The Man Who Bridged the Mist
by Kij Johnson
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The river of Mist, an almost living organism, divides the Empire in two. A few Ferries make dangerous and treacherous journeys across the Mist when they can, trusting in good fortune and the uncanny skills of those plying the trade. *** A bridge across thTags
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https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-paper-menagerie-by-ken-liu-the-man-who-bridg...
When I first read it in 2012, I wrote:
"I thought this was a brilliant story of a world not quite our own, with a hero-engineer dealing with the challenges of a river of deadly mist and of facing up to his own emotional needs – an odd but effective mixture of immersive fantasy and basic technology. Excellent stuff, which I really hope wins the [Hugo] award."
Again, I still like this story. Re-reading it, I was interested that the world where the story is set is equivalent to early modern in technology, but has much better gender equality; the emotional core of the story is the bridge-builder’s love affair with one of the river sailors who will be put show more out of business by the bridge. show less
When I first read it in 2012, I wrote:
"I thought this was a brilliant story of a world not quite our own, with a hero-engineer dealing with the challenges of a river of deadly mist and of facing up to his own emotional needs – an odd but effective mixture of immersive fantasy and basic technology. Excellent stuff, which I really hope wins the [Hugo] award."
Again, I still like this story. Re-reading it, I was interested that the world where the story is set is equivalent to early modern in technology, but has much better gender equality; the emotional core of the story is the bridge-builder’s love affair with one of the river sailors who will be put show more out of business by the bridge. show less
Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: The river of Mist, an almost living organism, divides the Empire in two. A few Ferries make dangerous and treacherous journeys across the Mist when they can, trusting in good fortune and the uncanny skills of those plying the trade. *** A bridge across the Mist will greatly ease the suffering of those who risk crossing the river. The last bridge builder sent by the Empire died while building it. *** Kit now comes to the town of Nearside to complete the task left unfinished by the dead bridge builder. Will he be the man who will finally bridge the Mist?
This novella won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for Best Novella of 2011.
My Review: My Goodreads friend Nataliya recommended this novella to me show more today. The title, as beautiful and evocative as this author's debut collection of short fiction's was (At the Mouth of the River of Bees), hooked me; the Doc's warble of rapture sealed the deal.
Bless you, dear Doc, bless you and those whose hurts and harms you heal with that magiqckal ability to see and fix a pattern. This story was a piece of my own pattern that was missing, and you gave it to me.
This tale of a man in a world not entirely like our own, a man whose purpose is to function and whose function is to build, that needs a way to communicate and connect its parts. Technology isn't advanced, and there's not even a HINT of majgicqk to sully the handsome, spare caternary curve of the story. It is a story of a world beset by troubles we know bone-deep, connection and confusion and longing and fear. And every character, no matter how fleeting their time or how small their space on the page, carries the weight of their piece of the pattern fairly and squarely. This is how I know I'm in the presence of top-quality writing. I see the pattern, I sense the supporting structure, and I am still *in* the story. Many writers write lovely sentences and many others imagine some strong characters, relatable and investible, and many many more create stories that bind and grip and sweep and carry me away. A very few do two of these things, and a vanishingly small number do them all. In this work, Johnson has done them all.
In a fortyish-page novella, five years of toil and change and death and learning fold into a structure as deceptively simple as an origami crane. The slow and unhurried pace at which the folds present themselves belies the time it took to craft them as well as the conciseness of their delivery. It is never easy to be brief. It is much more demanding to satisfy the jaded, spoiled-for-choice reader in a compact package.
Simple, direct, truthful, and (for me anyway) resonant with truth.
Perhaps the defining moment of the story, the bridging of the Mist River, came for me when Kit and Rasali experience a deeply, intensely frightening encounter with the Mist. Reflecting on it, and on the death that comes for us all at some time we can't know for sure, Kij Johnson rang my eyes like gongs:
Won't it, though?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
The Publisher Says: The river of Mist, an almost living organism, divides the Empire in two. A few Ferries make dangerous and treacherous journeys across the Mist when they can, trusting in good fortune and the uncanny skills of those plying the trade. *** A bridge across the Mist will greatly ease the suffering of those who risk crossing the river. The last bridge builder sent by the Empire died while building it. *** Kit now comes to the town of Nearside to complete the task left unfinished by the dead bridge builder. Will he be the man who will finally bridge the Mist?
