Find Page One on APPLE PODCASTS or STITCHER.
SCROLL DOWN FOR EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Episode image is a detail from the cover of The Black Tides Of Heaven by Neon Yang, published by tor.com in 2017; cover art by Yuko Shimizu; cover design by Christine Foltzer.
Taking another break from revisiting the books that he has been given by guests on the podcast, Charles Adrian revisits instead what he said in the previous episode about Scottish Country Dancing and talks about three books that he has very much enjoyed.
Correction 1: This episode was recorded on the 15th December, 2020, not the 14th December as Charles Adrian says.
Correction 2: Charles Adrian mistakenly pronounces Ivanhoe as Ivinghoe. The first is a novel by Sir Walter Scott, the second is a village in Buckinghamshire.
Correction 3: The novelist Charles Adrian refers to as JY Yang in this episode has been called Neon Yang since September 2020. You can read the announcement on their Twitter here.
The podcast will also be taking a break over festive season and will return with new episodes at some point in the new year.
Also mentioned in this episode are Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott, which is discussed in Page One 49, Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson, which is discussed in Page One 16 and Page One 159, and Scottish Fiddlers And Their Music by Mary Anne Alburger, which is discussed in Page One 126 and Page One 191.
The last episode in which Charles Adrian talked about books he liked was Page One 101.
Cameryn Moore, who is mentioned here, is featured in Page One 98.
You can find some information on the prison-industrial complex and prison abolition in the UK from the Empty Cages Collective here.
Diane di Prima, also mentioned here, is discussed in more depth in Page One 122 and Page One 190.
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk is a standalone novel but The Black Tides Of Heaven by Neon Yang is at the beginning of the Tensorate series and A Hero Born by Jin Yong is the first part of The Condor Trilogy. You can read more about The Condor Trilogy on Wikipedia here.
A transcript of this episode is below.
Episode recorded: 15th December, 2020.
Episode released: 22nd December, 2020.
Book listing:
The Fifth Sacred Thing by Starhawk
The Black Tides Of Heaven by Neon Yang
A Hero Born by Jin Yong
Links:
The Condor Trilogy on Wikipedia
Episode transcript:
Jingle
You're listening to Page One, the book podcast.
Hello there. I'm Charles Adrian. This is the 192nd Page One. It's the 14th of December 2020 today and I thought I'd just start off this episode by reading out a, kind of, prepared statement. I have quite a few things that I wanted to say and I didn't want to forget them so I've written them all down. I don't know how this is going to sound because, yeah, I think it's... Well, it's so different to read something than just to try and bring it out of one's head, isn't it? But I'll... I don't... I'll try and read it, kind of, loosely to give a... you know, a similar kind of feeling to this episode as the other episodes have. I don't know. We'll see how successful I end up being.
Anyway, the first thing I wanted to say is that today it is exactly four weeks since I made a couple of episodes in which I talked about wanting to increase my stockpile of episodes so that I could stay ahead of the weekly release schedule that I've imposed on myself for most of this year. And what... Yeah, basically, the point is that, as long as I have a few episodes in the bag and then continue to make an episode a week - or two episodes a fortnight or whatever - I can just keep putting them out and there'll be no interruption in the service. But in the last four weeks, since I made those two episodes, I have not continued to make an episode a week - or indeed any episodes. So I had one episode ready to go out today - that was the 191st Page One, which... so today will be last week by the time this episode goes out. And then obviously further into the past as the time goes forward. You all understand how that works. And... So, yeah, I had that episode, which went out today, and then this episode that I'm making now and... and that's it. Nothing more in the bag.
So I have a little bit of catching up to do and what I wanted to tell you today is that I don't think I'm going to do it. I don't... I mean, it's the end of the year, it's dark, it's cold, Christmas is coming. So what I thought I would do is just continue to take a break. This episode will go out on the 22nd of December, 2020 - so, yeah, obviously enjoy whatever holidays you celebrate if you do - and I'll start putting out more episodes at some point in the new year. That's... Yeah, that's my year-end pledge. I'm not exactly sure when I'll start putting out new episodes. But I did want to say that although there's going to be a break now I am planning to finish this project of revisiting all of the books that I've been given by guests on the podcast, which has taken up most of this year. Just not right away.
