In the seventh chapter of The Stone Sky<\/i>, Essun learns the truth of her daughter. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For extended discussion of death, grief, and abuse, particularly abuse of a child<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s risky saying this, as there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much more of this book to read\u00e2\u20ac\u201dI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not even at the halfway point!\u00e2\u20ac\u201dbut I think this is gonna be my favorite chapter of this book. It is stunning<\/i> in its execution, both on a prose level and the masterful development of Essun. So many various threads come together here to weave a story of guilt, regret, grief, and… closure. Which is a difficult, thorny subject, one made all the more difficult when it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mixed up in grief.<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discuss. I expected that a bulk of this chapter would deal with Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attempt to convince Ykka to allow Maxixe and his people to stay within the comm, but the entire conflict is resolved\u00e2\u20ac\u201dat least for the time being\u00e2\u20ac\u201din just a single page. Ykka is, as always, practical with her decision-making process. Maxixe is valuable because he has something to contribute, and while it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be challenging to deal with some of the more intense injuries, these people can still give to the whole. And at the end of the day, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what Ykka is looking for.<\/p>\n
Which leaves Essun… where? What is she supposed to do now<\/i>? Head to Rennanis and then… what? Jemisin so brilliantly captures how aimless Essun is at this very moment, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interestingly tied to her own mortality. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t become more explicit until the end of the chapter, but even here, at the beginning? Essun is trying to compartmentalize how her body is turning to stone. Because what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s left unsaid here? Essun is hurtling towards her own death.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think we can discount that as an influence on her decision to ask Hoa to take her to Jekity\/Found Moon. Again, it might not be there on the page, but so much of this chapter is a rumination on death! Essun is dying; the world is dying; Nassun is most likely going to die when she tries to open the Obelisk Gate. Essun knows that she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have much time left, and so her concern is getting to Nassun to stop her from doing something that could end her life.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Yet there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much more to it. Like I did initially, I saw Steel\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s behavior as manipulative, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve long been trying to determine just how the stone eaters as a whole view other humans. We know it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a complicated relationship, and hell, Hoa has outright told us that before.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But look how this changes. How she<\/i> changes. The first time it happens is when Hoa reveals that Jija is dead. Prior to this, she was pissed<\/i> at Hoa and needed time away from him. Yet once Hoa tells her that Nassun intentionally<\/i> killed Jija, Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s whole demeanor changes. Gone is her anger over Hoa; gone is her need to be away from him. Instead, that concern from before becomes immediate<\/i>. She requests to be taken to the place where Jija died. Despite that Hoa is actually narrating everything, I found it fascinating that he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t interject to say why<\/i> he agreed to do this for Essun. I have a theory, though. What if he knew this would help her move on? What if he gave her these answers so that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d stop trying to focus on things other than the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153mission\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she was on?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ugh, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a thought: What if he did all this to manipulate her to a place where she was easier to guide and control?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All that being said: I still think it was important for Essun to go through this experience. For one: she gets to see Fire-Under-Earth. I know it was only a flash, but it still felt like a big moment in the series. Once she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in Jekity, though… fuck, y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122all. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll look to the notes below that I made while reading through this the first time, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see that I even called the major twist: that Essun was going to find out that Nassun was with Schaffa. It still didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help make this any less shocking. Jemisin makes a haunting writing choice. Despite that Hoa probably knew most of what the random comm member told Essun, she still learns about Nassun, Found Moon, and Schaffa from a deeply bigoted person. The unnamed young man has no filter whatsoever, though it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s because he immediately clocks Essun as a Guardian<\/i>, not as an orogene. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a brilliant metaphorical representation of something some of us have experienced: when we \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pass\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as a member of a majority group, and another person feels free to be bigoted towards us. Every so often, someone thinks I am straight. It.. baffles me. I seriously think you would know if you spoke to me for sixty second, and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve pretty much never<\/i> been able to hide that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m queer. And yet, in the rare chance that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not read as queer, there have been moments where people said homophobic shit to me because they thought I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be in solidarity with them! Always fun to let them know they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re talking to a member of the same group they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re slandering. (And by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fun,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I mean, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153terrifying and potentially dangerous.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n Unsurprisingly, Essun doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t reveal that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an orogene. Not just for her safety, though, but also so that this young man will give her information. As she presses him, he tells her everything she wanted to know, stuff she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> want to hear, and lots that she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t even know to ask for. Really, though, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the second the man uttered Schaffa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s name that jettisoned this chapter to new heights. Maybe Steel is manipulating Nassun, but Schaffa?<\/i> Oh, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so much worse for Essun! I am curious: Do the stone eaters know that Guardians can be corrupted by Evil Earth? If so, why wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t Hoa tell Essun that? (Of course, now I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking about her line to him earlier in the chapter: They withhold so much information that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basically lying.)\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Anyway, maybe there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something to that; maybe not. I am glad, though, that Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s narration sticks so close to Essun as the moments as she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delivered one shock after another: Schaffa has her daughter; Nassun terrified the locals; Nassun turned her father to stone and shattered him into colorful pieces. Gods, I still can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get over that moment where Hoa breaks through the second person to offer sympathy, to wish he could comfort Essun through the reverberations of a tuner. