"Masquerade" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

[Olga]

Just finished Chapter 8. Although I’m enjoying the story, I feel a bit of dissonance. Not sure how to describe it. I expected pre-colonial West Africa to feel more… different? The way people behave (kissing a woman’s hand for example) is such that the story could have happened at almost any other place/time. OK, not any, but in the Middle East in 19th century - can totally see that. I grew up on old movies about Anjelique (based on books by Ann and Serje Golon, totally butchered all the names, sorry) and in the one with sheikhs the atmosphere was very similar.

I’m trying to catch some traditional motives and cultural identity, but so far it’s not much.
Please help. Am I prejudiced somehow? Am I missing something?

[Adeline]

The worldbuilding felt quite shallow to me, so I'd say you are not prejudiced.

[lanlynk]

Olga wrote: "Just finished Chapter 8. Although I’m enjoying the story, I feel a bit of dissonance. Not sure how to describe it. I expected pre-colonial West Africa to feel more… different?"

I had similar issues. I even looked up what West African society was like in the 1400s. Urban life was more civilized than we usually picture for this time period. So maybe the book's descriptions were fairly realistic, especially given that it was set in an alternate world.

[lanlynk]

SFFBC wrote: "A few questions to get us started:


1. What did you think of the world?
2. What did you think of the characters?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?"

1. I had a little difficulty imagining the world, probably because of my preconceived ideas about what West Africa would have been like during that time period. But I found the descriptions interesting, prompting me to search online for 15th century history of West Africa.
2. The characters were well-developed, intriguing. Not many were likeable though. I could relate to their struggles, but found a lot of their choices shocking, even horrifying. I started distancing myself one-by-one from the characters.
3. The myths, religion, and art attracted me. So did the uniqueness of the time period and culture. But I had trouble with the way the author dealt with the ideas of power and freedom--how easily the characters resorted to betrayal and murder.
4. Lots to think about within this story. MASQUERADE: hiding unspeakable atrocities behind smiling masks of friendship and love. Also, masquerade rituals at West African funerals and the king's crown that hid the ruler's face.

[Adeline]

I also looked up some things after that ending. (Mainly regarding rules of succession, lol.) Apparently blacksmiths in western Africa had a high status in society because of their economic value.

To quote wikipedia: The Ife and the Oyo people of Yorubaland are very similar in their spiritual and ritual beliefs. Both base their existence around ironworking. To these African civilizations, iron had become the key to their development and survival, and it was worshiped as such. The Ife and Oyo people believe that the blacksmith has the power to express the spirit of Ogun, the god of iron, because they create iron, which is the foundation for their survival.

Why was this not in the book? Why turn blacksmiths into some kind of pariahs? I don't think it was necessary to the plot.

[Olga]

Finished. And so far it's the disappointment of the year. Which makes me very sad.

In January I read The Bear and the Nightingale, where Russian culture was alive and vibrant and I had almost no qualms with the way it was portrayed (although I'm usually a stickler for the details). The author is American. I was grateful to her for such a great representation of our culture.

And here I expected something of the kind, but with African culture, especially since it's written by a Nigerian American author. But what I got was "vanity table, goblin, ogre"...

Adeline wrote: "Why was this not in the book? Why turn blacksmiths into some kind of pariahs? I don't think it was necessary to the plot."
Yes! All the "why"s throughout the book!

[Melanie, the neutral party]

Some of the books discrepencies seem to be because it is trying to be a loose retelling of the Greek Persophone story.

[lanlynk]

I struggled trying to rate this book. It started out a possible 5 stars for me, then sank to a 3. Finally, I settled on a 4 because it made me think. I wondered how the author expected a reader to react to the story's ending. Was she praising the MC's quest for personal power or was she showing the sacrifices such a craving required?

I kept thinking about how the myth of Persephone got twisted around. In the original myth, Persephone spent half the year with her mother, reigning over Spring, renewal, agriculture, and life. The other 6 months was spent with Hades in the underworld.

But in this retold version, Òdòdó kills her mother and her husband both, and is determined to eliminate anyone else who might stand in her way. In the end, she dons the king's crown--masking her own identity--and becomes what she had just killed: her Oppressor, The Commander of Death--Hades, Ruler of Hell.

[aPriL does feral sometimes]

Òdòdó never makes sense as a character to me. She kept switching her personality to a different one than the one that briefly gets established. I liked her less and less because of how she is written, rather than how the story plays out. The world building was ok. If this was supposed to be based on Persephone, well. I didn’t see it.

[Adeline]

I think Òdòdó's transformation from a young, innocent, illiterate peasant to a scheming, murderous politican within months just wasn't well done.

To me the ending really felt like the author wanted her protagonist to have her girlboss moment no matter what.

[BJ]

I made it to page 38 and gave up... And now looking at this thread, it looks like I wasn't the only one struggling! I didn't get nearly far enough to have an opinion on plot or characterization, but I couldn't get past the writing itself. It just felt... generic. In a fantasy novel, I want to feel some sense of magic or wonder in the writing and in the setting, and it just wasn't there, for me. And in historical fiction, I want some sense of the strangeness or alienness of the past, and that wasn't there either... Obviously, there are readers out there who felt differently!

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

Adeline wrote: "I think Òdòdó's transformation from a young, innocent, illiterate peasant to a scheming, murderous politican within months just wasn't well done.
."

This was the summary I needed to put in my review. I couldn't agree more.