More on Jay Kristoff and Stormdancer

[karenhealey]

A brief follow up to my previous post, because dammit I really do have lots to do today:

From this interview:

How much research did you have to do with regards to authenticity?

Less than people seem to think. It's kinda odd - I've had people ask if I did a degree in Japanese studies, but the closest I've come is reading all six volumes of AKIRA in a week. Maybe I'd picked up a lot of detail through film and manga that I've consumed down through the years, but Wikipedia was really my go-to-guy. I have a friend who lives in Japan who I bounce ideas off too. I pay him with the promise of booze.

Good lord.

From a review that talks (among other things) about some of the misuse of Japanese language conventions, which would bounce me right out of the book even if the rest of it were superb and I had never read these interviews:

Let's start with my primary nails-on-a-chalkboard issue, the usage of the words "hai" and "sama", shall we? Here are a few examples of these words in action in Stormdancer:

Sama:
"That is more than fair." [...] "Ameterasu bless your kindness, sama."
"I want for nothing. Thank you, sama."
"He slew Boukyaku, young sama. The sea dragon who consumed the island of Takaiyama."
"Honor to you, great sama."
"What is Raijin song, sama?"
"Forgiveness, sama."
"Apologies, sama."

So. Yeah.

Comments

[kateelliott]

As a data point, I note the novel received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and from Kirkus Reviews. Not that I'm cynical, but the white male viewpoint seems to be comforting for many readers (and even reviewers!).

[hawkwing_lb]

Unasked, St Martin's sent me a review copy. I have been side-eyeing it for over two months, wondering whether my instinctive "..." reaction to "Japanese-flavoured" steampunk by non-Japanese guy was justified.

Yeah. Yeah, I think now probably it is, in this case.

[kateelliott]

Sadly, there is probably some non Japanese guy who can write an interesting. thoughtful, well researched, and not particularly appropriative Japanese steampunk book. Maybe one question is: would that guy get starred reviews if it doesn't fall into preconceived notions of and exotification of Japan? While the other obvious question is: will a Japanese guy even get an English language publication with all the push this guy is getting?

[drcuriosity]

I'd love to see Japanese-authored Steampunk. The only stuff I know of going on over there at the moment is the band Strange Artifact, though.

[hawkwing_lb]

Sigh. Yes, and I can't help thinking that the answers to those questions are going to be on the dispiriting side.

[karenhealey]

I have a couple of those too (and you do also, I believe, and if not you certainly ought to!) And I KNOW I did stuff wrong, and I actually did a buttload of research. I think a lot (not all!) of the established print reviewers are just perhaps not equipped to notice (or maybe care). But established print reviewers aren't really who I think of when I write.

And yeah, agreed about the comfort factor of the white male viewpoint, because that's what we're culturalised to see as the normative, and that is the very essence of comfort - the cosy sense of the familiar.

[kateelliott]

I've been thinking a great deal lately about how much REAFFIRMATION influences comfort levels with fiction, and perhaps has a deal to do with which books reach the widest audience. The old business about "greatest common denominator" tended to privilege "elite" readers at the expense of the "common" readers, but more and more I am coming to believe that all levels of readers can, if they do not stop to examine how they are reading and with what assumptions and desires they are reading, feel most comfortable with the fiction that reaffirms what they already believe to be true. I mean, I know *I do*.

So a book for a US/UK audience that exoticizes what I'll call a Disney/Hollywood version of Japan and which retains a male gaze despite being told from pov of a girl, will as you say retain that comfort factor. "The very essence of comfort" indeed.

Data point: My novel King's Dragon got a starred review in PW in 1997. That's my only one (Kirkus hasn't reviewed me in the 21st c). But I have to say that the rise of social media has given me the chance to see and sometimes interact with the readers who care and who get it. I value that so much.

[karenhealey]

Data point: My novel King's Dragon got a starred review in PW in 1997. That's my only one

Okay, that's just fucking ridiculous.

[deborah]

I am ... surprised. Both Kirkus children's/YA reviewer stable in general and our editor in particular are usually primed for noticing all the red flags (and I haven't read this book, but that misuse of sama and hai, as well as the sarariman, made me cringe). We tend to be more sensitive about appropriation and misuse than many of the other journals, in my observation. That being said, any group heavily populated by American children's and YA librarians is going to have cultural biases and blindnesses of our own, and our editor is the first to admit to that. I shudder to think of what's made it past my radar as a reviewer.