★★★★☆ A quarter turn towards revenge fantasy

The Poppy War

RF Kuang

Last year I began a review of Guy Gavriel Kay's All the Seas of the World with these words:

How to describe Guy Gavriel Kay's books? He is a genre of his own. His novels live somewhere between fantasy and historical fiction. He has borrowed the words "a quarter turn to the fantastic" from a reviewer to describe it.

I was mistaken. Kay is not alone. R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War is a fantasy with a similar relationship to history as Kay's. There are many valid reasons to dislike or feel uneasy about this approach to historical fiction. Kay has eloquently explained his approach in an essay entitled "On the Strengths of Fiction Done as Near-History". I find it persuasive.

Now, Kuang is not as self-aware as Kay. But The Poppy War was her debut novel, while Kay has been publishing novels since 1984. Without attributing Kay's thoughts to Kuang, it is not unreasonable to read Kay's essay with The Poppy War in mind and ask oneself how well it works as an explanation. I think it works well.

The Poppy War is divided into three parts. Part I is a story you have read a hundred times before: the poor kid who somehow gets into a school for rich kids, is looked down on by almost everyone, but somehow through merit or spirit or plain intelligence transcends her underdog status. This one is a little more brutal than the average, but not outside the usual range.

Parts II and III are the most recognizably historical. They are based on events of the Second Sino-Japanese War, most obviously the Battle of Shanghai and the Nanjing Massacre, and also on later events of World War II. The Nanjing Massacre was, no exaggeration, one of the most horrible things to happen in human history, so expect the story to become very, very dark. My title refers to The Poppy War as a revenge fantasy, because it feels to me as if Kuang is getting revenge for the horrors the Japanese inflicted on China. As an American, I also recognized a US World War II event. You will, too, and it will be obvious to you that Kuang intended it.

Overall, I thought this was a good story, brutal but honestly so. I am not sure if I will continue with the series.

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