And actually one of the things that I am planning to do while I'm not making new episodes is to regroup all of these Page One In Review episodes - these episodes in which I revisit the books that I've been given as well as, you know, the... the Small Gods episode and the Swimmer episode and this one - and then just call all of those Season 7. I don't know why I didn't do that from the beginning, actually. I mean, the Page One In Review episodes, they're not at all like other Page One episodes, are they? So it makes no sense to, kind of, lump them in with the... you know, the eight conversations that were the beginning of Season 6. So... Yeah, so the point is, if you visit the website, pageonepodcast.com, let's say a few weeks from when this episode goes out, what you should see is that Season 6 of the podcast is just those eight conversations that I put out at the beginning of this year and Season 7 is the Page One In Review episodes - and then, as I say, the Small Gods episode, the Swimmer episode and this one that have, kind of, been released in between the Page One In Reviews.
So if you visit the website between now and then it might be a little bit muddled because what all that means, practically, is a certain amount of moving things around online. It's the digital equivalent of packing up a bookcase full of books and taking it into the next room and then unpacking them again. You know, there's not just one button that I can press to make it happen and there'll be links to fix on the website and so on. So, yeah, I'm going to take a bit of time to do that and I won't be making episodes for a few weeks. I'm sure you can manage.
What else? So... Yeah, the... So the other main thing that I wanted to say and I [sound of rustling paper] did write this down. I mean, I wrote all of this down. Yeah. I'm hoping that you'll hardly believe me, that this will sound so spontaneous. But anyway... Yeah, back to the reading: In the last episode I was talking about Scottish Country Dancing and while I was doing that I had forgotten that I wrote a note to myself about that - about Scottish Country Dancing - on my phone quite a while ago. I must have been planning what I might say when I came to talk about Mary Anne Alburger's book Scottish Fiddlers And Their Music. And it's not so different from what I ended up saying in the episode but I like the way I put it. So, yeah, here's what I wrote:
In the best dances...
This is... So this is about Scottish Country Dancing, which I used to do quite regularly when I was a university student.
In the best dances, there are intricate patterns of bobbing and weaving and crossing and turning, moments where the movement is concentrated in isolated corners, moments where the set's rigidity serves as the frame for some interesting stitch, and moments where all the sets in the room dissolve in a sudden flowing reorganisation that seems chaotic and entirely without order until everyone snaps back into place.
There you go. That is... I mean, the... Yeah, the bobbing and weaving and crossing and turning is very much.... [laughing] I think that's a good description of Scottish Country Dancing. The... So I also wrote in that note - and then had forgotten this - that Scottish Country Dancing and possibly the music that was associated with it was suppressed by the state - the British state - I guess in the 18th century for being, like whiskey, too Scottish. So, yeah, what that means is that whiskey was banned and Scottish Country Dancing was banned and I... and I haven't written this down but I think tartan... tartans were also banned. Then to be reinvented in a whole new form afterwards when they became fashionable, I think around the time that George the fourth visited Edinburgh, stage-managed, I want to say, by Robert Louis Stevenson, that visit was but I might be wrong. Anyway. No, not Robert Louis Stevenson! Who wrote the Waverley novels? Oh, gosh. Oh... and Ivinghoe [sic] and... I must have that on my shelf. Hang on, hang on. I'm not... I'm not standing on my IKEA steps so I can't just peer over at it... [sound of movement, footsteps, floorboards creaking] Yeah. So: Sir Walter Scott. I think it was Sir Walter Scott who stage-managed George the fourth's visit to Edinburgh.
Anyway, [laughing] the point is, yeah, so Scottish Country Dancing, whiskey, tartan, I think they were all banned following Bonnie Prince Charlie's uprising - the... the Stewart... the attempt to put Stewarts back on the throne following the Glorious Revolution and the ascent of the House of Hanover to the British throne. And, yeah, that uprising was brutally suppressed by the House of Hanover: George the somethingth - first or second - and his brother the Butcher of Culloden. All of that's a much longer story but it occurred to me that it's also referred to, or picked up by, Robert Louis Stevenson - maybe that's why his name was in my head - in his novel Kidnapped, which has been featured a couple of times on the podcast. So, yeah, it's always nice when things tie up.
