![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ljwritesIn the course of researching for my novel, which takes place in ancient Korea and parts of modern-day China, I turned to e-book bookstores among other sources. It seemed an easy start, a way to dip a toe in the waters without devoting too much space and money from the first go.
Unfortunately, that water I was dipping into? Actually sort of scummy. Now I did fish out one excellent book, a work of non-fiction that I liked so much that I read it all the way through even though only a small portion was directly relevant to my research. Unfortunately the other books I found on Google Play were all duds, particularly the historical fiction.
The Lost Baekje
How it failed: Overwrought and disjointed writing, far-fetched claims about history.
I'm afraid I wasted my husband's money on this one. It looked so promising, I completely forgot about the sample function and bought it immediately. Alas, shortly into the foreword I realized that not only did this purported historical novel make some highly questionable historical claims that made it effectively useless for my purposes, it was also terribly written.
The novel begins with a playwright and novelist (it should surprise no one that the real-life author is a playwright and novelist) who is visited in his dream by King Muryeong, a fifth-century monarch who ruled the kingdom of Baekje in the southwest of the Korean peninsula. Muryeong exhorts the writer to discover the "lost Baekje," meaning a branch of Baekje that allegedly existed in modern-day China. This claim, though doggedly made by some nationalists, has very little evidence to support it beyond wishful thinking.
Actually, "Muryeong exhorts" is but a pale shadow of the actual monologue, which reads in part:
I put "mystery" in single quotes because this fifth-century king actually said the English word "mystery" in the original text. If you're going to stick around 1,500 years without going on to the afterlife you might as well learn a little English, I guess.
And just in case you think our writer-on-a-mission in a well-adjusted person outside of delusions of grandeur, think again. Having traveled to China on his quest for the lost Baekje, he's in the Beijing University library when he catches sight of a woman reading a book he needs for his research. Here's what ensues:
Okayyyy... so our protagonist is not only racist and borderline paranoid, he's an entitled brat who thinks nothing of asking for books other people are reading because, I don't know, he needs the book more, or he has the right because he's Korean? And yet for some reason the woman at the receiving end of this appalling behavior, rather than being affronted or scared, is endlessly understanding and pliant--why? Because that's what good women are in the author's febrile imagination, I guess. And/or because the plot demands it.
When I complained about this passage to my husband he burst out laughing and said it sounded like she was trying to placate an unstable and potentially dangerous person, which seems as good an explanation as any.
By the way, the protagonist is picking a losing battle with racial entitlement, not that he isn't a loser for picking it in the first place. The book he's frothing about is the New Book of Tang, compiled by 11th century Chinese scholar Ou Yangxiu at the behest of the Chinese emperor of Tang. Most of the book is about Chinese history and institutions, and only a small portion concerns the "Eastern barbarians." There isn't even any evidence the woman was reading the Baekje history portion of the book, unless this guy Bu has X-ray vision. In short, the protagonist is a giant ass.
Additional fail: In the foreword, the author thinks his novel has value as a history textbook and expresses the hope it will be taught in schools. Yeah, no dude.
Morning in the Three Kingdoms
How it failed: Historically inaccurate rape scene for the purpose of titillation. Consider this your trigger warning.
The failure with The Lost Baekje made me more cautious, and good thing, too. Morning in the Three Kingdoms purported to be a novelization of early stories from the founding of the ancient Korean kingdoms, which again sounded good, but this time I downloaded a sample first.
To its minor credit, this book was actually up-front with its fail by putting a facepalm-worthy scene right in the sample. This was how I was treated to a description of Willow Blossom, mother of the founder of one of the three ancient kingdoms, being violently raped by a stranger whom I am given to understand is the founder's biological father. The awfulness is only compounded by repeated allusions to the fullness of our heroine's breasts.
Oddly enough, the Willow Blossom in the original legend was in fact raped by the biological father of her child, but the author of Morning for some reason chose to completely alter both the character's background and the circumstances of the crime. Here's a brief rundown.
