{"id":5287,"date":"2020-10-09T05:00:12","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/?p=5287"},"modified":"2020-09-30T09:02:20","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T16:02:20","slug":"mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-four","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/2020\/10\/mark-reads-the-stone-sky-syl-anagist-four\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Reads ‘The Stone Sky’: Syl Anagist – Four"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Syl Anagist: Four,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hoa is tempted. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Legacy. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape that word as I think about what Jemisin accomplished here. All the characters in the present time are living in the wake of a legacy established long, long ago. There is a delicate, complicated brilliance to all this, as Jemisin fills the text not just with images and phrases and ideas that call towards the future of the Stillness, but are also drawn from our<\/i> world. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a dual parallel!!! IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO GODDAMN GOOD!<\/p>\n

So, let me try to piece this all together. It feels very obvious to me now<\/i> that the reason for Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s big reveal in the opening for this book is because of Kelenli. I think she is the one who changes the internal monologue we see here. For the most part, Hoa, as a tuner, sees himself as a tool that was made for a purpose and nothing more. Normally, he derives no meaning from anything<\/i> that is outside of that purpose. Which isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly a stretch, given that until this point in his existence, he hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even left his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prison\u00e2\u20ac\u009d before. He was been a Tuner for the Engine the whole time, held captive indoors because Tuners weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed out with the general population. And there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no pushback against this, because… well, why would there be? Tuners don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even have the words or experiences to truly understand freedom or agency. Again, look at the way Hoa talks about himself throughout this chapter. He is a tool<\/i> and nothing more. WHICH IS A PAINFUL PARALLEL TO WHAT ESSUN TOLD YKKA JUST A COUPLE CHAPTERS AGO!!! She can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t imagine herself as anything other than a rogga because the world hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t allowed her that option.<\/p>\n

This is where Kelenli comes in. I still don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t understand what she is, aside from the stated bit of her being a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153prototype\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for the other tuners. Yet despite that status, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actually more efficient than any of the tuners who came after her, so much so that she rubs most of the tuners the wrong way. Why is she \u00e2\u20ac\u0153better\u00e2\u20ac\u009d? Well, because:<\/p>\n

She feels sharper than the rest of us, she explains, because she is more experienced. Because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lived outside of the complex of buildings that surround the local fragment, and which has comprised the entirety of our world since we were decanted. She has visited mre nodes of Syl Anagist that just the one we live in; she has seen and touched more of the fragments than just our local amethyst. She has even been to Zero Site, where the moonstone rests. We are in awe of this.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first move past the fact that the moon \u00e2\u20ac\u0153rests\u00e2\u20ac\u009d somewhere, which makes me think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not up in the sky? I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t fucking get that<\/i>, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll obsess about it for the rest of the review if I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t move on. By the end of the chapter, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear that the tuners actually have<\/i> been thinking outside of their purpose. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re incredibly<\/i> eager to leave the compound! They just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t express it out loud or let the Conductors suspect as much. But even though they were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153decanted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to be tools, it hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t negated their curiosity. And now, here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s someone who is claiming she can \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sharpen\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the tuners by taking them outside of the only place they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve ever known. Not only that, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for me not to see this as a subversive thing, especially with passages like this one:<\/p>\n

(She soothes me with a polishing stroke. It is not a kindness that you are kept so dull<\/i>.) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You need to understand more about yourself. What you are.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right??? Doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it seem like she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to awaken them, for lack of a better term? Or maybe she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to show them that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re actually human, too. (Which makes it tragic whenever Hoa remarks that the tuners were made like statues. Oh god, an unfortunate reference to what these humans will become, right? Since Earth turned some of the humans into stone eaters.) That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why I also thought that Conductor Callat was the original form of both a Guardian and<\/i> Schaffa. What if this was just a more pronounced separation between who was enslaved and who was considered a human? And what better way to make all the tuners fully believe that they aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t human by depriving them of literally everything that humans experience? Honestly! Look at the life they lead!!!<\/p>\n

That being said, one thing I really admire about the construction of all of this is, as I noted before, the existence of curiosity. Of resilience. Of secrecy. Because while the tuners might believe they are tools, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to an extent<\/i>. They still have their earth speak, and they use it on purpose to have quasi-seditious and radical conversations that they absolutely shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be having. They question things constantly, and all of them seem to have been wondering about the world outside for a long, long time. That earth speak thing is probably my favorite single detail. How many oppressed groups have developed their own languages of survival? How many had means of communication that went undetected by their overseers? That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what earth speak feels like to me! Jemisin is drawing upon a long tradition of oppressed peoples finding subversive ways to stay connected. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really cool moment where Remwha, one of the tuners, manipulates the Conductor further into Kelenli\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s idea. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so subtle, but it demonstrates an awareness on their part, and even Kelenli, with her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153silent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d signal of approval, was in on it. I LOVE IT SO VERY, VERY MUCH. It makes me excited for what I imagine is the content in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Syl Anagist: Three.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I hope??? But I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know!!<\/p>\n

I also wanted to talk about the absolutely disturbing sequence in which the tuners are painted to look brown so that they can \u00e2\u20ac\u0153blend in\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with others while they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re outside. I love that Jemisin plays with expectations of skin color and hair texture as a way of marking difference here, particularly in how there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no amount of powder that could ever hide who they really are. Which is why Kelenli tells them it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pointless and has it all removed! That leads to a SCORCHING conversation about original thought, about fear, about the place tuners have in this society. This bit in particular reminded me of a similar passage in The Obelisk Gate<\/i>:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re afraid because we exist<\/i>, she says. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing we did to provoke their fear, other than exist. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nothing we can do to earn their approval, except stop existing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dso we can either die like they want, or laugh at their cowardice and go on with our lives<\/i>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Right? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that what racists feel, down at the core of their sense of self? Isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t that the same anxiety we see here, in Syl Anagist, and later, throughout the Stillness? It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly what Nassun struggled with in the last chapter! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no way out of this system as it currently stands unless you stop existing, and she refuses to do that. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standing on a legacy, isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t she? The same things that Hoa struggled with as a tuner is what she struggles with as an orogene. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all cyclical; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all repeating. And clearly, Hoa did not destroy this system.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Is Nassun going to?<\/p>\n

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