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s so fucking intimate<\/i>, and that made this so much sadder?\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But not as crushing as Jemisin tying the loop closed. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen how Nassun viewed her mother and how she was raised. We know exactly why she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s come to view Schaffa as a father figure and why she wants to be a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153better\u00e2\u20ac\u009d daughter to him than she was to Jija. (That still hurts to type.) It would have been easy to turn this into a simple case of motherly revenge and protection. Essun could have ordered Hoa to take her to Nassun so she could kill Schaffa and rescue Nassun. Like, that seemed like the story being set up here! There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s an obvious source of conflict because we, the reader, know something that Essun doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.<\/p>\n But this book has upended my expectations so many times. Here, it began when the man says that he rarely sees Guardians being affectionate with orogenes:\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The hand that you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have twinges again, but it is more tentative this time and not the throb of before. Because… he wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have had to break Nassun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hand, would he? No, no, no. You did that to her yourself. And Uche was another broken hand, inflicted by Jija. Schaffa protected<\/i> her from Jija. Schaffa was affectionate with her, as you struggled to be. And now everything inside you shudders at the thought that follows, and it takes the willpower that has destroyed cities to keep this shudder internal, but…<\/p>\n But…<\/p>\n How much more welcome would a Guardian\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s conditional, predictable love have been to Nassun, after her parents\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 unconditional love had betrayed her again and again?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Again, look at how many plot threads are within this tapestry of abuse, grief, oppression, repression, and love. So very many bits and pieces of these people are woven together, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s haunting. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s haunting because of the tragedy of it all. Essun never would have had to behave like she did if the Stillness didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t despise orogenes, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t demand their obedience, didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t kill them immediately after they required their unique abilities. As she so succinctly puts it for the Jekity man:<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153One person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s normal is another person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Shattering.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Your face aches from smiling. There is an art to smiling in a way that others will believe, and you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re terrible at it. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Would\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been nice if we could\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve all had normal, of course, but not enough people wanted to share. So now we all burn.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is a reckoning. The world has pitched into this awful maw of darkness not out of random chance or because of forces out of control. No, the people of the Stillness did this. They were warned repeatedly, and the pushed on, and now look at the state of affairs.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Like I said below: Wow, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s uncomfortable to read in 2020.<\/p>\n Yet in this moment, Essun tries her hardest to understand<\/i> her daughter. Why would she go along with a man like Schaffa? For many reasons. The stability. The affection. Essun even realizes that she raised her daughter to be her<\/i>. And oh gods, that took me back to Damaya\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scenes in The Fifth Season<\/i>. Wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t there a similar \u00e2\u20ac\u0153love\u00e2\u20ac\u009d there, though the context was different? Essun still doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know about the contamination complication, so it makes sense that she thinks Schaffa is just doing the same thing. But Essun is also willing to turn that critical lens on herself:<\/p>\n You didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> save her from Jija. You haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> been there when she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s needed you, here at the literal end of the world. How dare you presume to protect her? Gray Man and Schaffa; she has found her own, better, protectors. She has found the strength to protect herself.<\/p>\n You are so very proud of her. And you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t dare go anywhere near her, ever again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Simply put: This is not where I saw Essun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story going, but it makes so much sense. A deeply upsetting, depressing sense, but still exactly what fits her character. Which forces the reader to ask a new question: If she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to give up on Nassun in this context, what is Essun supposed to do now?<\/i> This motivation had largely been driving her up to this point! So… now what?<\/p>\n Two things. One, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s that gut-wrenching moment where Essun, stripped of this drive, thinks about death and how it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always surrounded her life. Indeed, The Broken Earth<\/i> is as much about the death of children as it is about orogeny. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also specifically about loss, and this chapter made me reflect on how many times Essun has lost… well, everything. She lost her family when Schaffa took her away. She lost Meov and Innon and Corundum. She lost Uche. She lost Jija. She lost Alabaster. She lost safety and structure and hope.<\/p>\n But here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one thing she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ever lose: Hoa.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe to love you,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d you murmur, in startled realization.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n I admit that I have a fear, one I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m talking about in therapy but largely not dealing with my not putting myself out there. I already lost someone I was in love with. What if it happens again? And so, these last couple pages of chapter seven stung in a uniquely painful way. Love isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t<\/i> safe from mortality, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something we have to accept. But maybe Essun, in whatever time she has left, doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have to, at least not in this context.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s those final lines, though, that felt like a message through the ether. How do you do this? How to keep going on, amidst heartbreak and loss and death and grief? Hoa\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s had no choice. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really die, so he had<\/i> to figure out a way to persist.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Move forward,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Hoa says.<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Move. Forward.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s as poignant a message as I can imagine. I still wonder, though: What is that going to mean for Essun?<\/p>\n NOTES<\/b><\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – My second novel, EACH OF US A DESERT, is now out in the world!<\/a> In the seventh chapter of The Stone Sky, Essun learns the truth of her daughter. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to read The Broken Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569,576],"tags":[571,413],"class_list":["post-5292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-broken-earth","category-the-stone-sky","tag-mark-reads-the-broken-earth","tag-nk-jemisin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/markreads.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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