Original historical record (bear in mind that this was 2,000+ years ago, hence the fantastic elements): Willow Blossom was a daughter of Habaek (Old Man River) the river god. Haemosu god of the sun got Willow Blossom and her two sisters Lily Blossom and Reed Blossom drunk with the intention of raping them, but her sisters escaped while Willow Blossom was unable to. Haemosu then announced his intention to marry the woman he had raped and be a part of Habaek's exalted family, but ultimately abandoned her when her father pissed him off. Willow Blossom was then banished by her father and wandered alone until a king took her in. Subsequently a beam of sunlight followed her around until she was pregnant and gave birth to a large egg, out of which hatched the founder of Goguryeoh.
Morning in the Three Kingdoms: The eldest daughter of a poor widowed fisherman, Willow Blossom kept her father's house and took care of her two young siblings. One day, while her father was out to fish, a stranger passing by asked for a drink of water. The stranger, enticed by her beauty and full breasts (blegh), followed her into her room and raped her, an event which naturally occasioned a mention of the aforementioned breasts popping out (barf). I have no idea what happened next because the sample ended on this charming note and I have no intention of buying the full book.
So, despite the fact that the original history/legend had a perfectly "good" account of rape, the author found it necessary to substitute her own version--with a helpful footnote at the end (don't you wish all rape scenes came with those?) that the golden sunbeam which followed Willow Blossom around in the original legend refers to her being raped. Which is uh... for some insane reason I think Willow Blossom being raped in the original legend refers to her being raped? Did the author miss the entire first part of the legend so she thought she had to make stuff up about the character out of whole cloth?
The charitable explanation is that the fictionalization is historical in name only and the author was being dishonest in marketing her original story as historical fiction. This is the charitable explanation because the much more troubling possibility is that the author thought Willow Blossom in the original legend wasn't sympathetic enough--a highborn woman out carousing with her sisters to get drunk with a strange man. No, in order to be a sympathetic victim Willow Blossom had to be a hardworking poor woman, dutiful to her father, motherly to her siblings (mercifully absent at the time of the attack, in case you were wondering), and had to stay away from anything remotely alcoholic. She had to have done nothing to encourage her rape, in other words, other than doing a kindness for a stranger--and having those boobs, of course.
What else is there to say?
Additional fail: The cover blurb, which features a country called "Shinar" instead of "Shinra." The kingdom of typos is a vast and populous one, I'll grant that.
Muryeong
How it failed: You know what they say about picture and a thousand words?
Oh hey King Muryeong, I've found someone else you can rant to in their sleep.
Maybe this isn't a fail so much as a case of my not being part of the target audience. There is no doubt a market in using ancient history as a motif for cheap fantasy manga knockoffs. Still, does the result have to look quite so ridiculous?
In case you're curious, the story evidently involves a struggle over a divine sword MacGuffin. Speaking of which...
Additional fail: Evidently the MacGuffin looks like this.
No, it's not the hat.
I am duly traumatized by my attempts to begin research via e-books. I'm not even getting into the nonfiction fails--bad history books based on a known forgery don't even make the cut after all the crap I've been treated to. Now look what you've done it, awful historical fiction--you've raised the bar so high, or sunk it so low, I can't even get a proper hate-on for run-of-the-mill bad books.
Unfortunately, that water I was dipping into? Actually sort of scummy. Now I did fish out one excellent book, a work of non-fiction that I liked so much that I read it all the way through even though only a small portion was directly relevant to my research. Unfortunately the other books I found on Google Play were all duds, particularly the historical fiction.
The Lost Baekje
How it failed: Overwrought and disjointed writing, far-fetched claims about history.
I'm afraid I wasted my husband's money on this one. It looked so promising, I completely forgot about the sample function and bought it immediately. Alas, shortly into the foreword I realized that not only did this purported historical novel make some highly questionable historical claims that made it effectively useless for my purposes, it was also terribly written.
