Could not stay with it. Well written, but confusing for post-modern rather than narrative reasons. Could not get absorbed enough to stick with it. I should note, trying to read in October of 2020 is difficult.

CW: this book contains violence, including of a sexual nature.

I first fell in love with the gorgeous art work of the cover for The Shadow King while browsing NetGalley, but I knew I HAD to read this book after looking at the blurb. Mussolini's invasion of Ethiopia during WWII is afforded very little (if any) space in history text books around the world, but as an Italian woman, I was even more aware of really how little I knew of this chapter in history.

The Shadow King is, of course, not a history book, but, being based on the author's own family history and extensive research, it provides a snapshot of life in a country at war. Following both the Ethiopian and the Italian armies, The Shadow King features an impressive cast of unforgettable characters. I was very impressed at how well most of these were painted, as almost every character, even the ones we meet only a few times, felt complex and real. The book avoided falling in the good people/bad people trap, showing time and again how light and dark, cruelty and kindness can co-exist within each individual.

The pacing was slightly uneven, with some sections being rather action-packed, and others moving much more slowly. Normally, this would bother me quite a bit, but for some reason it just seemed to work here. I also really liked the author's style. The prose was beautiful and often lyrical, although it felt slightly overbearing at times and occasionally made for some very confusing sentences. In particular, the lack of conventional punctuation and the absence of quotation marks to introduce dialogues (think Saramago) definitely needed some getting used to, and may be off-putting to some readers.

The one thing that made this stop short of a 5-star rating for me was the fact that, for a book wanting to focus on the forgotten contribution of women in war, there really weren't that many women in the main cast. Hirut and Aster were really the only fully-fleshed out female warriors, while we were introduced to numerous male fighters in Kidane's camp. While I loved getting to know Hirut and Aster, exploring their complexities and their backgrounds, I would have definitely preferred to see more of other female characters, such as Fifi or any of the numerous unnamed women in Kidane's army.

Overall, this was a very interesting read, tackling a lesser-known side of history with grace. I will definitely be on the look-out for more of Maaza Mengiste's work!

I received an e-arc of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. This did not affect my opinion of the book in any way. ( )

This is an important and ambitious story. I wanted to love it, but I just kind of liked it. The pacing is off. The prose is overly ornate and though at times very moving, it mostly just obscured the message.

But the killer is the formatting. The formatting makes this book absolutely miserable. There are no quotation marks, making it impossible to tell if something was said or only thought and especially difficult to distinguish when multiple speakers were in dialogue. Worse - the point of view shifts between characters with no clue to the reader, sometimes in the middle of a paragraph. I had to reread a lot to try to get a grip on the story.

2.5 stars ( )

“Once, it was said that the emperor of Ethiopia was like a sun to his people. But these days have proven that we live and die in the shadows, the emperor thinks. We do nothing but hold dominion over all that rests in shade and fog. All else is an illusion, a falsified appearance, a ghostly twin that trails behind us, hungering after our every breath.”

I finished The Shadow King (2019) yesterday evening. Such an odd book.
I’m glad I read it, and it is a book that needs to exist because it brings a part of history that tends to be sidelined to a new audience.
As the author says in her afterword, and I totally agree, the role of women in the second Italo-Ethiopian War had been written out of history and needs to be retold.

No, my discontent with the book is not with its premise or story or intent, but with the delivery.

While the writing – very descriptive and metaphorical … almost but not quite purple – took me ages to get used to, by the end of the book, I really liked it. It was a part of the form of story-telling that one imagines in epic tales. It’s beautiful but not very practical or to the point. It demands a lot patience and attention from the reader.

I also liked the story itself and the way that Mengiste switched points of view between the different characters including Hirut, Ettore, Haille Selassie, etc. and used flashbacks to set up the story as well as parts of Aida, the opera (I do love Verdi), to tell what happens.

It was a very well thought out and complex book and I appreciated a lot in how this was not an easy read, how the book challenged the reader.

What he knows is this: there is no past, there is no “what happened,” there is only the moment that unfolds into the next, dragging everything with it, constantly renewing. Everything is happening at once.