So I could have said that and also the... the last thing - the third and last thing - that I could have said about that book, Scottish Fiddlers And Their Music by Mary Anne Alburger, was that it was only on reading the book that I finally understood the difference between a reel, which is in four-four time, and a jig, which is in six eight-time but with a four part structure to the phrases. They... They don't... I mean, you'd, kind of, dance the same type of dance to both of those types of tune. And in all the time that I was doing Scottish Country Dancing, and especially when we would learn the dances, someone would announce the dance and then they would tell us what it was. So, I don't know, they might say: “Mrs McCulloch's Breakfast - it's a jig” or “Mrs McCulloch's Breakfast - it's a reel”. And then there would be other information like, I don't know, the number of couples needed and how many bars it was, I think, and, yeah, I don't remember what else. But in all that time that “it's a jig” or “it's a reel” never meant anything to me. I mean, it never made any difference. I couldn't hear the difference between a reel and a jig. They were just both fast dances.
You know, there's a third type of dance that we would commonly do called the Strathspey, which is a lot slower and a lot more stately, and that's very obvious. That... You know, that would be something like: [singing a rough tune with a Strathspey rhythm] Ta Tum, ta ta-Tum, ta-Ta, Ta... You know, and so on. I don't know... Yeah. I wonder if that's a... I'm not sure if that's a dance that... if that's a tune that I've remembered or if it's something that I've made up,. I suspect I've remembered it but, if I have, I don't know what it is.
Anyway, the point is... So a reel, in four-four time, would be something like: [rattling out a fast rhythm in four-four time] Ya ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ya ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, Ta ta ta ta, [counting the beats] one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three f...[gasping breath].
So, yeah, anyway, something like that. And then a jig - apologies to any musicologists, by the way, who listening to this - a jig, then, in my understanding would be, in contrast: [rattling out a fast rhythm in six-eight time]: Ya ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, Ya ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, Ta ta ta Ta ta ta, [counting the beats] One two three four five six, one two three four five six, one two three four five six, one two three four five six, One two three four five six, one two three four five six, [laughing] one two three four five six, one two three four five six.
You see? So it's either [counting the beats] One two three four, one two three four, one two three four, one two three four or [counting the beats] One two three four five six, one two three four five six, one two three four five six, one two three four five six. I mean, they're very different when... you know, put side by side like that, with that understanding of the counting. At least it seems to me. So, yeah, I can't believe that I [tuts] couldn't tell the difference at the time. But there we go. I might also have not really... Yeah, that might not be accurate, my... my assessment of those two dances now. But I think that's... I think that's right. And I think probably if I went back to a ceilidh now and listened I would probably be able to hear that difference. Well, we'll see. Perhaps I should hunt one out when we're all allowed to do that kind of thing again.
Anyway. All of that is already quite a lot of words for the beginning of this episode but this... So this is not a Page One In Review episode. I feel like I should say that at this point. I talked in the previous episode about the last of the books that I was given during the fourth season of the podcast and I'll wait until the new year to talk about the... the first of the books that I was given during the fifth season of the podcast. I thought what I would do today is just talk about three books that... well, they're three books that I've read and enjoyed in the last couple of years. This is something that I haven't done for a long time, I think... I mean, I've only done it once, actually, haven't I? In the 101st episode, I think, I just talked about books that I liked without... you know, without there being the excuse of them being second hand or books that I was giving to a guest. So, yeah, I think... yeah, this is only the second time that I've done this.
So, yeah, I have three books - and in fact more than... more than that - to talk about. Then I'll wrap up the episode and that will be it for this year. And... And for a little... you know, a few weeks to come. Who knows how long, as I say.
