The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera
356 pages, Hardcover
As a reader, who has over the years taken my role as critic pretty seriously often I know a book is a better piece of work than the experience I had reading it. Your mileage may vary on any book I think is great. I like this book, but I also know it is better than my personal reading experience. The Saint of Bright Doors is a fantastic political and radical fantasy that operates on a level that is beyond my understanding. Sri Lankan author Vajra Chandrasekera is new to me, and through excellent world-building creates a city that is like a Southeast Asian Dark City. The setting is fantastic, sometimes feels ancient, other times modern, and always surreal. This is done subtly with hints of technology, like e-mails and crowdfunding campaigns. Those are little details, but they stop you every time you start to feel you are in an ancient past or a totally fantasy world.
My reaction as I was finishing the last pages was that it was a flip of the traditional ‘chosen one’ narrative. A little research told me this is a radical retelling of some tale of Buddhist mythology that I am not familiar with. This went over my head and I suspect this novel brilliantly works on levels that were totally lost to me. I got the impression this retelling is a bit of “Oh he didn’t.”
The story of Fetter, a revolutionary with divine origins, whose mother (the most interesting character of the book to me) was training him to confront (and kill) his father who has been abusing the people of Luriat, the city that I got the impression his father created in some sense. That it existed in a realm where he was their god. The magic that ties these realms together. The Bright Doors. The doors are magical gateways, but considering they were in the title I expected a bit more connection out of them.
Fetter is a heroic revolutionary, also gay, so a gay southeast Asian revolutionary hero. Totally here for that. The fantastical city of Luriat is to me the most interesting aspect of the novel. Fetter’s anti-chosen one narrative is made more interesting by his shadow but explaining that is a major spoiler. This part of the back cover explains the setting better than I could…
“Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.”
His Mother known as Mother-of-Glory plays a major role in the novel. Their dialogues really paint Fetter into the chosen one confrontation. We see Fetter grow in these conversations, and I found them to be many of the books most powerful moments. This is where the radical messaging really takes hold.
“Remember, son,” Mother-of-Glory says, compensating with pomposity for her deficits of piety or affection. “The only way to change the world is through intentional, directed violence.”
My favorite passage was in chapter 22… “Devils don’t swarm, in Fetter’s expert opinion. Don’t crowd each other. They’re not like people or animals; they don’t have a language of touch, display no social behavior that he’d ever seen. There is a reason the older term for devils is invisible laws and powers, Fetter reminds himself.”
The Saint of Bright Doors is radical genre fiction, not science fiction, but a fantasy that is more surreal than high fantasy. Those looking for genre fiction with international flavor should not miss it. My only complaint is the length, I think there were probably 70 or so pages that dragged a bit. Maybe if I had a better understanding of the themes, I wouldn’t feel that way. Still, I felt this was an excellent novel.
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