This novella won the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for Best Novella of 2011.
My Review: My Goodreads friend Nataliya recommended this novella to me show more today. The title, as beautiful and evocative as this author's debut collection of short fiction's was (At the Mouth of the River of Bees), hooked me; the Doc's warble of rapture sealed the deal.
There was for everything a possibility, an invisible pattern that could be made manifest given work and the right materials.
Bless you, dear Doc, bless you and those whose hurts and harms you heal with that magiqckal ability to see and fix a pattern. This story was a piece of my own pattern that was missing, and you gave it to me.
This tale of a man in a world not entirely like our own, a man whose purpose is to function and whose function is to build, that needs a way to communicate and connect its parts. Technology isn't advanced, and there's not even a HINT of majgicqk to sully the handsome, spare caternary curve of the story. It is a story of a world beset by troubles we know bone-deep, connection and confusion and longing and fear. And every character, no matter how fleeting their time or how small their space on the page, carries the weight of their piece of the pattern fairly and squarely. This is how I know I'm in the presence of top-quality writing. I see the pattern, I sense the supporting structure, and I am still *in* the story. Many writers write lovely sentences and many others imagine some strong characters, relatable and investible, and many many more create stories that bind and grip and sweep and carry me away. A very few do two of these things, and a vanishingly small number do them all. In this work, Johnson has done them all.
In a fortyish-page novella, five years of toil and change and death and learning fold into a structure as deceptively simple as an origami crane. The slow and unhurried pace at which the folds present themselves belies the time it took to craft them as well as the conciseness of their delivery. It is never easy to be brief. It is much more demanding to satisfy the jaded, spoiled-for-choice reader in a compact package.
“The soul often hangs in a balance of some sort. Tonight do I lie down in the high fields with Dirk Tanner or not? At the fair, do I buy ribbons or wine? For the new ferry’s headboard, do I use camphor or pearwood? Small things. A kiss, a ribbon, a grain that coaxes the knife this way or that. They are not, Kit Meinem of Atyar. Our souls wait for our answer because any answer changes us. This is why I wait to decide what I feel about your bridge. I’m waiting until I know how I will be changed.”
“You never know how things will change you,” Kit said.
“If you don’t, you have not waited to find out.”
Simple, direct, truthful, and (for me anyway) resonant with truth.
Perhaps the defining moment of the story, the bridging of the Mist River, came for me when Kit and Rasali experience a deeply, intensely frightening encounter with the Mist. Reflecting on it, and on the death that comes for us all at some time we can't know for sure, Kij Johnson rang my eyes like gongs:
“If {Death} comes for you?” he said. “Would you be so sanguine then?”
She laughed and the pensiveness was gone. “No indeed. I will curse the stars and go down fighting. But it will still have been a wonderful thing, to cross the mist.”
Won't it, though?
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
I loved this. Be warned however, I deeply love things that are pretty damn subtle. Other people often complain to me that the stories I think are gorgeously understated seem to them to be just dull as paste. So if you are a fan of fireworks... hm.
For me however, this novella goes straight to my happy place. Elegant, lithe, deceptively simple prose about people doing their honorable best without hoopla or pat answers. Nobody standing on cliffs with their hair blowing in the fans declaiming about the destiny of mankind, nobody flinging themselves into a volcano for love, no deus coming creaking along in his pasteboard and gilt machina to solve problems at the very last minute. Just a nice guy building a bridge, getting to know the people show more of the villages that will be linked by the bridge, falling in love.
Subtly underpinning that simple story are wonderful ideas about right livelihood, and the human need to test and challenge oneself against the world, what is lost and gained by so doing, how to love without ownership, what its like to be in a community but not of it, and mmmm, lovely understated intelligent yummy deliciousness.
At one point the title character looks out into the mist that he is building a bridge over and:
"Deep in the mist he saw shadows that might have been a Big One, or something smaller or a thickening of the mist, and then, his eyes learning what to look for, he saw more of the shadows, as though a school of fish were down there. One separated and darkened as it rose in the mist until it exposed its back almost immediately below Kit.
It was dark and knobby, shiny with moisture, flat as a skate, and it went on forever - thirty feet perhaps, or forty, twisting as it rose...The creature rolled and then sank and became a shadow and then nothing as the mist closed back over it.
That's what this story was like for me. A simple tale of a guy going to a town to build a bridge, but rolling in the mist of that simplicity, big important ideas that slip up to the surface and sink back again, informing the ordinary tenor of days with magic. show less
For me however, this novella goes straight to my happy place. Elegant, lithe, deceptively simple prose about people doing their honorable best without hoopla or pat answers. Nobody standing on cliffs with their hair blowing in the fans declaiming about the destiny of mankind, nobody flinging themselves into a volcano for love, no deus coming creaking along in his pasteboard and gilt machina to solve problems at the very last minute. Just a nice guy building a bridge, getting to know the people show more of the villages that will be linked by the bridge, falling in love.
Subtly underpinning that simple story are wonderful ideas about right livelihood, and the human need to test and challenge oneself against the world, what is lost and gained by so doing, how to love without ownership, what its like to be in a community but not of it, and mmmm, lovely understated intelligent yummy deliciousness.
At one point the title character looks out into the mist that he is building a bridge over and:
"Deep in the mist he saw shadows that might have been a Big One, or something smaller or a thickening of the mist, and then, his eyes learning what to look for, he saw more of the shadows, as though a school of fish were down there. One separated and darkened as it rose in the mist until it exposed its back almost immediately below Kit.
It was dark and knobby, shiny with moisture, flat as a skate, and it went on forever - thirty feet perhaps, or forty, twisting as it rose...The creature rolled and then sank and became a shadow and then nothing as the mist closed back over it.
That's what this story was like for me. A simple tale of a guy going to a town to build a bridge, but rolling in the mist of that simplicity, big important ideas that slip up to the surface and sink back again, informing the ordinary tenor of days with magic. show less
This is one of those books that is hard for me to classify as either sci-fi or fantasy.
It's deliciously subtle and simple and complex, all at the same time. Kit is a bridge builder who has come to build a bridge across the mist. This mist "river" slices the empire nearly in half. The only way to cross the mist is by ferry, which is more than a little treacherous. The mist is dangerous and mysterious. Its properties are neither thoroughly explained, nor really Known. There are dangerous creatures that live in the mist and it seems to be largely unpredictable.
This story isn't about the mist, though, although it is almost its own character. The story is about Kit and not just his building of the bridge, but his life, his character and his show more relationship with the townsfolk and other workers, especially the ferry-woman Rasali, whose livelihood (and love) his bridge will destroy. I love the townsfolk, the characters, their feelings and acceptance of life. I love the environment and the weirdness and zen of it all.
This work is complicated and deep, gentle and sophisticated. I've only read a couple of Johnson's other works and she's just a consistently phenomenal writer. This doesn't have the emotional sucker punch of last year's [b:Ponies|10452275|Ponies|Kij Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328154090s/10452275.jpg|15268747], but it's just as strong and beautifully done. show less
It's deliciously subtle and simple and complex, all at the same time. Kit is a bridge builder who has come to build a bridge across the mist. This mist "river" slices the empire nearly in half. The only way to cross the mist is by ferry, which is more than a little treacherous. The mist is dangerous and mysterious. Its properties are neither thoroughly explained, nor really Known. There are dangerous creatures that live in the mist and it seems to be largely unpredictable.
This story isn't about the mist, though, although it is almost its own character. The story is about Kit and not just his building of the bridge, but his life, his character and his show more relationship with the townsfolk and other workers, especially the ferry-woman Rasali, whose livelihood (and love) his bridge will destroy. I love the townsfolk, the characters, their feelings and acceptance of life. I love the environment and the weirdness and zen of it all.
