Ratings43
Average rating3.9
My full review can be found at SFF Book Review.
I had a lot of trouble finding into this book. My suspicion is that it is much more accessible for people with any knowledge of ancient Chinese mythology. Since my knowledge was limited to a movie adaptation of “Journey to the West” I am sure I missed at least half the tongue-in-cheek references to other tales and legends.
But even without knowing anything about Chinese mythology, this can be enjoyed purely for the fun. Master Li, a wise man with a slight flaw in his character, and Number Ten Ox, travel around China, meet a delightful group of people, solve mysteries, break curses, and get almost killed more than once. Despite the slimness of this novel, there were edge-of-your-seat momentso f action, little moments of depth and many, many quotable bits.
Once I knew what kind of story I had stumbled into, I could thorougly enjoy it. I laughed, I was shocked, and I tried guessing along with Master Li. A highly recommended, wonderfully fresh fantasy novel (despite its publication in 1985) that should be enjoyed by any fantasy fan who likes fun.
8/10 - Excellent
This year I have read many books so far, discovering some truly excellent ones. Seriously, it seems like a pretty good year for reading to me. Bridge of Birds was one of my absolute favourites, though, so grab a drink and prepare for the gushing that is about to happen here. It's not going to be graceful and it's probably not too valuable to anyone who reads it.
I don't really mind.
Number Ten Ox is a nice person living in ancient China, a young man who is not particularly brilliant, but is a generally good one. An orphan, but not really a damaged, poor sod. In his village a mysterious illness makes every child between the age of 8 and 13 to end up in a come, heading straight to death and of course someone like Number Ten Ox can't just let that happen, so he goes to find a wise man to help him cure the children.
He ends up with Master Li, who is wise for sure and really cunning, but a bit of a senior troublemaker. The two of them have to go through everything to save the children and uncover many mysteries and help strangers, some of them dead for centuries already.
The whole thing reads like the most charming, witty, entertaining folk story for real, it doesn't just sound like that. It has life, it truly shines as a hearty tale of hilarious heroes and some sort of a positive, wise outlook on life. It just made me feel warm and fuzzy on the inside, okay? Don't judge me, but this thing was what I needed. You know, sweater weather and all that.
But really, Mr. Hughart managed to create something that feels alive, like a story you could imagine people telling each other, maybe piece by piece, then forming one coherent story, like the mysteries the characters solve, that also formed one big thing that wraps up nicely.
Now the setting is ancient China, which, again, was solved with triumphs of storytelling. You DO feel like the prose takes you to a whole different era and place and it absolutely (thankfully) lacks any form of signifier of being created in the 80's. No, you won't think of that time, you will feel like you are actually getting something much older.
At the same time the “Chinese feel” doesn't distance it from you. At least I never felt like I couldn't follow because of the cultural differences. It just felt... right. Like it was some sort of a universally enjoyable story with values for everyone, really. Timeless, I say.
The character all started out as these typical, slightly over the top fairy tale people, as it is customary in stories like this. But then the author did these things when somehow they managed to rise above that. Some moments were generally touching, not gonna lie, I even cried once or twice.
For a book that was so incredibly hilarious, it had really deep moment of true emotion and beautiful scenes.
It's really hard to write anything else. You have to experience this book. I'm kind of baffled by it not being all that known; this is the kind of treat that deserves to be out there, accessible for everyone and receiving more love. I guess another book I will try to make people read?
Now go and track down your copy (it will be an adventure of its own, Chinese wise man not included)!
There must be a slight flaw in my character because I couldn't put this book down. Li Kao and Number Ten Ox are right up there with the greatest of mythical heroes. More wine please.
This book is the reason I joined Sword and Laser. My copy is a dingy paperback that I'd never heard of before and probably have walked past a million times in used book shops without a thought. Inside, it's almost exactly the type of fairy tale I thrive on.
