Burning Roses, S.L. Huang
Received to review via Netgalley; publication date 29th September 2020
Burning Roses combines a mixture of different fairytales/folklore: Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Goldilocks… and Hou Yi, an archer from Chinese mythology. It blends all these disparate-sounding elements together with aplomb, remixing Hou Yi’s story in the meantime to make Hou Yi a trans woman, and winding in what reads as a racism metaphor in the grundwirgen (magical beings with animal qualities or animal forms, all of whom Rosa rather virulently hates in a way inherited from her mother and compounded by a ghastly experience as a child — you can guess what that experience was when you consider the Red Riding Hood story).
I didn’t think that all these stories could be combined like this so comfortably; for me, they’re all on quite different formal registers. I don’t know much about Hou Yi and how that story is usually told, of course, but the version I heard was rather formal and in the context of an anthology of mythological stories. On that basis, it initially seemed oddly placed next to a nursery story like Goldilocks. Just settle in and trust the author: in my opinion, it works out. I especially enjoyed the way that the story used both versions of the Hou Yi story that I knew of, showing they’re essentially the same story from different angles, depending on who is telling the story.
The grundwirgen (which I read as a metaphor for racism) theme feels a little heavy-handed at first, but when I think about the story now that doesn’t really register. The image that sticks in my head is that of both Rosa and Hou Yi working to be worthy of their families, failing and being human, and finding their way through it. It’s not a story of young and giddy fairytale love, but of love that endures through pain, love that forges a true family which you can’t walk away from.
I haven’t read the short stories in this world, but I don’t think it’s necessary to appreciate and enjoy this novella.
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