Have we not had enough of Chang’E yet?
As my reading history shows, I would keenly leaf through any novel that engages with myths and East Asian culture but why did I take so long to finish Sue Lynn Tan’s Daughter of the Moon Goddess?
In terms of its writing, a common critic I had come across is its lethargic prose, the way it is constantly telling you very explicitly how the protagonist feels and the utter lack of character development throughout the very, very long novel. To this, I would add that Sue Lynn’s use of language in itself is also rather discomforting. Similar to the concerns I had raised in my earlier post on A Magic Steeped in Poison where I discussed it’s jarring use of Han Yu Pin Yin, I am puzzled by when a name is romanised or directly translated. Throughout the novel, names of characters are consistently romanised while names of places are often translated. As someone who grew up in a city with place names that are derived from many different cultures, this feels like an unnecessary form of exoticism. Take Pulau Ubin for example. Referring to it as Granite Stone Island would just seem strange, as if its utility is the sole purpose of its existence. On top of this, Sue Lynn makes clear that names are of Chinese origins and that they take the meaning of their corresponding characters. Place names for instance are always followed by their Chinese characters and she even details the meaning behind Xinying’s name. While this is all fine, the story becomes oddly comical when the leader of the merfolk is simply called Renyu being, man fish in Mandarin?
That said, the biggest issue I have with the book is that it is excruciatingly un-original. The story has two parts: Xingyin’s escape from the moon and her eventual redemption. The first is pretty much an exact retelling of the myth behind the Mid-Autumn Festival and since Xingyin endeavours to win her way back to her mother’s side by enlisting in the army and proving her prowess as a soldier, it is essentially a rethread of Mulan’s legend made all the more unbearable by the fact that it is prolonged and dragged out so unnecessarily that it is split into two sections. While Sue Lynn does try to make her novel interesting by peppering it with sub-plots (that seem mostly irrelevant), what irked me was how closely she abides by these very overdone stories. Over the last few years, Chang’E and Mulan had been featured in many works set in or inspired by Chinese culture. While I would have been more interested in having the spotlight cast on lesser known folklore, the least that artists who are still trying to engage with the both of them is to put a spin to it that has more contemporary significance.
For starts, I found the world building to be very flat due to its strict adherence to the Mid-Autmun Festival myth. Yes Chang’E is the Moon Goddess but are we seriously meant to believe that she is livening up the night sky by dutifully lighting up lanterns? This hardly even makes sense when you look at the map provided. I am very much nitpicking here but I thought the book would have been a lot more interesting if the cosmological aspects of it’s universe was more closely aligned to our scientific understandings of how the universe work. Instead of having the rather childish and simplistic notion of sunbirds being recognised by humans as the sun, perhaps we could have a sun that is actually, the sun as we know it except it is home to the sunbirds that went out of control and had flown too close to Earth? Instead of having an airy fairy notion of a Celestial Kingdom, perhaps we could have used Jupiter as where the immortals live? Over all, the way the different realms are organised is just so vague I can’t say that it worked for a novel of this length and its intended complexity.
As for the very blatant inspiration drawn from Mulan who is undoubtedly, a very important symbol of female empowerment, my issue with it is that it is also a tale that is (practically) as old as time. Yes it is kind of clever how the daughter of a legendary archer would also be good at taking aim but considering how reminiscent it is of the earlier tale, it is not a brand of feminism that is new or refreshing, especially since it is a story that is so deeply ingrained within Chinese culture.
Altogether, I feel like the novel falls flat as it really doesn’t bring anything new to the table unless it is your first brush with Chinese culture which would be very surprising if you are only exposed to it at a point old where you are old enough to read YA novels. What’s worse is that the novel is intended to be a crossover between Adult and older YA. As someone familiar with Chinese, I felt like the novel is very tunnel-vision and that it is full of naval-gazing. How then, can we make these stories relevant to a new audience?
