Kij Johnson

I loved this and I want more of it which I guess is the best compliment I can construct right now. This book is everything I've been looking for and for once--FOR ONCE--centers women in their own stories! So many books with a woman as a main character, with a charming and dangerous assassin, with a princess or a commoner or a warrior and yet still they were never the center of the story, never the pivot. Instead they existed surrounded by men and love and what man they would choose and what show more man they should choose and the endless debates and for once, here, a woman and a story that dispelled immediately with love and the need for love--

I would read hundreds of books set in this place. I would read thousands. The writing itself--Lovecraftian but without the weak-chinned pretentiousness, Lovecraftian without the fastidious disgust of Lovecraft himself--a Lovecraft WITHOUT GODS. I would read thousands of books about brave women and foolish women and fierce women and older women and reluctant women who moved through worlds without the burden of love or men or anything but themselves. I'm so glad this was the first fiction I read in 2017 because even if everything else is awful I will at least know that books like this ARE POSSIBLE. And that will keep me moving. show less

A fox falls in love with a human and does everything in her power to win him for herself, no matter what. The biggest problem, other than her being a fox and him human, is that he's already married to a woman he loves. She ignores her grandfather's warnings and the numerous times she's chased off or outright attacked by the humans. She's in love and doesn't care the cost. But Yoshifuji, the object of her love, is equally fixated on the foxes. And his wife, Shikujo, who believes that foxes show more are evil tricksters dangerous to humans, watches as the obsession consumes her husband. All three are caught in a web of dishonesty, guilt and forbidden desires, and all three must find their own way out. One of the best endings I've read in recent memory.

Recommended if you enjoy historically accurate retellings based on Japanese fairy tales told in diary form.

3.5 stars

(SPOILER)My favorite part was when Yoshifuji goes to live with Kitsune in the fox world. I loved how time was different in their world within a world. How the fox magic manifested all around them - in the house, ladies-in-waiting, clothes, etc. Like a magical bubble in the backyard. "I think I wouldn't have seen my fox wife's illusion if I hadn't wanted it so much. That was a world where no one aged. My fox wife was eternally beautiful."(END SPOILER)

A few passages I bookmarked:

"I didn't wish I were still a mere fox, but I wished being a woman were less of a burden." (Kitsune)

"But perhaps there is something more correct even than elegance. My father owns a set of sake cups, a treasure that has been in his family for a thousand years (or so he says). They are hand-formed of rough pottery randomly splashed with black and green and silver. There is nothing delicate, nothing elegant, about them...As a child, I liked them better than the facile perfection of porcelain. 'They are honest,' my father said then. 'They do not break when you drink wine.' Perhaps honesty could be stronger, more beautiful than elegance and correctness." (Shikujo)

"...and so instead I take my tiny steps toward honesty and whisper the great truth here in my pillow book, and perhaps someday into my husband's ear (whether Yoshifuji or another). Perhaps there is a Pure Land where we go when we die. But perhaps there is not. And either way, it is wise to live well, here and now. I will not run. I will be alive. The fox woman, my husband and I. Of us all, she understood this best." (Shikujo)

"If he sees the ball rolled across the snow, I will be so happy, but it does not matter; I will still build a world of the best of all these things." (Kitsune) show less

Kij Johnson is a writer I don't know as well as I might like. That is to say, I read and enjoyed The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, and I think I have read some of her short fiction, but what I know of her makes me think I would like her a lot. So I was glad to get the opportunity to pick up a copy of The Privilege of the Happy Ending from Small Beer Press, which collects a bunch of her short fiction from the past decade.

Almost all the stories here focus on animals, and many of the stories use show more what we would recognize as postmodern or self-reflexive techniques. So, they may be a bit of an acquired taste for some readers—but for me, it is the kind of taste I have indeed acquired. I liked "Tool-Using Mimics," which offers a number of different explanations for a photograph of a girl with octopus tentacles; "Five Sphinxes and 56 Answers," which focuses on deconstructing the story of the sphinx as well as a young girl obsessed with the sphinx; and all three of the "Certain Lorebooks for Apartment Dwellers," which chronicle magical symbols, strange beasts, and bizarre dreams while also telling in brief snippets stories about relationships. I will say that Johnson has her go-to techniques in her stories, and for me this meant that when some concept or idea or trope turned up two times in rapid succession, it made me like the weaker implementation of it less than I might have had I read it in isolation. For example, I didn't really get into "Butterflies of Eastern Texas." The upside of a single-author collection is seeing how a writer develops a theme; the downside, I suppose, is that you might get tired of it.

There are only a couple stories I didn't get on with. "Coyote Invents the Land of the Dead" took me three tries to get through, and I never did figure out what was going on. "The Ghastly Spectre of Toad Hall" is a The Wind in the Willows sequel; I have only the vaguest memories of that book, which didn't help, but its anthropomorphic animals are an ill fit among the strange and uncanny animals of the rest of the collection. It might be good, but this is the wrong context for it.

I was glad for the chance to reread "The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe," and I found even more to enjoy in its depiction of middle age than I did the first time. Of all the stories in the book, this one engenders thoughts of a sequel: what would it be like for someone from a dreamworld to go on a quest in our world? But perhaps that's better left imagined. (This novella on its own makes the book good value for money; Tor.com sells it on its own for $15 in hard copy, but you can buy this whole collection for $17!) I particularly liked the volume's final story, "The Privilege of the Happy Ending," which is about a girl and her talking chicken trying to survive an infestation of weird, bizarre animals. As the title points out, it demonstrates how happy endings are privileges, by sometimes choosing to tell you what happens to side characters, and sometimes not. Not all stories have happy endings, but how happy an ending is depends on where you stop and who you care about.

So while I wish this was both a little less repetitive (surely Johnson has something to say about topics other than animals?) and a little more cohesive ("Toad Hall" is an odd fit, but to be honest, so is "Vellitt Boe"), it's a good way to be exposed to a master of the craft of short fiction. Most of the stories can be found online... but though you could do that, will you? Read them in this book. As for myself, I will be seeking out her earlier At the Mouth of the River of Bees now. show less

What? WHAT? WHAT???

What was this that I just read? It was pure soul magic, that's what it was.

I could laugh. I could cry. I could read it aloud to anyone who would let me. I could memorize it to always have it with me.

I can't think of any one of any age that wouldn't like this story, and for each person, age 3 to 133, there would be a universal meaning all to themselves.

The magic needs nothing but you.

If you are reading this review, go read the story. Be happy and astounded.

Thank you to show more new GR friend, Ken, for the recommendation. It was a gift that I'm off now to pass on to others. I won't even charge $1.

Here is where you can read it for yourself https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/johnson_03_19_reprint/ show less