[Saturday Reads] Have You DNFed A Novel, Came Back To It and Finished It?

Myra here.

Every Saturday we hope to share with you our thoughts on reading and books. We thought that it would be good practice to reflect on our reading lives and our thoughts about reading in general. While on occasion, we would feature a few books in keeping with this, there would be a few posts where we will just write about our thoughts on read-alouds, libraries, reading journals, upcoming literary conferences, books that we are excited about, and just book love miscellany in general.

The City Of Brass (Amazon)

Written by Shannon Chakraborty Published by: Harper Collins (2018, first published in 2017) ISBN: 9780008239404 (ISBN10: 0008239401) Literary Awards: Locus Award Nominee for Best First Novel (2018), World Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Novel (2018), Compton Crook Award Nominee (2019), British Fantasy Award Nominee for Best Newcomer (Sydney J. Bounds Award) (2018), BookNest Award for Best Debut Novel (2018), RUSA CODES Reading List Nominee for Fantasy (2019) Bought a copy of the book.

I started reading this book last year after I fell in love with Shannon Chakraborty’s The Adventures Of Amina Al-Sirafi (Amazon – see my review here). I came into this first book of what I knew to be the Daevabad trilogy (naturally, I purchased all three books, including River of Silver – see my book hunting post here) with a lot of excitement after being so enamoured with Amina Al-Sirafi – only to find my eyes glazing over as I was reading this fantasy book.

I felt that there were way too many names and places I needed to remember, the world-building was interesting but too cluttered with details, and unlike Amina Al Serafi, I thought the pacing was comparatively glacial. I didn’t know if it was because I was returning back to work at the time I started the novel (if my Goodreads documentation is correct, I started reading this back in August 2023) – or simply because I was not in the proper headspace at the time, I thought it was for the best to just DNF it.

Fast forward to just a weeks back, I had a hankering for fantasy after reading a few dark and dismal literary novels, so I thought, why don’t I pick up where I left off from this novel. So no, I did not re-read the first few parts I read, and I was able to slip back into the Daevabad world quite comfortably.

This time, the novel hit me differently, and I was fully invested in finding out more about the fate of Nahri, who eventually grew on me – she isn’t particularly likeable in the first few parts of the novel that I did manage to read a year ago. It may also be because I was able to hear Shannon Chakraborty speak during this year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature alongside other fantasy authors, and I was utterly charmed by her, that I knew I had to go back to this series.

I did not mind all that much the predictable love triangle between Nahri, her afshin (think Aladdin’s genie in a bottle, except much good-looking and muscular) Darayavahoush e-Afshin, and the supposed-nemesis-turned-sort-of-friend-one-is-attracted-to Alizayd al Qahtani. More than anything, I was cheering Nahri on: you go, girl!

As the story progressed and mention of genocide, senseless war, prejudice and discrimination surfaced in the narrative, I was struck by how fantasy authors manage to get away with social commentaries about weighty issues by framing it in a make-believe world where anything goes. Yet, I was struck too by how the conflict in this fantastical world seemed to have resonances of the India-Pakistan partition of old – I believe Chakraborty is married to a South Asian man, so there is that connection too.

I found City Of Brass to be a delightful and entertaining read that allowed me much-needed respite after a stressful day at work. It felt like being with beloved Muslim family and friends here in Al Ain especially with the oft-used Arabic phrases interspersed throughout the novel. For example, this quote comforted me at a time when I needed to hear it:

‘Allahu alam.’

She said the human holy words better than Ali’s pureblood tongue would ever manage, and he couldn’t help but tremble slightly at the confidence in her voice, at the phrase meant to demonstrate the folly of man’s confidence.

God knows best.

#ReadYourWayHome2024 Update: 25 out of 100 (Shannon Chakraborty is a White muslim woman based in the US and writes about the Middle East and Islam – this book fits the #MiddleEasternLit2024 subtheme).