The Four Profound Weaves, R.B. Lemberg

I originally had this to review, but ended up buying a copy on release because I’m generally picking up physical books much more regularly at the moment, and I really did want to give this a try. I’m actually wondering if I’ve read one or two of the stories set in this world before, and somehow forgotten, because some things felt really familiar.

In any case, it took me a while to get into the story — partly because I didn’t properly take notice of the POV shift, and partly because I felt like I was assembling the world from pieces of a puzzle I’d briefly seen before. It was a bit weird, as a feeling, but I settled in and ended up racing through the novella all in one go. It begins with two older people, long known to each other but not of the same cultural group, deciding to go in search of what they feel they’re missing: a name, in the case of one of them, who has just completed his long-awaited transition after a life lived as a woman for the sake of his family; and the other, in search of her aunt, and the things her aunt promised to teach her.

The story is less important, I think, than the claiming (and re-claiming) of one’s voice, one’s identity, one’s true self. Both the main characters have to find that and learn to grasp it, in their own ways, and it is only through that that they can be whole and the neglected threads of their lives picked up and woven in.

I wasn’t always in love with the story: I felt thrown in at the deep end, though I suspect some of my confusion came from expecting something else (either from reading a previous story in this world, or just something with some similar elements… it’s hard to say, because I can’t put my finger on it). I didn’t feel the two voices were entirely distinct, despite what I said about the theme of the story, and there were at times some clumsy things — like the repeated reminders that Uiziya repeats questions until they’re answered. That felt like the ultimate “show, don’t tell” violation (even though sometimes telling can be very effective):

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

A thin green snake slithered in the dusk between us, as if drawing a boundary I should not cross. I stepped right over it.

“So what is going on?” I had a habit of repeating a question until it was answered.

That really, really could’ve been shown — we didn’t even need to know at that exact moment that this is a habit, we could’ve just seen it throughout the scene, the story… Telling can be a powerful tool, especially with a first-person narrator like this, but this — and the repetitions of it later, to make sure the reader notices — didn’t quite work for me.

Overall I found it really enjoyable; I just had a few niggles, I think.

Rating: 4/5