The Poppy War

Rebecca Kuang

Ok, first off, this book is poorly written. There’s inconsistencies in how Rin acts. Her language is coarse and she doesn’t really seem to process or learn anything. Characters pop into existence and the pacing, well, it’s a bit all over the place.

In saying that, heres a few things I like.

• The initial thing that got me attracted to the book was the notion of Kuang’s knowledge of Modern China and how she’s portraying that in a novel. The landscape of the story is quite literaly a historical analogy. It got interesting as she is tutored by Jiang. Who teaches here to not just be some product on the Sinegardian production line. That answers aren’t as clear cut in life. That to access the true nature of things requires a lack of clarity as she knows it. Rin eventual (somehow) discovers the meaning of it all and gets access to the pantheon to channel the Phoenix.
• This notion of ambiguity I found so interesting especially as it clashed with Rin’s very obvious hunt for power, for control. I saw parallels with the world as I know it. The hunt for money or jobs, this production line of what’s considered important. I myself, if you’d have talked to me at 18 would have wanted some element of control or power, some way to put my stamp on the world. This clashes against Jiang’s teachings which are very wavy and not as rational and pedagogical as Rin is used to.
• This theme is then somewhat derailed as Rin really is just fueled by anger for the rest of the first book. She fascinated by the bad boy Altan is some chaotic, confused kind of way. She has an extreme hatred in her heart that really just develops out of nothing, kind of just channeling what seems to be Altan’s hatred. He got tortured so then she also has to get tortured and go through literally exactly what he went through, it seemed kind of arbitrary. And then we kill off Altan for some reason and Rin sets fire to Japan (I mean Mugen) and she doesn’t care, at all, or heavily represses it at least. How she feels about things is all over the place, sometimes she cares about her past and people and other times she doesn’t.
• As a counter point though this confusion in how she feels is interesting as she’s heavily flawed. It’s kind of interesting in the same way Superman is interesting, like how the hell did we find the one guy who’s a really good person to have all the power. Rin is determined and fueled by her cultural context, her environment and then suddenly has lots of power, its not crazy that it ends up going poorly. Rin just feels so damaged by the end of the first book I just wanted her to talk about it but she never really has a heart to heart with anyone under towards the end of part 2 of the second book. She’s just hard nosed and doesn’t care then cares and flip flops between those things.
• She seems constantly on the verge of going ape shit at any moment which at times is annoying but also somewhat interesting. I’m interested to see if redemption exists for her.
• Kuang also plays on the notion of waves of ruling. In the second book a democracy from the Dragon state will save China, how do they act different than their pre-decesors, create something knew, are the people ready for this new thing. How does social stratification play into this. How do you related to a populous that may not see ‘what’s good for them’, it’s pretty clear that Rin want’s to tell them whats good for them. Which, I mean, we’re all guilty of.
• Power plays a role in what Rin is trying to understand in the first book. There’s some ancient power she’s trying to ‘tap’ into. A power that weaves the narratives and myths that they use up to her day, essentially, were they on to something, were they in touch with concepts we can’t imagine now but can understand kind of like shadows from some real object.