The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle, #1) * * *
The story follows Chih, a cleric whose duty is to collect stories and preserve history. In a lonely palace beside a lake, they meet Rabbit, an elderly servant, and through seemingly ordinary objects scattered around the abandoned rooms, Rabbit slowly reveals the life of Empress In-yo and the events that changed an empire. Rather than telling the story in a straight line, the book unfolds piece by piece, with memories attached to embroidery, clothing, gifts, and other possessions.
And that was both the book's greatest strength and my biggest problem with it.
I appreciate what the book was trying to do. The structure is clever, and I can see why many readers love it. But my brain struggled with this style of storytelling. I am terrible with names, and because the story is revealed through fragments and memories rather than in a straightforward way, I sometimes became confused about who was who. In fact, by the end I realised that I had merged two male characters into one person in my head. I thought one story was a continuation of another, only to discover that they were actually separate events involving different people. Because of that, I often felt slightly lost, and I never became completely immersed in the narrative.
What I appreciated much more were the themes.
This book is really about the people history often overlooks. It argues that servants, companions, and ordinary women matter just as much as emperors and generals. The people whose names are forgotten still shape the world. A servant can change history. A woman whose fate is never recorded still leaves traces behind.
That idea resonated with me because history itself often focuses on wars, kings, and battles. It is very much "his story". We spend so much time learning who fought where and which army moved in which direction, yet often we know far less about how ordinary people actually lived. How women raised families. How people survived difficult times. How immigrants adapted to new countries. How Indigenous peoples and settlers interacted, sometimes peacefully and often tragically. Those everyday stories are history too.
That is one of the reasons I enjoy the television series Who Do You Think You Are? so much. It presents history through people rather than through dates and military campaigns. It reminds us that our ancestors were not just names in a record. They were individuals trying to survive, love, work, and make sense of their world.
I also think learning more about the lives of ordinary women would benefit everyone. Too often history gives the impression that men make history while women simply stand on the sidelines. In reality, women have always worked, endured, adapted, influenced families, communities, and sometimes entire nations. Their stories matter, even when they were never written down.
Ultimately, I gave The Empress of Salt and Fortune three stars. I admire what it was trying to accomplish, and I think its themes are thoughtful and important. Unfortunately, the fragmented storytelling style simply didn't work for me, and it made the reading experience more confusing than engaging.
I appreciate the book more than I enjoyed it. And perhaps that, too, says something about history. Sometimes the voices most worth preserving are also the easiest to lose.
Comments
Post a Comment