrator wouldn't have noticed, or, occasionally, is used to make a revelation more poignant when shown through someone who doesn't initially understand what they're seeing (there's a particular reunion which uses this to great advantage). This has discussions of power, position, sacrifice, and cost, along with who pays what prices for which power. It frequently takes note of which language is being spoken, and how the character feels about switching from one language to another, particularly but not only when Ouyang is narrating. It creates these little moments where the language spoken in the room changes the feeling of the moment and affects how the other characters react. It's a small detail, but one I really like. The approach to depicting the horrors of war is very deft, it tends to focus on the emotional impact of whatever violence or death occurred rather than gory descriptions of the event itself. 

I love this and I want more. The ending is satisfying, poised on the eve of the next step for certain events. This definitely feels like phase one of a much larger story, and I'm ready for the next one.