[page turning]
So the first book that I want to talk about today - and welcome, by the way. In case you're new and this is the first episode that you're listening to: well done. You're doing well to have made it this far. This is a... Page One is a book podcast and at this point in the podcast's history I'm just... I'm in the middle of, kind of, reflecting and revisiting mostly. So generally, yeah, recent episodes have been about - as I said - books that people have given me. I've been talking about them, you know, in terms of what I remember - if I've read them since I've been given them - and, you know, what I think them, whether I like them or not, that kind of thing. So these are books that I was not given by anybody. I just... I got them. But, yeah, that I would like to recommend to you.
So they're all... Yeah, they're all fantasy books to some extent. This first book is called The Fifth Sacred Thing. It's by Starhawk, who is a resident of San Francisco, I believe. And this was recommended to me by a guest on the podcast, Cameryn Moore. It's a utopian novel and very beautiful. It's a very beautiful imagining of what might be possible. It's set in... mostly in and around San Francisco. So the point is most of North America is taken over - and possibly most of the world, I don't remember - but most of North America is taken over by a repressive, kind of, militaristic prison-industrial-complex-type regime and in San Francisco somehow - I don't remember exactly how - a group of people - a community of people - have managed to resist that. And they have created their own commune in which everybody gives very much according to their abilities.
So you have a city - a very function... high-functioning city. They have lots of fresh water apparently in San Francisco and they use that, then, to grow food but also... I think the... the... they fish. I think they fish. The sea has been, kind of, cleaned up around where they are. They have gondolas in the sky - so I'm not quite sure how all that's powered but it is powered, possibly by solar power. They have a governing council, which I think... you know, people sit on it in turn, I think. Yeah, I don't remember exactly all of the details.
It does rely on... Oh, and they're nonviolent. That's really important. Sorry. I should say that. They adhere to a, kind of, strict principle of nonviolence, which is one of the things that is problematised as the novel goes on. There's this question of, you know: if you are... if you're in conflict with a society which is extremely violent can you continue to be nonviolent yourselves? Is it... Is it worth holding on to the principle of nonviolence if that means that you're going to lose the community that you've constructed? Or can you justify letting go of that principle in order to defend this community?
It's a little... It reminds me a little bit - sorry to keep going on about Diane di Prima, who I think probably is also a San Franciscan, isn't she? It reminds me a little bit of what I was talking about when I was talking about Diane di Prima's poems a couple of episodes ago. Yeah, I think there's this understanding in what Starhawk is writing that if you give up your core principles you've already been taken over in a way. But I think, yeah, she cheats a little bit because of this... I was going to... I was about to start saying: there is this magical element which... yeah, which, kind of, backs them up.
But. So. I just want to say that it's a beautiful book. It's a really lovely imagining of a possible way of living. There also... Oh, I should say the relationship structures are also - yeah, still now - what I would call non-traditional but very beautifully described and imagined. And she doesn't shy away from difficult emotions or difficult situations. All of that is allowed to exist in this place. It's not a... The... You know, the utopianness of it doesn't include that everybody feels great all of the time. That's not what Starhawk is trying to sell us I don't think. I think what she's trying to sell us is that there is a better way of organising ourselves in which, you know, we can listen to the needs of everybody within the society and... and do certainly more than we are doing to make sure that they're met.
So I'm going to read you the first page. So this book is published by Bantam Trade. This is a Bantam Trade Paperback novel. It is 484 pages long. I'm going to read you from the beginning of chapter 1, which is on page 1:
In the dry time of the [sic] year, the dangerous time, the risk time, an old woman climbed a hill. Like most people in the southern part of the city, she called the season El Tiempo de la Segadora, the Time of the Reaper. The hills were dry, the gardens dependent on the dwindling waters of cisterns, the rains still weeks away. A time of ripening, but not yet of harvesting, when nothing was certain.
She climbed the hill as she had once climbed mountains, one step at a time, planting her stick firmly in front of her and letting it bear her weight as she hoisted herself up. She was ninety-eight years old, born at the midpoint of the twentieth century. Two more years and she would see the midpoint of the twenty-first. In her day she had climbed many things: Sierran peaks, pyramids, chain-link fences, the way back from despair to hope. And this hill, looming up above the southern corner of the city, rising like a pregnant belly above the green patchwork of houses and gardens and paths and the blue waters of San Francisco Bay. By Goddess, she could still make it up this hill!
