"Throne of Jade" opens with a scene that could have easily been extremely boring. Novik manages to make it exciting. Instead of the soaring aerial combat you were expecting, Novik places her protagonist, Laurence, in a boardroom filled with diplomats and politicians. Laurence made a name for himself by capturing a dragon egg from Napoleon's fleet a year or so before. When the dragon hatched, it attached itself to Laurence and the life long sailor had to learn how to ride dragons instead of frigates. But the dragon, named Temeraire proved to be more than the usual breed the rest of the English Aerial Corps flew. Temeraire is a Celestial, a gift intended to be from the Emperor of China to Napoleon, the Emperor of France. Laurence and Temeraire teamed up to become a formidable foe to the French. They had saved England from French invasion in a battle at the cliffs of Dover. But when the Chinese learned how their kingly gift was being used, in the hands of a mere soldier rather than an emperor, they made formal protests to the government of Great Britain and now Laurence finds himself stuck in stuffy room at the Admiralty, facing an accusatory Chinese prince and a British government that seems more than happy to sacrifice his relationship with his dragon for their political ends. Laurence is fed up and furious at being kept far from the heat of combat and far from his dragon.
To assuage the Chinese, who the British dare not enrage, the British Admiralty agree to send both Laurence and Temeraire to China to negotiate whatever ending might satisfy the offended Chinese while still maintaining vital British holdings in Asia and avoiding a war with that nation. It is a long voyage around Europe and underneath Africa to cross the Indian Ocean. Along the way, Laurence and Temeraire endure a French ambush, Temeraire's first encounter with the common cold, and a typhoon amongst other adventures.
As in the first book, the relationship between the two, Temeraire and Laurence, defines "Throne of Jade." Both prove that they would be willing to suffer to the point of death to spare the other harm. They make an outstanding team. Their mutual respect and their love for one another protect more than their own relationship. Each one allows the other to find within themselves new and greater truths, they make each other better than they would be alone.
The book is peppered with wonderfully crafted battle scenes: naval engagements, aerial combat, a desperate defense of a besieged fort, and even a dragon duel. Novik's knowledge of maritime terms and practices is impressive, and her attention to detail and creativity in imagining how a team of people could man a dragon in flight as they would a ship at sea make the stories she tells immersive.
Along the African coast, Temeraire sees his first slaves being sold and prepared for shipment across the sea. He witnesses a small scale revolt when a handful of the slaves fight back against their captors instead of meekly submitting to their imprisonment. The slave rebellion is quickly and brutally put down in full view of the scandalized dragon. Later, as the massive dragon transport ship called Valiance, enters the Indian Ocean, she is attacked by a massive sea serpent. Temeraire is reluctantly forced to kill the 250 foot long beast. This encounter and Laurence's insistence that the serpent was merely a mindless animal, along with the memories of the slaving outpost, set the dragon to asking questions about his own freedom.
If Temeraire is as smart as Laurence, and he is probably even smarter, why should he be forced into military service? Dragons in England are not allowed to roam freely. Human fear prevents this possibility. It is understood to be the natural order of things. Dragons are either harnessed for service in the aerial corps, or kept captive in breeding pens to help grow the ranks of beasts to be used as weapons. Laurence has a hard time answering his friend's questions, and his love of Temeraire helps him see the dragon's argument from a completely new perspective.
Their arrival in China does nothing to help Laurence's argument that the British way is the only way to deal with dragons. The Chinese, a society thousands of years older than Europeans, have a completely different way of thinking about and treating the mythological creatures. Even in our reality, China harbors a special reverence for dragons, but Novik takes this to the next level that her fictional world requires. Instead of shying away from the subject, Novik revels in a culture that respects the creature she inserted into our history. How would the Chinese have evolved to treat dragons? Novik draws from their customs, their mythology, and their art and decides that they would have evolved their entire civilization around the coexistence between humans and dragons.
In Novik's world, Chinese cities are designed to allow easy passage of dragons through their streets. Entire markets develop to provide food for dragons as well as to supply the treasures they naturally desire. Chinese chefs pride themselves on the perfect preparation of food for dragon consumption. Choice meats are heavily seasoned with spices and peppers, nothing like the English way of simply providing raw, or even still living, fodder. Dragons in China must earn their own wages, other than the rare and highly revered Celestial breeds. Therefore, dragons are woven throughout Chinese society. They are employed as messengers, taxis, and guards as well as soldiers for the government.
It's shocking at first for Laurence to learn that all Chinese dragons aren't serving the emperor's armed forces as English dragons are expected to do for their king. And to Laurence's surprise, with his Victorian-era sensibilities, the dragons who do end up serving in the Chinese military are captained exclusively by women. This is all due to an ancient legend of a girl who disguised herself as her father to save him from military service. In the legend, the girl (obviously, but never explicitly named Mulan) had been a companion to a warrior dragon and had saved the Chinese empire during a crucial battle. Women had been serving in the Chinese aerial corps ever since. It is a closely guarded secret in England that certain dragon breeds will only allow female captains, but for the entire Chinese aerial corps to have women at the helm is something entirely new for Laurence. It's also a nice way for Novik to get in a jab at naive Western ideas that they are the only enlightened societies on Earth, her reminder that gender roles, rather than being set in stone, are as varied as the many cultures that dot the globe.
Temeraire has always had a bit of a rebellious streak in him, Laurence has joked about it several times throughout both books. But this realization, that there are places in the world where his kin are treated as equals, where dragons are educated and respected, proves too much for Temeraire. His eyes are opened to possibilities he had never entertained before, and Laurence sees the passion growing within the closest friend he's ever known and he realizes that it's not wise to fight against it. In the end he knows that he never really wanted to fight it in the first place. Temeraire vows to return to England once the situation with the Chinese emperor is solved (quite cleverly, as a matter of fact) and begin a campaign to spread the word that dragons and humans can indeed live in much closer harmony than the English allow. Laurence knows that Temeraire is right. There is now no reason to continue catering to English fears or to pretend that segregation is the natural state of the world.
Temeraire, like many other non-human fictional characters, helps you to further define what it means to be human. We all have the potential to give in to our fears, to use the status quo as a refuge for our own laziness and self-protection, or as an excuse to turn a blind eye. Temeraire reminded you that you want to be the kind of person who fights against that inherent human weakness and he reminded you that you want to raise children who do the same thing. Sometimes the very people who seem like the enemy, who are treated as monsters by the rest of the world, are the ones who would make the greatest allies. Sometimes, there are far more terrible things in the world than dragons. The world needs more people who see injustice and inequality for what they are, who refuse to sit by and let them continue.
On to the next book!
No comments:
Post a Comment