So far, so fairy-tale - though the pleasure of seeing Mayan mythology underlying what at first seems to be a straightforward rendition of the Cinderella trope adds immediate interest to Moreno-Garcia's work. Hun-Kamé has been deposed from his throne by his twin brother, Vucub-Kamé, and Casiopeia finds herself first an unwilling and then an active participant in his quest to take revenge and reclaim his standing as the ruler of Xilbaba. She stumbles upon a locked chest containing (most of) the dismembered body of one of the Lords of Xilbalba, a Mayan god of death called Hun-Kamé, and frees him - becoming spiritually linked to him in the process. The plot of the book is simple: A young woman, Casiopeia Tun, is suffering Cinderella-esque deprivation in the house of her grandfather, a wealthy rural landholder in the Yucatán. Novelist and NPR contributor Silvia Moreno-Garcia's new fantasy, Gods of Jade and Shadow, is at its witty, compelling, and merciless best when it is fully rooted in its setting, a perfectly organic combination of 1920s Jazz Age Mexico and the Mayan mythological text, the Popol Vuh. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Gods of Jade and Shadow Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |