20 October, 2002
The Fox Woman
Kij Johnson
2000
382 pp, TPB
Japanese folklore is full of stories about foxes and fox-spirits who posess humans, or take human form and seduce real humans. This book is based on one such tale, set in Heian-period Japan. It's about a fox who wants to be human, and two humans who are simply drifting through life, without any real appreciation of it, and how their mutual interactions result in personal growth, and an appreciation of their humanity.
Trent reviewed this one a while back, as did Chad. Between the two of them, they 've said just about everything I could say about the book. Two of the passages Trent quotes are ones I marked for quoting, myself. Sometimes, a full scale review, even of a really good book, is just superfluous, I guess. Suffice to say, this book is altogether excellent: it's beautifully written, it's got interesting characters, a compelling plot, a well-researched historical setting, and it says something significant about life and the human condition:
Human legends are full of fox men and fox women. Most fail and fall back into foxness. Or become human, lost in pain. but some humans learn joy and some foxes grow sould. thieves, princes, dancers, charcoal-burners-- they are connected in that they have discovered this path for themselves.This is the gift of humanity: that it is claimed by the self. None of us [...] are human unless and until we claim it for ourselves. But nothing can stop that claiming-- not the eight million gods nor the spirits nor ghosts. Nothing but ourselves, anyway.
And our lives become the poems we were born to tell.
The ending of the book reminded me a lot of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Rather than leaving the characters at a comforable resting place in their lives, it ends at a point where the characters have grown to a point where they can really, truly begin to live their lives, with a whole world of choices and opportunities before them.