Third in my reading of the top ten obscure speculative fiction works from Feminist SF, the Blog!. In this case the book is both very good, and something I didn’t like.
I’ll explain the latter first. This is not written in a style that I like. The few bits of Asian folk tales that I’ve read are generally not my bag, and The Fox Woman is a version of a Japanese folk tale. For one, Japanese nobility don’t seem to do anything in these folks tales. They write poetry. They observe rituals. Their servants shield them from the unpleasantness of the world. Second, the stories are couched in 300 layers of symbolism. I like stories that work on multiple levels, but I don’t want to have to be a scholar to get it. I felt like I would have gotten so much more from this if I had more background on that culture.
The issue of style aside, I thought the book was really well done and fairly enjoyable. To the extent I could get my head past the style that is.
Simple plot: Kaya no Yoshifuji is married to Shikujo. Kaya no Yoshifuji is a minor noble, but failed to receive a government appointment and so is going into internal exile at his country estate. Though his real reason for heading out there is less disfavor at court and more a mid-life crisis. He brings along his wife Shikujo and son Tadamaro with him. There’s a chill in the marriage, but their reticence and Japanese cultural customs prevent them from airing it out. At the estate also live a skulk of foxes. Foxes that are restless… I can’t think of the right word, but that’ll do. The daughter Kitsune wants to be more than a fox. both Yoshifuji and Shikujo fixate on the foxes living in the garden. Yoshifuji with wistfulness for fox freedom. And Shikujo because foxes represent danger.
Kitsune quickly falls in love with Yoshifuji. But she’s a fox, and he’s a human (and married! but that’s less an issue in the culture apparently). Solution! Magic! Little bit of chanting, a human skull, and the help of a few gods, and Kitsune can change herself into a human. Her entire family becomes human. And their den under the gatehouse becomes a palatial estate. Now she just has to lure Yoshifuji to her and get rid of Shikujo…
I thought the perspective of the foxes was really well done. They are not simply evil spirit tempters in this telling, though a quick aside about luring people into swamps with foxfire was amusing. They are just as ignorant of the magic they employ as humans. The have their own desires, perfectly reasonable if at odds with those of the people in whose garden they live. They aren’t a Japanese version of Loki.
And I really liked that there are ethical consequences to everyone’s actions and inaction. Every character of substance sees some growth in their moral compass as a result of the choices they make. No one gets an easy win. There’s no Hollywood ending that absolves the characters of their sins. I am not saying no one is absolved or not, you’ll need to read it to find out. But the story avoids paint-by-numbers ethics such as having Kitsune be the neighbor woman who consoles Yoshifuji after Shikujo’s tragic death and then becomes his lover, letting everyone be morally right. (That’s an example; again, I’m not saying anyone does or does not die.) Everyone faces the consequences of their own choices.
A good book, but I’ll probably not read more novels by the author set in medieval Japan. But it was interesting and well written enough for me to pick up (eventually, my pile of unread books scares me) her stories if they are in a style that fits me better.
Title: The Fox Woman
Author: Kij Johnson
Cover creator: Susan Seddon-Boulet (artist) / Nicole Stanco (design)
Series: Heian trilogy; 1
Imprint / publisher: Tor
Format: Paperback
Length: 382 p.
Publication date: 2000
ISBN-10: 0-312-87559-2
Subject: Foxes — Japan — Folklore — Fiction
Subject: Nobility — Japan — Fiction
LC classification: PS3560.O379716 F69 2000
It sounds very interesting. I am always fascinated by stories where animals and humans shift forms; but a different japanese story I read on these lines really put me off- I could not get into it. When Fox is a Thousand, it was called.