But the crux of my discontent is the most horrible of all faults that a book can have: Having read 15% of the book, it became really, really boring and didn’t pick up until the last 25%.
And this left more than half of the book boring me with a stagnating plot, repetive descriptions of violence against women, torture, and an indroduction to so, so many characters who would perish shorlty after they were introduced.

Focus in close, Carlo Fucelli says to the cameraman as his men set up their barricades. Pan up slowly. Get wide shots of the prison and swoop right to capture the cliffs. Shoot from the rebels’ perspective. Get your stills of the landscape before the attack. The Abyssinians are on their way and we’ll defend our country as you have never seen. I will give you a battle worthy of the Roman Empire, worthy of the great Trojan conflict. I won’t send the tanks or cannons to destroy them before they approach. I won’t bring the planes to spray them with poison while they’re still getting dressed to fight. We will do this as our fathers did and win for Italy with bayoneted rifles and bare hands. Focus and zoom and steady the shots. Prepare for wondrous displays of bravery. Look! Behold the enemy now in the dust rising on the horizon. See their might but do not be deceived: they will come as Memnon came for Achilles. And they will die just the same.

Look, I get it. It’s a book about war. People die and people suffer the most horrible experiences. But describing these things over and over without moving the plot does not make for compelling reading. If anything, it seems gratuitous and I was looking for ways to skim these parts – which is not easy in a book that does not have quotation marks.
Also, for a book that is meant to cast a light on the women who took part in the fighting, why do we only get to know two of them? The rest of the characters and stories are all about the men? I know there was also “the cook”, but she didn’t even get a name, never mind a story.

So, overall, I think the book was an interesting read for its premise and concept and some of the writing, but it was also really disappointing.

Chorus

Sing, daughters, of one woman and one thousand, of those multitudes who rushed like wind to free a country from poisonous beasts.
Sing, children, of those who came before you, of those who laid the path on which you tread toward warmer suns.
Sing, men, of valiant Aster and furious Hirut and their blinding light across a shadowed land.
Sing of those who are no more,
Sing of the giants still amongst you,
Sing of those yet to be born.
Sing. ( )

“He raises his arm and brings it down and hurls his voice into the valley: Charge! He screams it though there is no way he can be heard. Charge! The war cries erupt, the ascari surge forward, the air thickens with dust and voice and horn, and soon the chaos no longer spins. It is his to control. It becomes exhilarating. And as the ascari dash across the field, he imagines the coming clash as colossal and symphonic, operatic and tragic.”

Sweeping historic fiction about the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 by Mussolini’s troops. It highlights the active role women played in the war, moving from support to full-fledged soldiers. It opens in 1974, as protagonist Hirut returns to Addis Ababa with a mysterious box. It then flashes back to tell her story. It is not just a story of war, though. It is also a story of family. It includes characters from both sides, portraying their personalities, backstories, and motivations.

This is an ambitious novel. The characters are deeply developed. There are many forms of “shadows,” such as photographs that evoke memories of those who died in the war, a body double for Emperor Haile Selassie (who fled to England), the victims that maintain their dignity in the face of horrific cruelty, and others who become a shadow of their former selves in a multitude of ways. It weaves in descriptions of photos, a Greek chorus, and Interludes.

“A group of Abyssinians are astride horses in brightly colored saddles at the top of the hill across the valley. They are galloping down at full speed, a burst of light and color: a dozen warriors with wild hair, their cries like a discordant Greek chorus. Far ahead of them, that improbable figure, his chest exposed to the soldati, leaping over stone and grass, incomprehensible. Beautiful, even.”

It starts slowly and builds up to the climactic battle. It feels fragmented at times, but overall, it is a lyrically written, powerful evocation of a piece of history. It inspired me to research more about the Italo-Ethiopian wars. As a caution, this book contains extreme war-related brutality, murder of civilians, and rape.

“Here is the truth he wants to ignore: that what is forged into memory tucks itself into bone and muscle. It will always be there and it will follow us to the grave.”
( )