The novel begins with a playwright and novelist (it should surprise no one that the real-life author is a playwright and novelist) who is visited in his dream by King Muryeong, a fifth-century monarch who ruled the kingdom of Baekje in the southwest of the Korean peninsula. Muryeong exhorts the writer to discover the "lost Baekje," meaning a branch of Baekje that allegedly existed in modern-day China. This claim, though doggedly made by some nationalists, has very little evidence to support it beyond wishful thinking.
Actually, "Muryeong exhorts" is but a pale shadow of the actual monologue, which reads in part:
What stays thee? Why search ye not for the Baekje that was buried for a millennium and a half? Go now. Go around the lands of Black Teeth and Ryukyu to China. Travel past Shandong and Jinan and up the Yangzi to Hainan Isle. There lies Baekje. Find Baekje. The Baekje you know is not the Baekje that truly was. Discover the Baekje that has sunk into an unrecorded 'mystery.' Find my homeland of Baekje and recover the history of Great Baekje.
I put "mystery" in single quotes because this fifth-century king actually said the English word "mystery" in the original text. If you're going to stick around 1,500 years without going on to the afterlife you might as well learn a little English, I guess.
And just in case you think our writer-on-a-mission in a well-adjusted person outside of delusions of grandeur, think again. Having traveled to China on his quest for the lost Baekje, he's in the Beijing University library when he catches sight of a woman reading a book he needs for his research. Here's what ensues:
I felt a flash of hostility at the sight of her reading the history of Baekje. A Chinese woman reading Baekje history--were they now trying to distort Baekje's history as well as Goguryeo's?
I went up to her and asked: "Are you Korean?"
"No, I'm Chinese." She looked at me oddly.
"I see. By the way, I need that book," I said, setting aside all shame.
"I see you're deeply interested in Baekje history. I'm very sorry, I'm searching for some information on Baekje too." She looked sincerely contrite. I said more humbly:
"Could I read it first?"
"All right," she said gently, and handed me the book.
"Thank you. My name is Bu Do-il, from Korea."
"Good to meet you. I'm Ha Sunmyeong." (Translator's note: That's a Korean pronunciation and can't be her name as she said it. I'm guessing something more like Xia Sunming, but have no way to be sure of course because the author doesn't see it fit to tell us.)
"Could I ask you for some help on Baekje history?"
"Yes, I can tell you whatever I know."
Okayyyy... so our protagonist is not only racist and borderline paranoid, he's an entitled brat who thinks nothing of asking for books other people are reading because, I don't know, he needs the book more, or he has the right because he's Korean? And yet for some reason the woman at the receiving end of this appalling behavior, rather than being affronted or scared, is endlessly understanding and pliant--why? Because that's what good women are in the author's febrile imagination, I guess. And/or because the plot demands it.
When I complained about this passage to my husband he burst out laughing and said it sounded like she was trying to placate an unstable and potentially dangerous person, which seems as good an explanation as any.
By the way, the protagonist is picking a losing battle with racial entitlement, not that he isn't a loser for picking it in the first place. The book he's frothing about is the New Book of Tang, compiled by 11th century Chinese scholar Ou Yangxiu at the behest of the Chinese emperor of Tang. Most of the book is about Chinese history and institutions, and only a small portion concerns the "Eastern barbarians." There isn't even any evidence the woman was reading the Baekje history portion of the book, unless this guy Bu has X-ray vision. In short, the protagonist is a giant ass.
Additional fail: In the foreword, the author thinks his novel has value as a history textbook and expresses the hope it will be taught in schools. Yeah, no dude.
Morning in the Three Kingdoms
How it failed: Historically inaccurate rape scene for the purpose of titillation. Consider this your trigger warning.
The failure with The Lost Baekje made me more cautious, and good thing, too. Morning in the Three Kingdoms purported to be a novelization of early stories from the founding of the ancient Korean kingdoms, which again sounded good, but this time I downloaded a sample first.