Maya stopped to catch her breath. Around her was a moving throng of people, dressed in the greens and golds of the season, gossiping happily or chanting solemnly according to temperament. They carried baskets of offerings: bread and fruit and cheese, fresh vegetables from the gardens.
Below stretched a panorama of sculpted hills crowned by toy houses, cradling the aging skyscrapers that rose from the low ground beside the bay. The city was a mosaic of jewel-like colors set in green, veined by streams and dotted with gleaming ponds and pools. Seen from above, blocks of old row houses defined streets that no longer existed. Instead, bicycles and electric carts and the occasional horse moved through a labyrinth of narrow walkways that snaked and twined through the green. Above the rooftops, gondolas like gaily painted buckets swung from cables, skimming from hilltop to hilltop, moving between high towers where windspinners turned. To the northeast, Maya could see a long train moving across the lower deck of the Bay Bridge, bringing early grain to the central market. Beyond, the blades of the wind...
There you go. A little... The begi... Or the beginning of a little portrait of a functioning city which will be imperiled as the novel continues. Yeah. Oh I... So, yeah, another thing I didn't say is that it's set in - or at least the beginning there is set in - 2048. Not so long into the future now. When was this first published? [sound of pages turning] 1993. Yeah. Okay.
[page turning]
So the... Yeah, the second book that I want to talk to you about... So. [considering] Mmm. I should probably say: the next two books that I want to talk to you about are both the beginnings of series so I want to recommend the series as well as the book, although I haven't read all of the books from these two series. But the... this book... So I'm going to read to you from The Black Tides Of Heaven by JY Yang. JY Yang, I think, is a Singaporean author. I think that's right. There's no information in the book but I seem to remember that that's the case. And... So they've written - so far - four books in what is called the Tensorate series. And these... So these also have to do with magic but also... I guess it's heading towards the territory of my... the third book that I have to talk to you about today, which is kung fu and martial arts.
Yeah. So this is... So the series begins with two novellas which can be read in either order. I think I read The Red Threads Of Fortune before I read The Black Tides Of Heaven but then decided that I... I wished I had read The Black Tides Of Heaven first. I don't... I don't remember why that is. In any case, there's those two books, The Black Tides Of Heaven and The Red Threads Of Fortune, which were published in 2017, then The Descent Of Monsters, which was published in 2018, and The Ascent To Godhead, which was published in 2019, which I don't have yet but I have ordered and it should arrive at my doorstep at some point.
These are... Ah, they're wonderful books. They're... They're short but somehow rich. They're full of wonderful images and characters and situations. The books themselves are gorgeous. I mean, these... you know, this edition of them. I don't know, I suppose they might be published in different editions in different places. This is published by Tom Doherty Associates. It's called a Tom Doherty Associates book. The cover illustration on these is by Yuko Shimizu and the design is by Christine Foltzer. Yeah, they're just... they're beautiful - really gorgeous, gorgeous illustrations. And I... yeah, I like them.
These characters... The other... So one of the other interesting or wonderful things about them is that JY Yang imagines a world in which you don't declare your gender until you're ready to, basically, so everybody is assumed to be non-binary. And then at a certain point you might decide... you might decide that you're male, you might decide that you're female, you might decide that you're non-binary. Yeah, I think it's possible to confirm your non-binary status. And there's a... Yeah, there's a really nice moment - I don't remember which book that happens in - where one of the characters... there's a pair of twins and one of the characters declares their gender and the other one finds that really uncomfortable because they're not... I think not ready to do that yet.
