Book: The Poppy War
Author: R. F. Kuang
Country: China
Format: Audiobook
Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller
Length: 19 hours
Publication: 2018
This is the third R.F. Kuang book I read and, in my opinion, the heaviest one. Babel had many difficult scenes of violence, but nothing to the extent of the Poppy War. This was my first impression of the book and one of the reasons I didn’t give it a 5-star rating.
The Poppy War is set in the fictitious Nikan Empire and tells the story of Rin, a war orphan who decides to pass an almost impossible test to Sinegard, a prestigious military academy, in order to escape the poverty and daily humiliation of her life.
“Well, fuck the heavenly order of things. If getting married to a gross old man was her preordained role on this earth, then Rin was determined to rewrite it.”
The Poppy War
The thing is that life in the academy is almost as hard as outside it. Rin suffers a lot of discrimination for being a woman and for being from a rural area in the South, instead of a prestigious family in the capital, as most students are. Nevertheless, she perseveres and decides to become a powerful soldier, even at the cost of her own femininity.
But soon our protagonist sees herself dealing with a power beyond her imagination, a power to create and destroy given by the Gods.
“Call off your men, or I will summon into existence things that should not be in this world.”
The Poppy War
The most interesting thing to me is that this book was based on real history, with Nikan being China and the Mugen Federation being Japan. Most of the events, especially the Poppy Wars, were inspired by the second Sino-Japanese War in the mid-20th century, considered one of the bloodiest conflicts in world history.
Being a fan of Margaret Atwood, I wondered how many of the brutal events in the book were part of real history, so I did a little digging on the internet.
Turns out that most of them are true. The second Sino-Japanese war is often described as the “Asia Holocaust”, especially because of the war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetuated by Japan. And despite that, we know very little about it.
“Children ceased to be children when you put a sword in their hands. When you taught them to fight a war, then you armed them and put them on the front lines, they were not children anymore. They were soldiers.”
The Poppy War
In 1931, following the steps of many European nations, Japan decided to expand its border beyond the island and create its own empire. China was a weak military force, so Japan, which had been building an army for decades, invaded Manchuria, in the northeast of China.
They expanded their occupation until in 1937 they took Nanjing, the Chinese capital. In the process, China destroyed one of its own dams, in an attempt to flood the area where the Japanese army was to advance, destroying several of their own cities in its path.
The war between China and Japan went to a stalemate until 1941, when Japan decided to attack American, British and French positions in Southern Asia, dragging the Allies to the war in the Pacific Ocean. US and the Soviet Union reinforced Chinese defenses and it all culminated with the well-known atomic bomb attacks in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Japan surrendered unconditionally after the military powers of the West overwhelmed them.
In the process of gaining Chinese territory, Japan razed thousands of towns and villages to the ground. So you can have an idea, around 4 million Chinese soldiers were killed in the process, while the deaths among civilians reached 20 million.
“The cruelty could not register for her. Bloodlust, she understood. Bloodlust, she was guilty of. She had lost herself in battle, too; she had gone further than she should have, she had hurt others when she should have stopped.
The Poppy War
But this—viciousness on this scale, wanton slaughter of this magnitude, against innocents who hadn’t even lifted a finger in self-defence, this she could not imagine doing.”
This is basically the story of the Second Poppy War, that took place before the events in the book. It also adds the island of Speer, which in the book was completely destroyed by the Mugen Federation. The authors mostly associate the island with Taiwan, although is not that close of a comparison.
To the brutal reality of history, R. F. Kuang added magical elements, as some of the characters have the power to connect with the gods and channel their power. She also changed the setting to the Song Dynasty, around the 10th century in China, to give the war a more medieval feel.
““They were monsters!” Rin shrieked. “They were not human!”
The Poppy War
“Have you ever considered” he said slowly “that that was exactly what they thought of us?””
It’s a very interesting approach. I’m used to Historical Fiction, were the characters live against the backdrop of countries and historical events that happened in the world. It’s the first time I read a book that uses historical events to build a fantasy narrative. Which proves that reality can be as insane as fiction. And that’s my take here, that some of the craziest events in the book were not part of the author’s imagination, but unthinkable acts committed by humans on their way to total domination.
That being said, it’s a great read and I’m already in the second one of the trilogy – The Dragon Republic.
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