The premise of this book is fascinating: what if the Black Death of 12th-century Europe had not killed 33% of the population, but 99%?
The event effectively wipes Europe (and Christianity) off the map during the years when they rose in power, according to standard history. Kim Stanley Robinson has written a sweeping alternate history in which Islam and Buddhism are the central influence, China becomes the world's first superpower, and the Americas are colonized first from the Western coast.
It's a grand tour. The tale is told through a series of novelettes set at various important historical times from the Black Death through the 21st century in the Christian calendar (which no one actually uses, of course). The epic is intriguing and even fascinating at moments. I wanted to find out what would happen next. But the overall effect was marred by an uneven style that was really disruptive in a few places. The book thus rates an overall "weak +".
The most interesting aspect of "The Years of Rice and Salt" is that Robinson employs a clever technique of using the "same" characters for all the stories-- they are reincarnations of the same souls as is natural in many Asian religions. Some scenes even take place in the bardo, where one goes after death to be judged on the prior life and sent back to the world in a new form. The idea is that groups of souls make up a jati, something like a family unit, so that they replay their relationships in life after life (although not necessarily as biological kin). It is fun to see the characters reconceptualized in each new novelette; they play roles that are different but oddly familiar, like new generations uncannily resemble older ones with a few variations thrown in.
The short tales are compelling. Robinson communicates the larger historical happenings for the most part effectively through the story of the characters. Unfortunately, he sometimes resorts to long descriptions of events made as soliloquies or even just plain-text description. It's as if he needs to move the history along so he can get to the next novelette.
Other sections are choppy too. He includes a tedious, play-by-play explanation of a lacrosse game at one point. And at another, he must have mis-edited it because he has two characters do something after finishing tea together, then later mentions again that they have just finished their tea. Such mistakes should not make it into a final text.
My greatest objection is to Robinson's insertion of himself as the author at several points. Worst of all are the first few chapters, where each concludes with a statement like, "And now our characters have gotten themselves in trouble. To find out how they get out, read the next chapter." Aaaaaaaagh. It's a miracle I kept reading. All I could think was, This book is more than 600 pages long, and every chapter is going to end like this?? Thankfully, he drops that annoying style after the first major section. But why was it there it all? It adds nothing, and indeed quite effectively ruins the flow. He does insert himself again at a few random points later. This practice is a large detriment to the book.
My other quibble is weaker. As the book goes along, you realize that Robinson is really writing Western history as it happened, just with modifications for its Eastern philosophical slant. The same major events happen, at about the same time. Science is invented and begins to shape people's understanding of the world in a new way. It is quickly seized upon as a way to improve weaponry. Empires grow and, with the invention of better ships, cross the oceans to encounter new peoples. The Americas are colonized and fall prey to disease from abroad. The world becomes divided into protectorates of a few large empires, which eventually clash in a great world war. Weapons of mass destruction are invented, and environmental problems are encountered in the modern age.
2002 in Robinson's world is quite different in many ways from 2002 of our world, but a person transported there would find it recognizable. There are planes, trains, and automobiles. Universities, global companies, big and small governments, wars, computers, telephones, religious groups, cafes, hotels, etc. And the dates when all of these things came about are roughly the same as the dates when they did in our world.
Of course, there are some key differences too. The largest one is that the American Indians of the Great Lakes/New York region end up surviving the onslaught of Asians (perhaps because they had just a little more time before they came). The Hodenosaunee manage to create a unified government that spans much of the central part of North America, and this government is idealized in many ways. It is the first democracy. Later, the Hodenosaunee become a world power alongside India ("Travancore"), China, and the Islamic Empire.
Another difference is that atomic weapons are not invented in time for the "Long War" (sort of parallel to the two World Wars of our world). Instead, their discovery leads to an international conference of scientists to discuss the gravity of this development. The book ends before we find out how all of this shakes out.
An intriguing subtheme of the book gives it favorable points. Robinson does not neglect the history of women. As history is usually told, it is just a series of male wars, kings, revolutions, etc. Women are a footnote at best, absent at worst. Robinson often includes a feminist character in his novelettes, or at least a female character who can tell the story of women in that time period. Not surprisingly, patriarchy is strong in this world, just as in ours, but in some ways, it is a little weaker. I was really pleased that Robinson paid some attention to that vital aspect of history.
So the weak quibble I mentioned above is: why should history unfold roughly the same way? Why should advances be tied to the discovery of science, and then to various technologies that resulted from it? Why should things grow into large empires that eventually get tangled in global conflict? Why does 2002 society look so similar to ours, in a broad sense?
This is a weak quibble because a full alternate history of such sweeping proportions would probably be impossible to write. Robinson had no choice but to make it similar. And indeed, that made it sort of fun for the reader, because I could say-- oh! So that's how science could have been invented, and that's what happened with India rather than it getting colonized by Britain. And so forth. I guess it's like sci fi-- you just have to roll with it a bit.
Overall, I would have been much happier with this book if it hadn't had such choppy writing, where many sections were gripping and flowed well, but then suddenly you'd hit something awful that just jarred your mental state. If only the book had been better edited. Still, "The Years of Rice and Salt" is worth a read.
Copyright © Kim Allen 2003
