In Under Heaven, Guy
Gavriel Kay repurposed the Tang Dynasty to tell his story of Shen Tai.
Set centuries later, River of Stars is a similar treatment of the
end of the Northern Song Dynasty when it fell to the invading Jurchen.
Although war between the nomadic tribe, here called the Altai, and the
established Kitai Empire form a large part of River of Stars, Kay
is really more interested in the way legends are built up in this novel.
The novel begins following
several different characters, few of whom have story arcs which would be
expected from their initial introduction.
Ren Daiyan is a younger son whose practice with a bamboo sword
and bow gets him selected for an escort for the sub-prefect, Wang Fuyin.
The poet Lu Chen is exiled to the distant island of Lingzhou,
where he is expected to die. The
Xiaolu Emperor Te-kuan is consolidating his hold over the various tribes
of steppe nomads while ruling over the lost provinces of the Kitai, and
Lin Shan tries to make her own stab for women’s rights as a poet and
scholar in her own right, a goal which her father heartily supports even
as he searches for a worthy husband for her.
One of the intriguing aspects of River
of Stars is that Kay is happy to include what appear to be asides
from his main story and it isn’t until well into the book that it
becomes clear which of the storylines he is telling will become
important and will tie together.
The narrative voice in the
novel is very clearly omnipotent, indicating that events will eventually
prove to be legendary, as well as the fact that the telling of those
events will change their very nature.
However, in some ways the narrator is also unreliable.
A prophecy foretold is not necessarily a prophecy that will come
true, and in some cases, the prophecies that do come true do so in
non-obvious ways. Kay
includes actions by characters from all levels of society and clearly
shows that the greatest lords of the lands can have an effect on the
lowliest peasants, whether intended or not. Although there is a war
brewing between the Kitai and the Steppes, the events that influence
people’s lives can be as minor as the moving of a rock or a tree from
its location.
As with so many of Kay’s
novels, River of Stars is
difficult to classify. Although
it does have minor elements of fantasy, including ghosts, the apparent
whims of gods, and the presence of spirits, nearly all of those elements
can be dismissed as the interpretation of the characters within their
own framework of belief. Kay’s adoption of history as the basis for
his writing is also an interesting choice.
By setting his tale in the land of Kitai rather than China, he
permits himself liberties of character, geography, and events, which
would not be allowed if her were writing a straight historical novel. It
is a decision which has served Kay well in the past and continues to do
so with River of Stars.
In addition to the deeper
question of the role of narrative and the relationships Kay depicts, River
of Stars provides a wonderfully rich historical epic that is painted
against a background of a China that never quite existed, but borrows
from our own China, both
culturally and historically, to create a deep and well-rounded society
for Kay’s story.