To its minor credit, this book was actually up-front with its fail by putting a facepalm-worthy scene right in the sample. This was how I was treated to a description of Willow Blossom, mother of the founder of one of the three ancient kingdoms, being violently raped by a stranger whom I am given to understand is the founder's biological father. The awfulness is only compounded by repeated allusions to the fullness of our heroine's breasts.
Oddly enough, the Willow Blossom in the original legend was in fact raped by the biological father of her child, but the author of Morning for some reason chose to completely alter both the character's background and the circumstances of the crime. Here's a brief rundown.
Original historical record (bear in mind that this was 2,000+ years ago, hence the fantastic elements): Willow Blossom was a daughter of Habaek (Old Man River) the river god. Haemosu god of the sun got Willow Blossom and her two sisters Lily Blossom and Reed Blossom drunk with the intention of raping them, but her sisters escaped while Willow Blossom was unable to. Haemosu then announced his intention to marry the woman he had raped and be a part of Habaek's exalted family, but ultimately abandoned her when her father pissed him off. Willow Blossom was then banished by her father and wandered alone until a king took her in. Subsequently a beam of sunlight followed her around until she was pregnant and gave birth to a large egg, out of which hatched the founder of Goguryeoh.
Morning in the Three Kingdoms: The eldest daughter of a poor widowed fisherman, Willow Blossom kept her father's house and took care of her two young siblings. One day, while her father was out to fish, a stranger passing by asked for a drink of water. The stranger, enticed by her beauty and full breasts (blegh), followed her into her room and raped her, an event which naturally occasioned a mention of the aforementioned breasts popping out (barf). I have no idea what happened next because the sample ended on this charming note and I have no intention of buying the full book.
So, despite the fact that the original history/legend had a perfectly "good" account of rape, the author found it necessary to substitute her own version--with a helpful footnote at the end (don't you wish all rape scenes came with those?) that the golden sunbeam which followed Willow Blossom around in the original legend refers to her being raped. Which is uh... for some insane reason I think Willow Blossom being raped in the original legend refers to her being raped? Did the author miss the entire first part of the legend so she thought she had to make stuff up about the character out of whole cloth?
The charitable explanation is that the fictionalization is historical in name only and the author was being dishonest in marketing her original story as historical fiction. This is the charitable explanation because the much more troubling possibility is that the author thought Willow Blossom in the original legend wasn't sympathetic enough--a highborn woman out carousing with her sisters to get drunk with a strange man. No, in order to be a sympathetic victim Willow Blossom had to be a hardworking poor woman, dutiful to her father, motherly to her siblings (mercifully absent at the time of the attack, in case you were wondering), and had to stay away from anything remotely alcoholic. She had to have done nothing to encourage her rape, in other words, other than doing a kindness for a stranger--and having those boobs, of course.
What else is there to say?
Additional fail: The cover blurb, which features a country called "Shinar" instead of "Shinra." The kingdom of typos is a vast and populous one, I'll grant that.
Muryeong
How it failed: You know what they say about picture and a thousand words?
Oh hey King Muryeong, I've found someone else you can rant to in their sleep.
Maybe this isn't a fail so much as a case of my not being part of the target audience. There is no doubt a market in using ancient history as a motif for cheap fantasy manga knockoffs. Still, does the result have to look quite so ridiculous?
In case you're curious, the story evidently involves a struggle over a divine sword MacGuffin. Speaking of which...
Additional fail: Evidently the MacGuffin looks like this.
No, it's not the hat.
I am duly traumatized by my attempts to begin research via e-books. I'm not even getting into the nonfiction fails--bad history books based on a known forgery don't even make the cut after all the crap I've been treated to. Now look what you've done it, awful historical fiction--you've raised the bar so high, or sunk it so low, I can't even get a proper hate-on for run-of-the-mill bad books.
