Book notes: The Saint of Bright Doors

By Vajra Chandraskera.

Listed in the New York Times Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2023 by Amal El-Mohtar.

Scoring:

• Axe for the frozen sea: 8/10.
• Page count: 353. Felt a little faster than that, perhaps an effective page count of 300?

Fetter is a boy in a fictional land that I assume that is based on somewhere in India. The book is about the journey of his life. It happens in modern times, though you would only know this by sparse references to emails and mobile phones. The author sets the hook right away in the beginning, where his mother rips his shadow away from him with a metal nail and sets him on a lifetime mission to commit all of the crimes in the “Five Unforgivables”, most importantly to kill his father. Half of the book is around class/caste struggles and political power. The other half is fantasy and myth/folklore stories.

First the great: I’m not sure you can create a richer world in 353 pages. In similar books there is a map at the beginning, though after reading the story you can understand why they can’t really include one. Fetter starts off in a village in the hinterlands, spends most of the story in the city of Luriat, and occasionally delves into other realms. The phrasing was remarkable, I was routinely delighted by the structure and execution of individual sentences. I doubt you will find another book like this.

The not-so-satisfying (for me anyways): It’s a rambler. At any given point you have zero chance of guessing what will happen next or how the book ends. For me the apex of the book is halfway through Fetter starts using his powers a bit more and makes some good progress on figuring out the bright doors and I was thinking “awww yeah, this is fantastic!”, but instead of wrapping the story up in a tidy fashion it drifts along. The end has some closure but we get an unexpected guest in the last 20 pages and the ending wasn’t satisfying for me. Perhaps that’s good? Maybe that’s real life, and it makes you stop and think.

Sometimes it feels like a dream sequence and I wasn’t sure what was real and possible and what wasn’t. Is the story really allowing someone to change the physical layout of the world? Fetter is a thinker and constantly questioning what might be happening in his world: Why hasn’t his adversary caught him yet? Because of this? Did his action from 30 pages ago cause harm to this other person? I was wondering at the same time “I’m not sure what’s real either.” Maybe we were in one of those inconsequential realms behind a bright door? Or maybe we are in myth/folklore territory?

Last nit: Fetter… you have superpowers one of them is the ability to fly. Why aren’t we more confident? Why aren’t we using these powers more often?

Having said that, I can see what the fuss is about. This would be a good book club book. This book is the equivalent of watching an oscar-nominated movie rather than an easy rom-com, so it depends on what you’re in the mood for.