SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: A Stranger in Olondria by Sofia Samatar https://t.co/mYAv9DtjqO Short Review: 8 out of 10. (1/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) June 1, 2018

Short Review (cont): A literary fantasy novel, A Strange in Olondria features beautiful prose and poetry as it follows a man in love with writing as he finds himself haunted by a deceased girl and caught between two religious orders with different view on writing & love. (2/3)

— garik16 (@garik16) June 1, 2018

A Stranger in Olondria is the type of book I struggle to review, because it's not my typical SciFi/Fantasy book - this is not a book about characters (mainly) or with a compelling plot when separated from the language used inside.  I hate the term "literary fiction," but if it is to be applied ever to a genre book, A Stranger in Olondria is it.  This probably shouldn't have come as a surprise - author Sofia Samatar is known as a poet, and poetry, lyrics and language feature heavily in her prose here.  This is not to say this isn't a book where ideas don't matter - in this case, perhaps unsurprisingly, we're dealing with ideas about language, written and oral, and literature/stories.  But it's a book where the color given by the descriptions in the prose is central.

And Olondria's prose/poetry is fantastic.  The story is essentially written as a travel log of the main character, Jevick of Tyom (some editions have the subtitle "Being the Complete Memoirs of the Mystic, Jevick of tyom"), and large portions of the text are dedicated to Jevick's descriptions of the world around him.  And these descriptions are beautifully vivid and work out really well.  That said, as I've pointed out before, I'm not really one who loves books solely for vivid descriptions, so it wasn't just that that made me enjoy this book - Samatar makes a plot which could seem simple in its description (see after the jump) sing with its ideas.

More after the Jump:


------------------------------------------------Plot Summary------------------------------------------------
Jevick was once a young man, the heir to his father, a wealthy and respected trade merchant on the stray island of Tyom.  One day, his father came back from the mainland Empire of Olondria with a tutor for Jevick, ostensibly to teach Jevick about writing for bookkeeping, an unknown skill in the illiterate island of Tyom.  Instead, the tutor introduces Jevick to the written language in general and bestows in him a love of literature and an interest in the strange land of Olondria where such works are written.  So when Jevick's father dies, he gladly embarks on a "trade" trip to the mainland to experience it for himself.

What he finds there is a city and country far more vivid and different than he could've imagined.  But when Jevick becomes haunted by the ghost of a sick girl he met on the voyage over sea, demanding he write her story, he finds himself desperate for help....and winds up getting caught in a conflict between two religious orders - with very different views of the values of writing and stories.
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A Stranger in Olondria is a book about stories, both written and oral.  The two religious orders - aside from having disputes over the nature of pleasure - the ruling religious order is more about restraint, while the rebellious one is largely about indulgence have major differences in opinion about the value of such stories and of writing in general.  Jevick himself doesn't care too much about the differences about pleasure - he starts out more favoring a wild side, but by the time the conflict enraptures him, he's too distracted by being haunted by a ghost to really care.  What he does care about are stories and writing, and the fact that this conflict could result in the destruction of huge collections of books is horrifying.

And then there's Jevick's ghost - the young sick girl Jissavet, who haunts Jevick for the majority of the story until he finally gives in and writes her story (not really a spoiler here - this is not a book where spoilers matter too much, and well only the most genre-blind reader will fail to see him writing her story coming).  Her story is that of poverty and class - something Jevick is blind to - and is terribly tragic and haunting.

I'm not a literary critic or really great at textual analysis of this sort, so I think I'm going to end this review here, basically incomplete.  But A Stranger in Olondria is a story that I think readers should try - beautiful at times, haunting at times, and a story about language and writing and what it can really mean.  Worth your time.