books | Recent Reading: The Spear Cuts Through Water

The great thing about online communities is you can get a lot of book recommendations from a broad swath of people that cover niche books you might never have heard of otherwise. The bad thing is that a lot of these books are simply not good. Nevertheless, I've plowed through quite a few net-recommended fantasy books, and I still think it's worth it for the occasional gem you overturn. I had the chance this last week to enjoy one of those gems: The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez.

Upfront, the style of this book is not going to be for everyone. It has an edge of the cerebral, being told primarily in second-person, from the perspective of an unnamed person watching a play performed by spirits in their sleep about the events of the adventure. Perspective can change suddenly and without announcement, and the book occasionally slides in thoughts of random third parties experiencing the events of the text.

I found all of these narrative tools a delight, although I admit I was skeptical for the first few pages. I think Jimenez does a wonderful job of using them effectively and the overall effect adds to the surreal/mythological energy of the entire story.

Jimenez's writing is beautiful and vivid—for good or for ill, as there are some gruesome events that take place—and really sweeps you up in the events of the story. He also does a wonderful job capturing the emotional mindsets of the characters. In particular, I thought the way he handled the relationship of the two main protagonists, Jun and Keema, was very realistic given who they are, and the emotional payoff of his taking the time to work through that was so worth it.

The plot of the novel is pretty simple: Jun and Keema are escorting the empress, the Moon goddess, from point A to point B. But Jimenez shows how a talented author can take a simple quest plot and transform it into something sweeping and epic. The story takes us across this fictional country, which has been laboring under the oppression of the Moon Throne and its emperor, known as the Smiling Sun. We see up close the impact of this emperor and his government, and the various ways that the populace is pushing back or knuckling under, trying to survive.

The empress herself is a fascinating character, and Jimenez handles so well this character who both possesses the power of a goddess who transformed the world, yet is deeply weakened after generations among mortals. She walks a compelling line between a being who wants to do right by the people, but still possesses the selfish impulses of a god.

He blends the truly mythological—the Moon goddess used to be the moon, and after she fell from the sky, the people named the black hole where the moon used to be "the Burn"—as well as the more intimate story beats we expect from modern storytelling, such as Jun's complicated relationship with his father. I thought this intermixing worked very well, allowing for both a grand scale, transformative tale as well as very personal, small-scale stories.

Even the side characters grab your attention, so that their parts of the story never feel like unwelcome intrusions and asides from the main plot, but rather equally interesting stories playing out alongside our protagonists' (I'm still thinking about Uhi Araya).

This story grabbed me from very early on and held on tight throughout the book; I was riveted to the end. A truly wonderful tale; I may end up buying a copy to have to reread later.