{"id":5290,"date":"2020-10-16T05:00:35","date_gmt":"2020-10-16T12:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5290"},"modified":"2020-10-05T09:43:17","modified_gmt":"2020-10-05T16:43:17","slug":"mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/10\/mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Stone Sky’: Syl Anagist – Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Syl Anagist: Three,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the tuners go outside. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Holy fucking shit. Did I go this entire series without noticing that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not really any art<\/i> in the Stillness? I know that there are books, but now that I think about it… music? Paintings? Sculptures? Statues have to exist in some form because there would be no way that stone eaters could be compared to them otherwise. But aside from all this?<\/p>\n

Oh my god.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I was overwhelmed by this chapter. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s brief, but damn, does it pack a PUNCH. Jemisin drops us into Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s experience as a tuner, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s A LOT. There was no exaggeration in the earlier Syl Anagist: The tuners have never<\/i> left captivity. So what would something like that look like? Well, Jemisin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s prose accomplishes an incredible thing here. We are put in the mind of someone experiencing literally everything<\/i> for the first time. There are so many tiny things here that are very normal for us that are utterly confusing for the tuners. The air. The smells. SNEEZING. Dushwa starts crying<\/i> because they sneeze. The sound of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153leaves rustling\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a new experience. So are BIRDS. Climate! Wind is new. Looking at the city firsthand is also new, since everything was only seen from inside a building. Everything is overstimulating; everything is overwhelming.<\/p>\n

However, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not just a negative thing, and Jemisin does give these characters a chance to express their wonder and amazement at what Syl Anagist actually is like. Actually, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s less that the city inspires them, and more that the thing they were decanted to help with makes them feel like they have a purpose. Which is… it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a little disturbing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also hard not to think about the future, about what tuners will become, about what Kelenli ends up showing them. Because even amidst this sense of wonder, I can see how they worship the plutonic engine because they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know anything else. It is the pinnacle of Syl Anagist. It is the<\/i> technological marvel. Look at that whole aside where Hoa shares what the tuners were told of the past, though. A specific narrative was fed to them: The world used to be awful. Now, things are better<\/i>, and they will only continue to get better. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the illusion of progress. Because yes, certain things may have been improved, but at what cost? Is this world better if people like the Tuners exist, are \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decanted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to basically exist as living tools? Who pays for that progress? And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not even getting into all the other<\/i> exploitation happening here. On the surface, the world might be fine, but how were the people of Syl Anagist poisoning the Earth? What led to the Shattering?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Because there is almost always something ugly under the surface of utopic shit like this.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Actually, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s weird saying that because what Kelenli shows underneath the facade of the city-node is the opposite of ugly. Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all, I hope the notes below convey just how much I was losing it as I read this. I had no fucking idea where Kelenli was taking them. I knew that whatever she was showing them couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be obviously seditious, since there were two guards with them at all times. Also, we get confirmation later that all three places she takes the tuners were pre-approved. So… what story did she sell? Context, right? She told the conductors they would become more efficient if they had context. So, she gives them a little tour of what once was, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m guessing the conductors think she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to teach them just how much \u00e2\u20ac\u0153progress\u00e2\u20ac\u009d this society has made by glimpsing into the past.<\/p>\n

So, a museum. Makes sense, right? Where else could you go to easily look towards the past? (A neat detail here: the tuners were never taught how to read. Why would they be? That skill would never be needed for what they did.) (Another interesting detail: the way the tuners walk<\/i>. Even that sets them apart, and I adored that moment where Hoa said that emulating Kelenli\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s walk actually had nothing to do with the people around them.) The evidence of that is obvious right from the start, too. In a city-node comprised of literally living material\u00e2\u20ac\u201dall of it!!!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthere was a building that was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dead.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d And now I will forever think of wooden buildings as being \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dead\u00e2\u20ac\u009d buildings because… that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a wrong way to describe it! I feel like all that is intentional, too, a way to play with the words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153living\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dead\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to further support the idea of what has come to pass. The museum is both dead and<\/i> obsolete.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Which is also why the thing that Kelenli shows them is so mind-blowing. Because that engine? That thing<\/i> that someone who was not of Syl Anagist constructed? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not dead. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not ugly. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s better<\/i>. I feel like there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s another parallel here, too: Aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the conductors frustrated that Kelenli, who is a prototype, is more efficient than the tuners they created? So that makes me want to ask another question:<\/p>\n

Who created Kelenli? How did they get her so right, and why was no one ever able to achieve that again?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get over Hoa calling the engine art. Maybe I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve oversold this art thing, and it has existed in some form throughout history. It certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t as important to many of the cultures, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s epiphany struck me so hard. For a tuner to call something a work of art? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immensely meaningful. So… who the fuck built that thing???<\/p>\n

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