I was nervous at first because a guy named “Barry Hughart” was writing an homage to Chinese mythology, and I'm still curious as to what someone with the cultural background would think of it. My own knowledge of Chinese myths is limited to a few Journey to the West adaptations and some questionable Taiwanese dramas. Still, I think Hughart really captured the storytelling flavor of an ancient myth, from any culture. It's witty and clever at some points, then bawdy and gratuitous the next. The balance kept me engaged without the book itself becoming pretentious in any way.
I felt a lot of the style was also very reminiscent of a reversed Don Quixote, with a clueless Sancho Panza and a clever knight. Li Kao's slightly flawed character is a little bit wise sage and a lot of folk trickster. The dialogue had me laughing out loud regularly, particularly anything involving Ma Grub and Pawnbroker Fang. Number 10 Ox is a little harder to grasp, but then again he's the readers avatar into the world and just as confused as we're supposed to be at times.
I loved the twists and turns that slowly wrap the main characters into a larger, more epic tale, and the way that plot turns in on itself time and again. Miser Shen is probably my favorite character, and also the only one responsible for me getting weepy eyed.
The only problem I have with the book is one I have consistently with fantasy fiction, and since this book was written in the eighties and set in “A China that Never Was,” it can't really lean on the “period piece” crutch I give to a lot of authors. The book represents women pretty awfully. Every female character in the story is either an awful, greedy succubus or a sexy bimbo. I might give Bright Star the exception here, but being half-naked most of her time on stage and valued only as a concubine, I really can't. I did enjoy Lotus Cloud and the way men reacted to her. I felt her role in the story was appropriate to her character, but still I don't think it would be too hard to portray a single woman as an intelligent being.
I think it only grated on me because the horrible women are so horrible and there is no redemption for any of them the way there is for most of the horrible men. Murdering them is seen as the appropriate solution. I don't mind the ridiculously gory violence, which is par for the course in the little Chinese mythology I know, but there is just no balance in the story on gender lines. I feel like I bring this up in every review I make and I'm sounding like a pretentious women's studies major, but I just feel the criticism is valid here.
It's a shame that it puts such a damper on what would otherwise be a five-star book for me. The pacing, the humor, the depth of emotions explored all make it a wonderful read, and I will certainly continue on in the series once I can find the other two books. I would certainly recommend it to anyone with a love of mythology and a good sense of humor.
This was a really good story. I listened to it and the reader did a wonderful job.
I feel bad. I finished this book two days after we recorded the episode of Sword and Laser where we wrap it up (first time I haven't finished a book for the audio show). I blame [b:Outlander 10964 Outlander (Outlander, #1) Diana Gabaldon http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1304187141s/10964.jpg 2489796] for being too long.Anyhow, I wish I had made it to the end, because coming away from the book now I feel much differently than I did at the 75% mark. If felt like the silliness that was almost a distraction for me came together in the end in a really beautiful and meaningful way. You all said I'd feel different, and you were right. I should listen to you more often.
Executive Summary: This book provides a good mix of adventure and humor with a bit of action and mystery thrown in for good measure. It's only about 250 pages, so it makes for a quick read once you get into it. Highly recommend.
Full Review
This one got on my radar thanks to Sword & Laser from one of Aaron's great white boards. It got lost on my ever-growing to read list, until the club decided to make the February pick.
Normally I try to time things so I can read the club picks at the beginning of the month, but that wasn't going to work out this time, so I opted to read it early rather than later.
This books starts off a bit slow. There is a lot of flowery descriptive language in the first chapter and I just wasn't digging it. I'd almost say you could skip the first chapter, but it explains a few things that are important later in the story.
By chapter 2 though, the story had already started grabbing my interest. Master Li comes off a bit like a cartoon character to me, but I really enjoy him, despite the slight flaw in his character.
Master Li and Number Ten Ox go on increasingly dangerous adventures in the hopes of saving the children of Ox's town. It seems like Master Li has ever increasingly zany schemes to match the danger. I thought that everything is tied together nicely in the end.
I'm really looking forward to checking out the other two books in the series, as I purchased all 3 in the eBook omnibus.
First read - March/2013 - Astonished. Speechless. It was the best fantasy book I've ever read.
Second read - February/2014 - Once again, definitely, the fantasy book I've ever read.
