The Saint of Bright Doors - Vajra Chandrasekera
- Publisher – Solaris
- Published – Out Now
- Price – £9.99 paperback | £5.99 Kindle
It feels like I haven't been able to move without hearing about Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors this year. It was shortlisted for the Hugo, won the Nebula, was listed as a New York Times "Notable Book of 2023", won the Crawford Award, and is on the shortlists for the Ursula K. Le Guin Prize and Ignyte Awards. There are probably another dozen awards it's won or been nominated for that I'm missing here, too.
My brain is a tricky thing sometimes. Often, the more I hear about how great something is and how much I'm going to love it, the less interest I have in it. I don't know what causes this - maybe it's yet another facet of the lovely AuDHD cocktail that I'm unaware of. It makes me an advertiser's nightmare. And because I've been hearing about this book so enthusiastically for so long, I'd reached a point where I absolutely was not interested in it at all. It didn't help that the blurb doesn't really do much to sell me on it, either:
The Saint of Bright Doors sets the high drama of divine revolutionaries and transcendent cults against the mundane struggles of modern life, resulting in a novel that is revelatory and resonant.
Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.
He walked among invisible powers: devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.
Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.
Now that I've read it, I understand why this book was so hard to blurb. Because let's not mince words here - I absolutely loved this book, and it's easily one of the best things I've read this year. Yet when I've been talking to people about it I've really struggled to explain what it's about and why they should read it.
Chandrasekera's writing is lush and rich, and from the first pages I was completely enthralled. I felt the same way I felt when I first read Alif The Unseen or Piranesi, like I was stepping into an alien yet entirely familiar world that felt completely real. The characters are rich and alive, and there isn't a single wasted word. I felt like I was bathing in myth while reading it.
I do have a couple of minor complaints about the book. Given the title I was hoping that the Bright Doors might factor into the tale a little more. There's a lot of emphasis given to them in the first half of the novel and it all feels like it's building to some revelation about them that's never fully realised. There is slight pay-off towards the end, in a sequence in an embassy of Fetter's hometown, but it felt a little like an after-thought. The novel never really explains itself about the world or the magic, and that's completely fine and works well, but in the case of the doors I would have liked a little more meat to grab hold of.
Then there's the ending, which is hard to write about without spoiling things, which is something I don't want to do. I went into the novel knowing nothing about it, and I think you should do the same. All I'll say is that there's a narrative decision made towards the end which sees us pull away from Fetter's point of view and shift focus to a character who has been present but hidden throughout the novel. On the one hand, as a matter of craft, I really love how this was done and when I saw it happening I was absolutely delighted by how well Chandrasekera pulls it off. But the overall effect was that the end of the novel left me feeling fairly dissatisfied, like I'd been denied the climax we'd been building towards the whole time. And perhaps that's the point, but sitting here writing about the book 12 hours after finishing it I still can't shake the feeling that the ending didn't really work for me and felt more like a fumble than something intentionally unsatisfying. And that's a shame, because up until the final few pages I absolutely adored the novel and I don't like being left with even the slightest of sour tastes about it.
That's not to say that the ending killed the book, in any way. It's still a fantastic read and well worth your time. It functions both as a piece of entertaining fantasy and also as a deeper reflection about how we're manipulated by those in power, or about how colonialism rewrites the history of the people it displaces while shuffling them into the shadows of their own land to be eradicated. Especially in a world where the genocide in Palestine is still ongoing, this feels like a very important novel.
The Saint of Bright Doors isn't a perfect novel, but it definitely comes close, and it's fully deserving of every accolade it's received and will continue to receive. This is a must-read for any fans of SFF, and I very much look forward to picking up Chandrasekera's second novel Rakesfall at some point later this year.
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