kateoftheangels

Two of the most interesting (deranged, over the top, extremely fun but also WTF) books I read last year were Henry Lien’s Peasprout Chen: Future Legend of Skate and Sword and Peasprout Chen: Battle of Champions. So when I discovered that Lien had written a book about storytelling, Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling, of course I had to read what the author of Peasprout Chen has to say about storytelling, even though I generally approach the idea of Eastern and Western storytelling styles with a healthy dose of suspicion.

To sum up this suspicion briefly, I think that people often look at a snapshot of what Eastern and Western storytellers are doing right now, and then draw conclusions about The Eternal Differences of Eastern and Western Storytelling that aren’t Eternal at all, since they would be completely blown out of the water by a wider historical view.

For instance, I’ve seen the argument that “Western stories must have conflict,” which (although there are obviously outliers) is a pretty good summation of the current Western vision of how stories work… but in the 19th and early 20th century, stories about the characters having good times with no conflict were an accepted and popular literary mode in America and England, especially in children’s books.

Given this viewpoint, it’s perhaps no surprise that I think the book is strongest when it focuses on the differences between Eastern and Western animated children’s stories (for which read “Studio Ghibli” and “Disney”). The artform has only been around for about a hundred years and it’s been dominated by a handful of main companies, so one person can meaningfully encompass most of what’s been released. And the differences are striking, as I think anyone who grew up on Disney and then saw a Ghibli film can attest. Wait, you don’t have to have a villain? You don’t even have to have conflict? The kids can just ride in the catbus?

The weakest part IMO is the chapter where Lien argues that Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is telling a profoundly Eastern story, because rather than rebel against their circumstances, the characters accept their fate and try to live the best lives they can within that context. Now I’m sure this is something that happens in Eastern stories, but this is also a theme with deep roots in the history of the English novel. Admittedly a theme that is deeply out of fashion right now! One that literary critics and internet pundits complain about at length when they discuss nineteenth century English novels! And then other critics/pundits reply, “Isn’t trying to live the best life you can in limited circumstances the TRUE rebellion, though?”, because Western critics/pundits have generally accepted that Rebellion is the moral standard by which literary works should be judged and by which we should all live.

So in that sense I suppose I’ve talked myself into agreeing with Lien, at least to the extent of agreeing that Ishiguro is telling a story that is alien and upsetting to current Western literary sensibilities… but it’s alien and upsetting in a way that has Western roots just as deep as the Eastern ones. Mansfield Park makes people blow a gasket for pretty much the same reason.

Reading the book is a bit like going to a coffee shop with a friend and having a good rousing literary argument. You may have some quibbles, you may indeed have some big disagreements, but it’s a stimulating and enjoyable experience nonetheless.

However, fair warning, it will not give you any new insight into why Peasprout Chen is Like That. Peasprout will simply remain a bizarre and beautiful mystery.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

I rounded out 2025 with Jacqueline Woodson’s Locomotion, the verse prequel to Peace, Locomotion. I thought Peace, Locomotion was ultimately a stronger book, but nonetheless I enjoyed spending more time with the characters.

Then I kicked off 2026 with the new Charles Lenox mystery, The Hidden City, in which Charles Lenox gently brushes against the life of the extremely poor! These books are always a good time, extremely readable, although I thought some of the backstory was unnecessarily convoluted, for reasons that I attempted to explain only for the explanation to quickly grow unwieldy. Too convoluted!

Finally - alert to my fellow Elizabeth Wein fans! She recently co-authored a book with Sherri L. Smith (of Flygirl fame), American Wings: Chicago’s Pioneering Black Aviators and the Race for Equality in the Skies, which does what it says on the tin, plus some excursions to Ethiopia during the Italian invasion of 1936, during which time Pioneering Black Chicago Aviator John C. Robinson attempted to train an Ethiopian air force despite Ethiopia’s pitiful collection of woefully outdated aircraft. It’s not the final Lion Hunters novel but I’ll take what I can get.

What I’m Reading Now

Like Tolstoy, Solzhenitsyn starts out In the First Circle by introducing dozens of characters with about three names each, and in my confusion I was flagging a bit. But then! Then Solzhenitsyn stops dead for Stalin to recount his life story! And now Stalin is meeting with head of SMERSH Abakumov (SMERSH of course stands for “Death to Spies”) who begs Stalin to bring back the death penalty. It’s so hard to keep track of who you’ve executed when you’re not officially allowed to execute people! “You might be the first one we execute,” Stalin teases(what a wag!), and Abakumov murmurs anxiously that of course if it becomes necessary…

What I Plan to Read Next

Thanhha Lai has published a sequel to Inside Out and Back Again: When Clouds Touch Us. I couldn’t bring myself to check it out because I am generally suspicious of sequels, but I know that I won’t be able to resist for long.