So it's a b... Yeah, so that's a really nice... [sighs] I don't know. I really believe - and it's the reason, I think, why I also wanted to talk about The Fifth Sacred Thing: I really believe that you have to dream something before you can make it. I think it has to appear as a possibility, you know, before it becomes a reality. I don't... maybe things can happen the other way round as well. But, you know, I see that so much at the moment: there is so much resistance to any adjustment in the way that we talk about gender - and really violent resistance. And I... I mean, I find that perplexing because to me it's such a freeing thing to start thinking about what we mean by gender and what possibilities exist within gender - what we call gender. Yeah, I j... It... So I... Yeah, I don't... I don't... I really don't think society will fall apart if we no longer gender our kids. I mean, I think there is... there is a... there is a resistance that comes from habit - gender is something that it seems that we start to be curious about very, very young - but I think there's... there are other ways that we can talk about it than the very rigid binary way that we've talked about it for most of my life. And I think that freedom comes with all kinds of exciting possibilities.
So that... Anyway, I've talked a lot about that now but that's... that's a [sic] really only one strand in these... you know, these Tensorate books. I just... I loved the... the world that JY Yang creates and I... and I... Yeah, the characters are wonderful and the exploration of different ways of doing... I guess what you could call magic I find really wonderful.
So, yeah, let me just read... So, as I say, it's a Tom Doherty Associates book... I think. I think that's right. It says a tor.com book on the back. Anyway. This is... Oh, yeah: tor.com. Okay. So maybe that's the publisher. It is 236 pages long. Oh! Oh, no, there is a thing about the author in here. Right. So JY Yang... Yes:
They live in Singapore, edit fiction at Epigram Books, and have a master's degree in creative writing from the University of East Anglia.
Yeah. So living in Singapore. Yeah, this is... Right. So. Sorry. 236 pages long, this book is - The Black Tides Of Heaven - and I'm going to read you page 13, which is the beginning of Chapter One:
YEAR ONE
HEAD ABBOT SUNG of the Grand Monastery did not know it yet, but this night would change the course of all his days.
He stood at the foot of the staircase leading to the Great High Palace of the Protectorate: that sprawling, magnificent edifice that few across the land would ever gain the privilege of seeing up close, much less entering. Tonight the Protector herself had summoned him.
Eight hundred alabaster steps stretched above his head. Tradition dictated that the journey to the palace be conducted without slackcraft, and Head Abbot Sung was nothing if not a traditionalist. There was no way around it, and so - he began to climb.
Darkness had fallen like a cool hand onto the peaks of Chengbee's exhausted, perspiring roofs. As the Head Abbot mounted step after step, his robes clung to him: under his arms in the small of his back. The...
There you go. That's all you get. Yeah, interesting coincidence that both of these books so far start with somebody climbing. I'd forgotten to say that there is a map at the beginning of this book. And I have said in the past, I think more than once: I love maps in books. I love being able to imagine where people are and where they're moving around. Chengbee - the city that we've just heard about - is towards the northeast of the main landmass drawn on this map. And, yeah, somewhere to the left there's... there's a... there's just... it's written: “GREAT STORMS”. [laughing] It's just so... It's so great. I don't know why I love maps so much but there it is. I just have to accept the fact of it.
Okay. The last book - the third book... [clears throat] My voice is getting a little hoarse now. I haven't done enough talking over the last [laughs] four weeks. The last book that I want to talk to you about today is...
[page turning]
... is called A Hero Born and it's by Jin Yong. So Jin Yong, it says here, is the pen name of Louis [/luːiː/] Cha - or Louis [/luːɪs/] Cha - who is or was a Chinese writer. And I think... So this... So. [reconsidering] Mmm. Right. This book, A Hero Born, I should explain is the first part of the first book in a trilogy called The... Oh, what's the trilogy called? The Condor... Perhaps it's just called The Condor Heroes. And I think they're hugely... From what I understand reading about this on... on Wikipedia, I think they're [a] hugely popular and influential series in China. And I don't know if they've been translated before but these are new translations that are being made and published at the moment. So this is translated from the Chinese by Anna Holmwood.
