Review: The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera

This is an ambitious, vivid debut novel. The retelling of the story of Buddha’s son was clever and fresh, and meaningful even if you are not acquainted with the mythology. The prose was elegant and evocative and flowing. The world felt packed with mysteries, swirling with people and politics. The fantasy version of Sri Lanka felt so fun to explore, and the author deftly wove in the scars of colonialism, and its relationship to fascist popular uprisings and religious fundamentalism, and the way political violence is given cover by a liberal tolerance more concerned with bureaucracy and comfortable vacations in the mountains than halting pandemics and pogroms. The pandemic setting also felt eerily familiar: the narrative is very aware of who is masked, which strangers intrude within breathing distance.

But I felt like overall it came together not quite right. Some scenes had awkward transitions and some events were unclear; I had to reread a passage to confirm that a key character had actually died, and it didn’t always feel natural why a chapter started where it did. The mysteries didn’t unravel at the right rate; given the prominence of the Bright Doors, their connection to other worlds felt insufficiently dwelled upon, and was overshadowed by a somewhat out-of-nowhere appearance of a long-lost lover. I expected more coherence between the various mysteries of time shifting, doors, devils and prophecies. Perhaps their seeming disjointedness is given cohesion by familiarity with South Asian folklore. 

The ending also came a little suddenly. From the very first pages of the book, we learn Fetter’s shadow has been torn from him. At the emotional climax of the book, we suddenly learn the narrator has been Fetter’s shadow all along, and we cease seeing the world through Fetter’s eyes as the shadow sets out to complete its own goals. This reveal was well done, and I enjoyed revisiting parts of the story with this knowledge. It was also a clever way to resolve the contradiction between Fetter swearing to never kill again with the prophecy that Fetter would end his father’s life: Fetter’s shadow played the role of assassin (via an ignominious mode of death) while Fetter played the role of non-violent dissenter. Fetter is lighter than air, the shadow operates by causing pain, disgust, indigestion, shame. They form a yin/yang. 

However with this thesis/antithesis established, I felt the lack of synthesis at the end rather unfulfilling: Fetter remains blocked off from his shadow, and more distant and difficult to read than ever. Perhaps it is the author’s intent for Fetter to fully reject forever the use of violence as “the only way to change the world” — his mother’s mantra. A permanent separation of shadow and body achieves that. On the other hand, a synthesis of shadow and brightness would indicate an acceptance of both violence and non-violence. However, in the final page Fetter indicates that he has achieved nearly this latter transformation — he continues to reject violence by his hands while supporting a movement that is willing to use force when necessary to overthrow their government. So then why did his shadow leave him, separate from him?

The crux of the issue is, I think, how the author tried to approach the problem of political revolution in fiction. An author has, broadly, two choices: (1) the main character(s) can play the central role, acting as world-changing heroes (Babel), or (2) the main character can play a small role, some side battle in a bigger war (For Whom The Bell Tolls, Wheel of Time). The Saint of Bright Doors tries to have it both ways: (1) the main character is prophesied to kill his father, and (2) the main character is but a small part of a dynamic, growing movement. While the objective of (1) is completed, the day is not yet saved, and the movement built by Fetter’s friends (2) is poised to contest power. However, Fetter is strangely absent in both aspects: (1) it is his shadow that takes agency in the first arc, and (2) Fetter’s friends who take agency in the second arc. As a result, Fetter’s arc is mainly to drift through the story, and come to terms with his relationships with his parents, while others get the political work done.