First impressions review: In the Vanisher’s Palace, by Aliette de Bodard
This little book is probably the most interesting ‘Beauty and the Beast’ retelling I’ve ever read. Both classic and Disney elements are certainly there: a girl who doesn’t quite fit in her provincial village is confined to the palace of a monster, starts to fall for her not-actually-so-monstrous host/captor (who gives her access to a library), misses an aging/ailing parent and leaves the palace, but ultimately returns. However, in this case the setting is not late-Medieval France but post-colonial Vietnam – post alien colonization, that is! And monster is a female dragon named Vu Côn who wants the poor scholar Yên to act as a sort of governess to her two unruly offspring. As for the matter of leaving and returning…that diverges significantly from the original as well!
The titular "Vanishers" remain rather mysterious. What we do learn is that they were an advanced alien race who colonized the earth, enslaved many of its inhabitants - including the dragons – and, when they departed, left the world trashed, full of toxins and viruses and dangerous "constructs". The struggle for survival has turned human society harsh, and when Yên’s mother is forced to call up a dragon to heal the village head’s daughter, the elders are all too happy to hand the “useless” non-magical scholar Yên over as the price for the healing.
The depiction of the dragon is very interesting. She is a shape-shifter, moving between human and reptilian form partly at will, partly depending on mood and energy level. She lives in the “Vanisher’s Palace” (a building with weird geometries that could have been designed by MC Escher) partly because it gives her the tools she needs to carry out her duty to the world, and partly as a reminder that her former tormenters are gone. Yên is fascinated by her even when she assumes her fate is to be the dragon’s next meal:
Something pushed from beneath the water – emerging, lithe and sinuous, a huge, serpentine body, translucent stubs of antlers with the same glow as the moon’s - …her roar the thunder of a storm that stripped leaves and bark from the trees…Mother had been right: she was beautiful…For a bare moment, she was two things in the same place. And then the serpentine body faded, and only the shape of a human remained…Her eyes were the color of a storm, never quite holding a shade or nuance, blue and grey and green in a dizzying dance, and the pupils were a dragon’s, dark and bottomless. Even if Yên had been free, even if she could have moved, she’d have remained there, staring into them until she was lost.
The attraction between these characters is maybe a little sudden, given that we don’t get a particularly clear description of what Yên looks like and Vu Côn’s cold, damp qualities and tendency to sprout claws and horns don’t seem like they’d be attractive features to anyone who isn’t already a bit of a “scaly”. However, the pair do have a lot of interests and traits in common and would probably have fallen for each other at some point regardless.
Incidentally, the queer representation goes beyond the relationship between a bisexual dragon and a human woman. Both one of the elders of the village and one of the dragon’s children are non-binary, while Yên also teaches her pupils a legend centered on a gay love story that turns out to be quite relevant. Apparently, in Vietnamese one refers to oneself by a first-person pronoun (“I”) that can be male, female, or neutral. That is neat, but having to explain in English every time someone automatically declares their own gender instead of just being able to use said pronouns is slightly awkward! A few other interesting cultural details… Like gege (older brother) in Chinese, a term that translates as “lil’ sis” can be used as familiar address to either actual sibling, friend, or lover. Also, âm and duong appear to be equivalent to yin and yang, but in this interpretation each person has an âm self and a duong self that can become dislocated from one another.
Besides “surviving and healing from the after-effects of colonialisms”, there are a number of other interesting themes explored in this story. What makes someone a useful member of society, and should one have to justify their usefulness to be valued or allowed to live? Is it the ones who gave you your genetics or the ones who raised you who are your true parents? How much of who we are comes from some “underlying nature” versus the values we were taught or choose to adopt? At what point does protectiveness cross over into undue control?
Yên is kind of your run-of-the-mill spunky bookish heroine, but I liked her. Vu Côn is much more interesting to me. Unlike in many Beauty and the Beast stories, she’s never deliberately rude to Yên, nor is she trying to get her to fall in love. She recognizes the unbalanced power dynamic between them and tries to treat Yên with consideration while burying the pull she feels toward her. I also like that the dragon stays a dragon – After all, Yên clearly has no problem with her more reptilian characteristics, and Vu Côn was never under a curse. She has quite a strong personal moral code, and the only real conflict comes, ‘Pride and Prejudice’ style, from misunderstanding. The twins, Dan Thông and Dan Liên, are a mischievous delight...but also a little threatening, as they come into adolescent powers they are a bit frightened of themselves.
Overall recommendations: If you are in the mood for a Sapphic fairytale, a story that has aliens and dragons, or just a quick read that is both dark and uplifting, give this book a try!
Please note that, despite the petite size of the book and its cute cover, it is NOT a children's book. The sex or violence aren’t super graphic – though the mere idea of a machine that strips off your skin, muscle, and bone while you’re alive is pretty nightmare-inducing! - but since it has both some of that and references to things like colonialism that older readers are more likely to understand, I'd recommend it for ages 15 and up.
Notes about the author: de Bodard is of mixed French and Vietnamese descent, grew up in the US but lives in Paris, and works as a software engineer. So definitely someone with a lot of influences to draw on!
