I adored this book, and finished it over the course of a day. I came out of it knowing that I had missed things that were going on, and that my understanding was incomplete, and that that was okay. I suspect that there were philosophical things that I would have appreciated if I were better read across a range of topics.

Partly this is because our primary viewpoint character, Fetter, does not have agency in their own story. They have a destiny chosen for them; they walk away from it; they never really choose where they go, but instead drift on the currents of life. They move to the city, have their world-view widened, their political understanding slowly gains depth.

The writing is absolutely beautiful. Even in the sections where I did not follow what was going on, I didn't care, because the story didn't need me to understand, merely to embrace. The world building is startlingly complex, dropped in intermittently at varying levels of complexity, depending on what truth the speaker had. The characters are well realised, but not in any way detailed - fine line drawings rather than portraits. While there is an over-arching plot, it doesn't ever really seem important that it happens.

While reading, I was reminded of How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu, and The Closet of Discarded Dreams byR. Ch. Garcia. ( )

A mesmerising fantasy about a young man raised to kill his immortal, all-powerful father, which gives him a lot to talk about in his support group of fellow (un)Chosen ones. Vajra Chandrasekera draws on recent Sri Lankan history, Buddhist mythology, and pandemics, to tell a story about totalitarianism and colonialism and erasure and queerness and parental control and the push-pull of destinies. There were undoubtedly connotations and references I didn't pick up on here, but I was swept away by Chandrasekera's lived-in world-building, his command of prose, and the assurance with which he sets up tropes and expectations only to take them out at the knees. The way the ending is like a cinematic push out shot, reminding you of how much bigger the world is and how much you and the characters don't/can't know... Chef's kiss.

This isn't the book for you if you like more traditional Chosen One narratives or plot-driven books. However, if you want something that's pushing at the genre foundations of fantasy, and like stories that have a hyperreal/dreamlike quality to them, I really recommend giving this a try. ( )

I read this book as part of reading all the hugo books, and gosh, am I conflicted! On one hand, it is a beautifully written fable illuminating deep themes around family, migration, the pressure of living up to the burdens our parents lay on us, politics, racism and oppression. On the other hand it is completely dreamlike, the pacing is all over the place, the plot is nebulous and drifts away if you stare at it too hard, it is hard to be invested in who the characters are or what they want.

I think it is Art, I am not sure I am very good at reading Art yet. It is weird and otherworldly, the invisible devils, the bright doors, the reshaping of the world, the deep horrors so mundanely present, the fantastical muddled with the grimy and tawdry. ( )

https://tamaranth.blogspot.com/2024/05/2024074-saint-of-bright-doors-vajra.html ( )

all the rules of how everything works in this world are different. and the structure of the book unfolds as a series of collapsing expectations, in moments of crisis, as if it's matching the subject matter: one door closes, blowing up the narrative, just as another door opens to reveal another whole new universe based on (but completely different from) the last. in this way the narrative echoes the whole concept in the book: that the magic of the ancient jungle is built on layers of original soil, rebuilding the world each time by sifting the history as it grows and remakes itself over immeasurable time. so the book is built to a particular but unusual pattern, to portray shadow selves in existential cities - like Delany's Dhalgren, and Mieville's The City and the City, and Roberto Bolano's 2666. each one expressed in different sub-genres, but wonderful company to keep. ( )