{"id":5236,"date":"2020-07-20T05:00:28","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5236"},"modified":"2020-07-13T10:55:54","modified_gmt":"2020-07-13T17:55:54","slug":"mark-reads-the-fifth-season-chapter-18","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/07\/mark-reads-the-fifth-season-chapter-18\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Fifth Season’: Chapter 18"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the eighteenth chapter of The Fifth Season<\/i>, Essun is introduced to another impossibility. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

This fucking book, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. I HAVE TWO MORE TO READ. This both terrifies me\u00e2\u20ac\u201dWhat else will Jemisin ruin me with???\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand delights me. Because look, the prose in this book is incredible. The pacing? Top-notch. Character arcs? LOOK AT THE NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK FOR THAT ANSWER ALONE. (I still feel like I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m going to be unraveling last chapter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reveal for basically the rest of my life.) But y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I also don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to ignore how fucking FUN this is. Every time I sit down to do a new chapter, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So, how will I be completely wrung out by this TODAY?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d It is such a treasure to read this, to see an author so fully in command of the story and their own words, and to be challenged constantly by the text.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time to talk about the comm that the folks of Castrima are now using. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even say \u00e2\u20ac\u0153founded\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because it came from long, long ago, and will probably outlast them as well. Jemisin gives us so many details here that contribute to a larger puzzle, though I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t claim to understand the entirety of it. Right from the beginning, through Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s eyes, we understand that this place already<\/i> seems both impossible and clearly the work of orogenes. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascinating, then, that Essun still thinks within confines:<\/p>\n

You\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve never heard of anyone doing anything like this with orogeny. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not for building.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And now that I know that Essun is Syenite is Damaya, this makes me wonder about the times in between. I can see how Damaya becomes Syenite much more easily. But how does Syenite become Essun? And after all that Syenite saw and experienced with Alabaster, why does she still cling to beliefs about what orogenes are capable of? WHAT HAPPENED BETWEEN THEN AND NOW?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ooh.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Ykka grimaces, pityingly. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fulcrum trained? The ones who survive it always seem to sound like you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In that is an admission: There are other orogenes who got out<\/i> of the Fulcrum. What the hell happened to allow that? What happened to the Fulcrum?<\/i><\/p>\n

Even without Ykka shows off in this chapter, I already had the sense that there was a new world that had begun to exist outside the Fulcrum. Still, this<\/i> comm? This<\/i> reveal? It honestly overshadows everything. As it should! And I love that Jemisin doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t use the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153epiphany\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153realization\u00e2\u20ac\u009d here as she writes Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience being led underground. This is a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153paradigm shift.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d All of Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thinking has to change, as it has had to do before when she was Damaya, when she was Syenite. Long ago, before there was an empire, someone<\/i> helped construct this place. Orogenes? Stone eaters? Both? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know!<\/p>\n

I did notice that Ykka noticed Hoa is able to walk around like a human, when all the stone eaters she has met haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been. THAT is interesting. VERY interesting. I also feel like the quote at the end of the chapter concerning the sessapinae is what could explain Ykka\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ability.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Somehow, she is able to call to and compel orogenes and<\/i> stone eaters to come to her. Why her, though? I can easily accept that this world doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fully understand the capacity of how the sessapinae can work. Look at all the shit Alabaster is able to do! And what about the obelisks helping out orogenes? There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. But I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t offer up an explanation for what Ykka is doing. Is someone working through<\/i> her, as if she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a conduit for this gathering? Maybe??? Damn, I really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know shit.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I certainly didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect that Ykka would reveal a city built not just underground, but within in a massive geode. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brilliant. A little scary, too! But it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been there for so long, and that itself stands as evidence to\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, a paradigm shift. Except it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one that existed long before that shift happened in Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mind. If you can create a comm like this, what does it require? The main takeaway I had was that you had to have a society that respected orogenes. Not tolerate<\/i>, but treat them as valuable members of the community whose work allowed you life<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Is that the world that Essun lives in? Not at all. And so I love that this is a world beneath a world, both in a literal and a metaphorical sense. A new reality has existed below the surface for\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 what? Thousands<\/i> of years? How many comms lived here? The skeletons found\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 did they all die of natural causes? Were they murdered? Did they run into the same suffocation problems as previous Castrima residents? And how long as Ykka been here? Why was Hoa so certain that Nassun was here, too?<\/p>\n

And will the people of Castrima let Tonkee, Hoa, and Essun leave if Nassun is elsewhere?<\/p>\n

NOTES<\/b><\/p>\n