This work is complicated and deep, gentle and sophisticated. I've only read a couple of Johnson's other works and she's just a consistently phenomenal writer. This doesn't have the emotional sucker punch of last year's [b:Ponies|10452275|Ponies|Kij Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328154090s/10452275.jpg|15268747], but it's just as strong and beautifully done. show less
This is one of those books that is hard for me to classify as either sci-fi or fantasy.
It's deliciously subtle and simple and complex, all at the same time. Kit is a bridge builder who has come to build a bridge across the mist. This mist "river" slices the empire nearly in half. The only way to cross the mist is by ferry, which is more than a little treacherous. The mist is dangerous and mysterious. Its properties are neither thoroughly explained, nor really Known. There are dangerous creatures that live in the mist and it seems to be largely unpredictable.
This story isn't about the mist, though, although it is almost its own character. The story is about Kit and not just his building of the bridge, but his life, his character and his show more relationship with the townsfolk and other workers, especially the ferry-woman Rasali, whose livelihood (and love) his bridge will destroy. I love the townsfolk, the characters, their feelings and acceptance of life. I love the environment and the weirdness and zen of it all.
This work is complicated and deep, gentle and sophisticated. I've only read a couple of Johnson's other works and she's just a consistently phenomenal writer. This doesn't have the emotional sucker punch of last year's [b:Ponies|10452275|Ponies|Kij Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328154090s/10452275.jpg|15268747], but it's just as strong and beautifully done. show less
It's deliciously subtle and simple and complex, all at the same time. Kit is a bridge builder who has come to build a bridge across the mist. This mist "river" slices the empire nearly in half. The only way to cross the mist is by ferry, which is more than a little treacherous. The mist is dangerous and mysterious. Its properties are neither thoroughly explained, nor really Known. There are dangerous creatures that live in the mist and it seems to be largely unpredictable.
This story isn't about the mist, though, although it is almost its own character. The story is about Kit and not just his building of the bridge, but his life, his character and his show more relationship with the townsfolk and other workers, especially the ferry-woman Rasali, whose livelihood (and love) his bridge will destroy. I love the townsfolk, the characters, their feelings and acceptance of life. I love the environment and the weirdness and zen of it all.
This work is complicated and deep, gentle and sophisticated. I've only read a couple of Johnson's other works and she's just a consistently phenomenal writer. This doesn't have the emotional sucker punch of last year's [b:Ponies|10452275|Ponies|Kij Johnson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1328154090s/10452275.jpg|15268747], but it's just as strong and beautifully done. show less
A winner of the 2012 Hugo for best novella and it shows. It's the story of a builder and the people around him as they struggle to build a bridge across a river covered by a mysterious mist. There's a whole world described in this novella and it is very believable, although nothing is known about the mist (nor explained). It has good characters, great development and a nice and touching finale. Loses half a star only for feeling slightly stretched here and there.
Well worth reading and it feels like the world is too well crafted for just a novella, perhaps a novel is in the works? That would certainly be something I'd look forward to.
Well worth reading and it feels like the world is too well crafted for just a novella, perhaps a novel is in the works? That would certainly be something I'd look forward to.
A beautiful and romantic fantasy novella of an engineer who arrives to build a bridge over a river of poisonous mist, and the ferrywoman whose life has been devoted to crossing that treacherous expanse. Evocative, thoughtful, and bittersweet.
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- Canonical title
- The Man Who Bridged the Mist
- Original title
- The Man Who Bridged the Mist
- Original publication date
- 2011-10
- People/Characters
- Kit Meinem of Atyar; Rasali Ferry of Farside
- Important places
- Nearside; Farside
- Epigraph*
- A fo ben, bid bont.
Pour être un chef, sois un pont.
Proverbe gallois. - First words*
- Kit arriva à Procheville avec deux malles et un porte-documents en tissu huilé contenant les plans du pont sur la brume.
- Last words*
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)Lorsque le moment viendra, dit-il, que tu partiras sur l'Océan, je viendrai avec toi.
- Original language*
- Anglais (Etats-Unis) (Etats-Unis)
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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- 92
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- 349,229
- Reviews
- 11
- Rating
- (3.97)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 5
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- 2
