“Betrayal. Translation means doing violence upon the original, means warping and distorting it for foreign, unintended eyes. So then where does that leave us? How can we conclude, except by acknowledging that an act of translation is then necessarily always an act of betrayal?”
“Violence was the only thing that brought the colonizer to the table.”
This is by far one of my all-time favourite books. It is the most intelligently, beautifully written book that I have read. It is so thought-provoking from a multitude of different angles. The use of fantasy is so well placed within this period, that I often found myself second guessing if magical silver was real and I just missed the memo. The cadence and prose used are out of this world. I cannot say enough good things about this book. Some moments make you uncomfortable and the narration makes you sit in that uncomfortable feeling, but that is entirely the point. It perfectly bridges the gap between the historical fiction and fantasy genres.
I'm fully invested in this series, I just wish that the ending explored Conrad and Belly's relationship and how they got back together, how Condrad and Jeremiah mended their sibling-ship and how their relationship grew into marriage. You root for them for soooo long. I would have read a whole other book about the two of them.
I can respect that I am not the target audience for this book. It gave me a few moments of “huh, I didn't know that” and it was well-researched and informative. But, I do think that it glamorizes war, perhaps more than it intends to. While an attempt is made at showing the damage to the victims of Napalm bombs specifically, the feeling I am left with is that it is justified vs. an abhorrent invention.
This book was emotional and thoughtful. It was a difficult read, due to the fresh wound of just getting “through” covid and still dealing with the impacts of it. As someone who gave birth at the height of the pandemic, there was a lot about the fear and unknown and sadness that is hard to put into words but this book helped - if only to know that those feelings are not solitary in nature.
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