The strangest part of River of Stars is its navel gazing. In these sections, the narrator speaks of things like fate, the causal links of history, and what ifs. This last is particularly striking.
At the end of chapter XXVII the narrator's dwelling on the idea of what a life cut short could've been does much with little. Complete stories are hinted at, even outlined by implication, but both are merely hypotheticals for lives ended in youth.
Kay's managing this is more than passing strange because it's rare to find such engaging navel-gazing. Nothing read in recent memory has set my imagination to blooming in this way.
Of course, this chapter does till and tend the imagination, prepare it for such. Combining conflict and loss will do that.
Spoiler warning.
An Altai sneaks into East Slope and confronts Lin. She avoids death, thanks to the bravery of Lu Mah. But he is killed in the process.
Never a central character, Lu Mah's death is nonetheless heart-wrenching. In part, this is due to the tension of the scene. We readily know alongside her what the gradually approaching Altai intends, and until Mah appears it seems like her rape is a certainty.
The other element that makes Mah's death a true tragedy is just how well we've come to know Mah's father, the poet Lu Chen. Among the things familiar about him is his use of detached awareness to muse about poems. Knowing this about his character and habits, the moment when the reality of the situation strikes Chen becomes real for even the reader.
There are three chapters of the book left yet, but what unfolds in chapter XXVII is definitely the first major pay-off.
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