A nice twist on the usual sword and sorcery fantasy trope. This time Middle Earth makes way for ancient China. Instead of orcs, elves and trolls we get mandarins, bonzes and ginseng.
Li Kao is an ancient scholar with “a slight flaw in his character” accompanied by Number Ten Ox, his “esteemed former client and current assistant”.
From there it's a caper meets Sherlock Holmes with a supernatural thriller bent and a bit of Hope and Crosby roadtrip thrown in for good measure.
Bridge of Birds gets a solid 4 stars but I continued on with The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen included in the omnibus edition. Halfway through I was at the unfortunate point where you find yourself reading just to finish.
I believe that every reader, no matter how old they are or where they are from, has a soft spot in their heart for fairy tales. I do not necessarily mean the traditional Western ones, of course, and certainly not the watered-down Disney renditions. I refer to fairy tales in a broad sense as the stories one hears from one's parents or grandparents (or great-grandparents, for those who have had the great good fortune to know them) when one is a child. Globalization has, of course, made the Western fairy tales (particularly those collected by the Brothers Grimm) widely known and popular, but every culture has their own fairy tales and folktales that are still (hopefully) told to children.
The East (China, Japan, India, and the Middle East) is, naturally, a hotbed for beautiful fairy tales. In fact, some fairy tales which are considered as “Western” might actually have their origins in Eastern stories. Take Cinderella, for instance: the oldest rendering of the tale containing all the familiar elements - maltreated serving girl, lost shoe, and a prince - is a Chinese story, except the glass slipper was actually made of fur in that version; how it became glass is not really quite clear. Nevertheless, the narrative is more or less the same, and experts in folklore studies generally agree that Cinderella was first a Chinese story that somehow made its way westwards via trading routes such as the Silk Road, where it was transformed into the version known today.
Some stories, however, don't quite make that transition. A good example is the tale of the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd. The Weaver Girl is a goddess who falls in love with a lowly cowherd, but is forced to return to Heaven, despite having married the Cowherd. Taking pity upon the two lovers, the supreme deity of heaven (the name varies depending on which country's variation of this tale one might be reading or hearing) allows the two lovers to meet once every year, on the night of the seventh day of the seventh month (of the lunar calendar). On that night, birds (usually magpies and/or crows) come together to create a bridge over the Milky Way (which separates the two lovers for most of the year), and the Weaver Girl and the Cowherd meet on it. This story has become the basis for a group of notable festivals, usually associated with lovers: the Qixi Festival in China, the Tanabata Festival in Japan, and the Chilseok Festival in Korea.
Hughart's Bridge of Birds also makes use of this tale - in fact, the title of the novel is a reference to the bridge of birds the two lovers use to cross the Milky Way. However, Hughart does more than just that: there are other, seemingly innumerable other stories woven into the fabric of the novel: some familiar (fairy godmothers) and some not-so-familiar (miraculous ginseng). Also woven into the story are references to various personages and moments in China's history, ranging from Qin Huang Di, China's first Emperor, all the way down to Dowager Empress Cixi. Fortunately, Hughart's novel is a pleasant read without having an extensive background in Chinese history and literature, due in large part to the fact that the main characters are pretty fun on their own.
The narrator of the story (and the one whose actions set the whole thing in motion in the first place) is Lu Yu, though he goes by his nickname, Number Ten Ox (so-named because he is the tenth son of his family, and is as strong as an ox). A mysterious plague hits the children of his village, and he is sent to Peking to find a sage who can find a cure for the malady. In Peking, he stumbles across Li Kao, who claims to have “a slight flaw in [his] character.” After accepting Number Ten Ox's request for help, the two of them journey back to the village, where Li Kao figures out that the plague is not a plague, but poison. And in their pursuit for a cure, Li Kao and Number Ten Ox encounter a whole host of strange characters, and find themselves caught up in even stranger events involving the ghosts of soldiers and dancing-girls; a scary and all-powerful Duke; ancient labyrinths the size of cities; ginseng roots; and a lost princess.