This one came out... Oh, I haven't written down the dates for these. It came out a few years ago. So this is... So the first part of the trilogy is called Legend... The Legend Of The Condor Heroes. So A Hero Born is the first part of that book and then there's A Bond Undone, which I have but haven't read yet, and A Snake Lies Waiting, which is on order - it's arriving. And then in March next year A Heart Divided will be published. So those four books - A Hero Born, A Bond Undone, A Snake Lies Waiting and A Heart Divided - all make up the first part of this trilogy, which together is called The Legend Of The Condor Heroes. So that's... So The Legend Of The Condor Heroes is the name of the first part of the trilogy. And then the second part of the trilogy is called The Return Of The Condor Heroes and the third part is called The Heaven Sword And Dragon Saber. So all together it's going to be twelve books in English when this edition is complete. All of the... You know, when all of the books have been published in this new translation.
It's a huge story. This is, you know, very different from the JY Yang books - the Tensorate series that I was talking about. These are... You know, this one book is really quite chunky and contains a huge number of characters and a lot of stuff. This is... It's set at a time when the Mongols under Genghis Khan - or, [sound of rustling pages] as he is known at this time... Oh wait, because there's a list of characters here. Fortunately! He's called the Great Khan Temujin at this point. So he is about to invade China from the north - from Mongolia - and the Song Dynasty, I think, has retreated into the south and... yeah, various other historical things are going on. And then this... So in amongst all of that you have this story of kung fu masters and people travelling around a lot and people who are enemies and people who aren't but might be and mysterious characters who you don't really know what their role is yet and... Yeah, it's very... it's really great. I just... I was totally gripped by this book and it made me want to read the whole thing.
So this book is published by MacLehose [/mæklhəʊz/] Press - I'm guessing that's how it's pronounced - “An imprint of Quercus”, and it is 383 pages long. [sound of train approaching and going past outside] So this is A Hero Born, page 1, chapter one, Suddenly A Snow Storm. Isn't that a great title for a... a chapter - as this goods train rattles past in the background?
SUDDENLY A SNOW STORM
I
THE QIANTANG RIVER STRETCHES FROM THE WEST, WHERE ITS waters swell day and night, past the new imperial capital of Lin'an and the nearby Ox Village, on to the sea in the east. Ten cypresses stand proudly along its banks, their leaves red like fire. A typical August day. The grasses are turning yellow beneath the trees and the setting sun is breaking through their branches, casting long, bleak shadows. Under the shelter of two giant pine trees, men, women and children have gathered to listen to a travelling storyteller.
The man is around fifty, a pinched figure in robes once black, now faded a blue-grey. He begins by slapping two pieces of pear wood together, and then, using a bamboo stick, He beats a steady rhythm on a small leather drum. He sings:
“Untended, the peach blossoms still open
As fallow fields of tobacco draw the crows.
In times past, by the village well,
Families once gathered to vent their sorrows.”
I think that's a great opening. I mean, I love the idea that, yeah, we're listening to a storyteller so we're... you know, we're in the world of stories and then from this beginning the story that we are interested in starts. But I also love that, although it's a summer day - which in... you know, in British... I would say in British Literature generally summer days are easeful and pleasant and gentle - here the shadows that are cast by the setting sun are bleak shadows. I think that's... I mean, you know, I suppose it's literally a foreshadowing of the narrative. But, yeah, I think that's interesting. I mean, we have red leaves like fire and long bleak shadows and the title SUDDENLY A SNOWSTORM. I mean, there's a lot... I feel like there's a lot of information there that we won't understand until, you know, quite a few pages in.
It's... Yeah, it's so good, this... this book. And I have high hopes for the rest of the series as it comes out over the next... I mean, what? So we going to be up to the fourth book next year and then there'll be eight more books. So, yeah, over the next nine years we should get towards the end of this series. Let's see if I can keep up.
Okay. Thank you so much for being with me today. As I say, this is the... this is the last episode that I'm going to record for a while but I will be back with more episodes. And we will continue to revisit the books that I've been given by guests on my podcast until... until we've talked about all of them. And then I will hang up my headphones and say farewell to you for what might be the last time. This, though, isn't. As I say, I'm just taking a break. I hope you all enjoy your end-of-years. Hopefully that does include some kind of break. In any case, I wish you all the best until I speak to you again. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Goodbye.
Jingle
Thank you for listening to Page One. For more information about the podcast, please go to pageonepodcast.com.
[Initial transcription by https://otter.ai]