Fudoki

Rating:
Summary: Educational and Entertaining
Review: Fudoki allowed me a glimpse of medieval Japan unlike any I've encountered before. The text itself is a fairly engaging story littered with jewels of prose that left me thinking, "Wow. Lovely." I had trouble getting into it at first, I think because I was being impatient, but once I was more than a quarter of the way through, I was hooked.

Rating:
Summary: 'Twas the premise killed the cat
Review: I loved The Fox Woman, and looked forward to this book eagerly. But Fudoki does not, I think, compare with Johnson's first book.

This book interweaves two stories: the Princess Haruemi and Harueme, the cat who is transformed into a woman. Unfortunately, the premise of the book has to be accepted on faith, and this is a problem because almost everything that happens follows from it. When Harueme the cat finds her "fudoki" destroyed by fire, she finds she cannot join another fudoki, or clan, because each fudoki has its own myths and stories and the cat finds that those stories have come to constitute her identity. To join another fudoki would mean that she would soon lose the identity that created her. Consequently, she begins a long journey to discover a place of her own. I found the idea of an unreplaceable fudoki, at least as Johnson renders it, far from believable. A half-starved, burned cat would have found other cats with which to live. But this cat can do no such thing because of Johnson's insistence on the the arbitrary nature of the cat's attachment to the original "fudoki," stories and tales passed down from one generation of cats to another. Because this premise never seemed inevitable or even creditable, the entire journey of the cat's plight was undermined.

On top of that, the pacing of the story is slow; the two intertwined stories, one of the dying princess, the other of the cat who is transformed into a woman, mesh but do not generate much intensity. In The Fox Woman, a fox is determined to shape-shift into a human form. In Fudoki, this transformation is inflicted on the cat by a kami or god who makes the cat a human. The lack of inevitability--or motive--again makes for a less intense narrative than one would have expected. The sections concerning Harueme, the dying princess, are soulful--too much so. Her mourning, largely for herself and for the people she cared for who have already died, soon becomes oppressive.

Johnson is an impressive stylist and there are some beautiful descriptive passages in this book: the depiction of the fire that destroys the little cat's fudoki is gorgeous, but style alone is not enough to maintain strong interest in what appears to me a novel that seems, at least to me, not fully imagined. Perhaps if you have not read The Fox Woman, this book will seem more remarkable than it does to me.

Rating:
Summary: The Princess and the Cat Woman
Review: Inspired by Japanese myth, Johnson's ("The Fox Woman") second fantasy follows the wanderings of an orphaned cat, a creature sprung from the mind of Harueme, a Japanese princess who has lived a long, privileged and circumscribed life.

Near death, Harueme begins to fill blank notebooks - a new one for each chapter - with the cat's story, interwoven with her own memories. The young tortoiseshell cat lost her family, and with them, her fudoki - her spiritual lineage - in a terrible fire. She sets out on an aimless journey, bereft of name, family and purpose, and encounters gods and people, none of whom hold any interest for her. But ignoring the gods can have a price and the little cat is transformed into a woman - with enough cat qualities and spirit-aid to help her on her adventures.

Free and alone, she is unlike Harueme who has never been either. But Harueme has her own power, not least of which is her imagination. Harueme absorbs the world as people bring it to her in tales, and the cat-woman keeps the world at bay as she moves through it, defending her life, making friends, acquiring a reputation and a name: Kagaya-hime, woman warrior.

Johnson's writing is fluid and musical, her characters archetypes and real at the same time, and the historical detail is imaginatively, visually realized. But Harueme, though pampered, selfish and captive, is more involving than the cat-woman, whose humorless detachment is, well, too feline, for real identification. But Johnson makes us believe that Kagaya-hime is what a cat-turned-woman would be like, and this tale of love, belonging, freedom and redemption is as rewarding as it is different.

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite novel
Review: No one captures the essence of a period and a setting better than Kij Johnson. This exquisite book will charm you right through to the end, and the old Princess will haunt your memories! I loved it.

Rating:
Summary: Exquisite novel
Review: Princess Harueme was the half-sister of the deceased Emperor Shirakawa; aunt to also dead Emperor Horikawa; and great-grandaunt to Emperor Sutoku. These connections enabled Harueme to live a luxurious life at the emperor's court for the past fifty years. Now she recognizes that not only is she old, but she is dying in spite her great grandnephew's efforts to provide the best medical care available. Harueme knows she must leave the court before she dies in order to avoid a stain her relative's rule. While packing for her move to a convent, Harueme finds several unused notebooks that demand she fill the blanks with words.

Harueme scribes the story of a tortoiseshell cat living in a ramshackle estate until a fire destroyed her home and killed her relatives. The sole survivor is a feline who feels lonely as she also lost her FUDOKI, for there is no one to share the chronicle of all the female cats who resided in her home. She sets out on a journey to find a home for her Fudoki and a name for herself.

Kij Johnson's second fantasy based on Japanese myth is as good if not better than her delightful debut, THE FOX WOMAN. The themes of this powerful tale are life, dying, death, and love, but these subjects are deftly placed in two potent subplots. Harueme's story contrasts with that of the nameless cat as both face death and a loss of home with dignity and courage. The two stars enhance this fabulous thought provoking fantasy that deserves strong readership. With a fox and a cat in her menagerie, fans will wonder which animal from Japanese myths Ms. Johnson will star in her next novel.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: thought provoking fantasy
Review: Princess Harueme was the half-sister of the deceased Emperor Shirakawa; aunt to also dead Emperor Horikawa; and great-grandaunt to Emperor Sutoku. These connections enabled Harueme to live a luxurious life at the emperor's court for the past fifty years. Now she recognizes that not only is she old, but she is dying in spite her great grandnephew's efforts to provide the best medical care available. Harueme knows she must leave the court before she dies in order to avoid a stain her relative's rule. While packing for her move to a convent, Harueme finds several unused notebooks that demand she fill the blanks with words.

Harueme scribes the story of a tortoiseshell cat living in a ramshackle estate until a fire destroyed her home and killed her relatives. The sole survivor is a feline who feels lonely as she also lost her FUDOKI, for there is no one to share the chronicle of all the female cats who resided in her home. She sets out on a journey to find a home for her Fudoki and a name for herself.

Kij Johnson's second fantasy based on Japanese myth is as good if not better than her delightful debut, THE FOX WOMAN. The themes of this powerful tale are life, dying, death, and love, but these subjects are deftly placed in two potent subplots. Harueme's story contrasts with that of the nameless cat as both face death and a loss of home with dignity and courage. The two stars enhance this fabulous thought provoking fantasy that deserves strong readership. With a fox and a cat in her menagerie, fans will wonder which animal from Japanese myths Ms. Johnson will star in her next novel.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: Promise Fulfilled
Review: Writing in the Japanese tradition is a difficult challenge for Westerners. I thought Fox Woman had promise, but tripped me up in some aspects; this book shows the promise fulfilled.

Johnson writes with lyrical grace, as if she has distilled the style and it flows effortlessly. The story is intensely poignant yet earthy and entertaining, the idea of the fudoki magnificently realized.

I really look forward to this author's future work; it's worth buying in hardcover.