The closest thing I can compare this novel to, as a whole, is the movie Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki. There is a sense of wonder in this novel that is not Disney-esque in the least, but can only be compared to the great animated works coming out of Miyazaki's mind - in fact, it might be said that it is almost possible to see this entire novel animated in his style. I suppose this is also due to the fact that, even though the story is supposedly set in a China of long, long ago in a kingdom far, far away, the characters (and the narrator) tend to speak (and narrate) in a very modern manner. The tone can get rather ironic in certain spots, and in Number Ten Ox's case, somewhat self-effacing, but truly earnest, in a rather endearing manner.
Li Kao, especially, is a very fun and enjoyable character. A trickster with a heart of gold, his schemes might occasionally be dubious and seem rather incredulous (even to the people in the story itself), but he usually finds a way to make things work out - even if it means escaping from a labyrinth housing a gigantic man-eating invisible spider by making a helicopter and powering said helicopter with firecrackers. He is also, interestingly enough, quite honest: note that whenever he introduces himself, he is quick to point out the flaw in his character - a flaw which, in fact, proves to be quite useful once Li Kao finally names what it is, and which, I think, isn't really that much of a flaw at all.
Aside from Number Ten Ox and Li Kao, there is a whole bunch of other characters that they run into: gods and ghosts and maidens and evil dukes and wise men who might not be so very wise after all - all of them make an appearance in the story, and oftentimes more than once. If these meetings and reunions seem a little too coincidental, well, that is explained too, towards the end of the book. The reader might get the urge to face-palm when he or she finds out why Li Kao and Number Ten Ox keep on running into these people and these situations all the time, but rest assured that even Li Kao wanted to do some face-palming himself when he realized the truth.
The best thing about Bridge of Birds is that, like all the best stories, it is both funny in its wisdom and wise in its humor, and very often bittersweet in its sadness and its joy. The reader will find himself or herself laughing out loud at some statement or situation, only to begin sighing in sadness or sympathy the moment immediately after. There is a sense of the slapstick in some of the funnier moments, but it is counterbalanced by a great deal of gentle, humorous wisdom - sometimes delivered by Li Kao, but more often than not, it is Number Ten Ox who proves to be a great font of wisdom himself. It might be because he is narrating this tale as an older man, but I do think that Number Ten Ox is quite intelligent in his own way. Of course, it's not easy to think of him as that, given his nickname, but Li Kao does say that Number Ten Ox is “afflicted with a pure heart” - and a pure heart has a wisdom all its own.
Overall, Bridge of Birds is a wonderful read: as I said earlier, it is funny in its wisdom, wise in its humor, and bittersweet in its joy and sadness. There is much made nowadays of contemporary adaptations of fairy tales, as well as of modern-day attempts at creating them, but Bridge of Birds must be, hands-down, one of the best, because, like the very best fairy tales, it contains a sense of hope and optimism - and, as Li Kao states towards the end of the novel, an ending that is “a whopper.”
Fun, unique and incredibly detailed for a book under 300 pages. I wasn't sure what to think when I first started reading, because it was written in such a way that reminded me of JRR Tolkien's Hobbit, where we the reader is being addressed now and again and there are a few tongue in cheek type humor moments sprinkled for good measure, but as I kept going and the bizarre adventures of Li Kao and Number Ten Ox built up and became more and more perilous - I was absolutely hooked. I really enjoyed the setting of China and it's unique culture at the forefront, the characters were likable and the overall book was a fun romp through folktale, ghost story and adventure.
I thought I was really going to like this one. Turned out I had a real problem staying engaged with the story. It gets rather repetitive in the middle, and the ending - which really did it for other people - was meh for me. I'm glad to to be done with it.
I just spent three very pleasant days with Master Li and Number Ten Ox. What an adventure! This is one of the most clever books I have read in a very long time. Surprises awaited at every turn, and I liked the crazy cast of characters. I am tempted to read it again and write down every little puzzle and gift just to see them match up again. There were some laugh out loud moments in this book, so fair warning if you are sneaking a few pages in at work. (The Feb 2013 pick for Sword and Laser).