So, recently my mom grabbed me a couple of advance reader books from work, one of which was Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta. Its actual release date is June tenth, so you guys won't have too long to wait if you want to read it!
Spoilers will abound below, naturally, so read at your own discretion.
(Thing I just learned from Googling the title to find the cover image: it's actually a Finnish book that's now being translated to English. Fun fact of the day!)
The premise is relatively standard: Global warming has ravaged the world as we know it, and new societies have developed on what land remains above water after the ice caps have all melted. Water is now a precious commodity that must be desalinated before use, and it's given in rations to all citizens.
This is where our protagonist, Noria Kaitio comes in. Her father is a tea master, a somewhat prestigious but not incredibly important profession, and she is his apprentice, which enables her to go see the secret spring of water located in a hidden cave on their land. She learns how to use the water for both the tea ceremony they perform and for her family's own private needs. They must keep this spring a secret from the police state that's currently in charge of the Scandinavian Union, because all water belongs to the government, and anyone who doesn't report a cache will be punished harshly.
Life gets bleak for Noria, though, as her mother accepts a job in a faraway city and her father dies suddenly after she "graduates" and becomes a tea master in her own right, leaving her to fend for herself in this fairly unfriendly society. The majority of her interactions now occur with her best (and only) friend Sanja, who's an amateur tinkerer that likes to play with the things they find in the "plastic grave."
The most interesting part of the plot comes when Noria and Sanja discover a CD player and seven CDs (though they don't actually know what either of those things are) and hear about a trek from the time in between "past-world" (our time) and "present-world" (their time). The explorers on that mission discovered a vast expanse of drinkable, fresh water in a previously unusable region, but they refused to tell the government for fear of what the leaders might do. Noria and Sanja decide to find this area for themselves, hoping that these narratives are true and they will be able to use this water to help their town, as it's becoming drier by the day.
Things don't turn out the way Noria and Sanja hope, however - and that's where I'll leave you in this review. My only teaser is this: the book turned out bleaker than I was expecting, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant.
Now, for my own personal feelings: I wasn't a huge fan of this novel. It was gorgeously written, but it was almost too poetic for me. Noria is supposed to be only seventeen or eighteen, but she writes like a highly educated thirtysomething, which is confusing since she barely mentions going to school.
Memory of Water also doesn't do nearly enough worldbuilding for my standards, which is its most egregious fault. I know that New Qian is supposed to represent China, and I assume Noria lives in what we know as Finland due to the original language of this book, but we never really get an explanation as to how these countries came into being. There are mentions of "the Twilight Century" and how that was the no-man's-time in between our time and hers, but there's never any real historical background, so I never really understood the foundations of Noria's society. I also never developed an attachment to Noria as a person, because we are given a stunning lack of detail about her and her loved ones. All I know about her is that she has dark hair and likes being a tea master, and that's not enough information to even give a sketch of her to a cop.
(I'm also afraid of what may be some vague cultural appropriation, but I'd have to do a lot more research on this author before I wrote anything about that.)
Overall, Emmi Itäranta's Memory of Water had great (if flowery) use of language and an intriguing ending, but failed to create an engaging world or characters and more than a passing interest in me. 3/5 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment