"a woman's greatest strength" - a review of "He Who Drowned the World" by Shelley Parker-Chan

 

This review is a bit of a departure for me, and in many ways, a return too. Shelley Parker-Chan’s He Who Drowned The World is the much-anticipated sequel to their novel She Who Became the Sun. It was a release that I was much looking forward to, an indulgent return to my teenage favourite genres; historical fiction and fantasy. It was not, initially, a book I intended on reviewing. However, upon completion, I found that I needed to.

Parker-Chan’s work is a beautifully complex exploration of gender, power and the human body. Through four of the perspectives from which this story is told, we understand some new facet about how the connection or disconnection from our bodies helps to shape and change our gender. 

First, in Madam Zhang, we see a painful disconnection; of a woman who has forcibly removed her soul from her physical form in order to allow herself to go through horrifying suffering in order to achieve her goals. We also see a heartbreaking lack of faith in herself; Madam Zhang never thought she herself could possess the Mandate of Heaven, but always found a man who did. She views her gender - more specifically, her femininity - as a weakness, and in doing so she allows it to weaken her. This devaluing and disconnection from herself and her body creates a lonely figure, one which plummets to the earth and is left a broken doll, shell and soul both smashed on the ground below. 

Then, in the eunuch general Ouyang, we see another struggle; a man without the appendage that society has deemed in necessary for a man. Ouyang is disconnected from himself because the people around him have decided he is not a man, but rather a creature; and Ouyang allows this fear to rule his life. His disgust with his own body - as a result of significant trauma - also manifests into a deep, violent misogyny; a disbelief that a woman is capable of anything because he has been told again and again that his body (which closely resembles that of a woman's) is incapable of making him the man he feels he is. Ouyang's fear also manifests into his suicidal tendencies and the generational trauma and pressure he carries.

Wang Biaoxiang's use of his own effeminate nature contrasts greatly with the other characters because he uses it as his strength, rather than viewing it as a weakness. He uses it as a shield, to let his enemies see the monster they believe him to be, in a truly Lady MacBeth-esque "look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it" way. They see him as a weak, soft and disgusting man, and therefore do not see the plotting he is doing.

Finally, our hero, Zhu Yuanzhang, who slips in and out of male and female at her own convenience. Her journey finds her realising that she does not need to be a man to achieve her ends. She has the Mandate of Heaven, as a woman, and is able to inspire and seize power, even when her detractors thought such a feat would be impossible. She also uses her female body to her advantage, to hide and trick, and is driven by her own self belief.

Parker-Chan's consistent juxtaposition of characters who see their own or others' femininity as a weakness with those who use it as an advantage paints a unique picture of gendered bodies and relationships. They make the reader question just how connected their identity is to their body, how gender shapes power relationships, and how all of us can strive for anything; our limitations self imagined.