Reviewing a story never had been one of my strong suit. There were an old saying from my place that books are the window of the world, and I had admit the truth of that piece of wisdom numerous time before, and yet once again, today, as I reach the latest chapter of sixty-two, I reconfirm that adage once more.
Human are an emotional being. It's the price we paid for our elevated consciousness. Our critical thinking, our theory of mind, and the whole civilization were built by the whisper of our gene who crave to ever prosper. However the reality is that the planet are a place of limited resources. So we make tactful deal and negotiation to let ourselves a wiggle room to survive.
Even when we know that our surrender betrayed our principles. Our morality. Or even our humanity. We still done it and keep doing it to the time everlasting. How many times we had ever let our superiors bullied ourselves in the workplace? How many times we turn our face away witnessing a crime on the street, become bystander, because we know we lacks the mean. Most of us are not physically strong, in fact we slightly out of shape from those office job of constant sitting down. Not all of us have a higher connection in the right place. We have family, significant other, and most importantly we have ourselves to protect. Who want to waste away their safety for a complete stranger?
Chinese literature of qidian-esque style were my guilty pleasure. Most decent literature of emotive storytelling never fell short from the common theme fact that the truth in it's barest essence were multifaceted. Xianxia market destroy those rigid status quo by elevating one of the most striking character of Aesop's fable from their humble mission in teaching the children of morality through compelling narrative to a genre which We, the ***** who scrambling throughout life by faking pleasantaries and acquiescing compromise to able to personify the main character in a cathartic release of the absolute moral high ground where the black and white was a clear as a day like those fairy tales we used to read as a child.
Does it felt good to see a face-smacking, face-slapping protagonist triumph in their latest escapade of yet another quest of a straightforward arrogant villain? When the truth is so black and white, when our ability flabbergasted the crowd, when there is no question of our recourse, of our moral choice. The one who answer no, I shall shamelessly call you a liar.
When I stumbled this piece of work, I piqued the name of 'superstars' as an rehashed version of I'm Really a Superstar by Cheng Yu. Chinese light novel work by 'rehashing' an established tropes until it become the genre of it's own right. Like what happened to the Cultivation Chat Group and Red Packet System, so I thought it was about time for another Zhang Ye.
O boy how I was utterly wrong.
One of the trend that I noticed in reading chinese light novel so far is that this genre, for lack of better word is a genre that written in a languange that lack of adjectives. Most of the not-so-great and not-well-written piece would bore me to death because the Author would use the same description, the same vocabularies, the same quotes over and over again (remember, as common as cabbage in the market?). That sucked big. One of the reason that languange were deemed rich, because they could explain the nuance and evoke emotion by presenting different word for a similar situation. I'm not a sinologist myself, but in my humble opinion this happened because the horrible way the Chinese Character is written. Japanese and Korean government (Sorry Zhang Ye...) realized that the tools of communication transcend the need of a beautiful artistry that the scholar-official of the chinese old so keen to keep creating anew. The artificial status that were glorified through generational, ever more difficult imperial examination. Of ever more obfuscating character deprive the better, the greater, and the more accurate part of languange from the masses. No wonder there's a chinese equivalent of "it look's all greek to me". All of the unlearned characters does look like a heavenly script to them.
But this novel pass through that hurdle like a breeze, the piece never lack superfluousness, the hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian word were abundant, the chapter were large but it stitched so perfectly that it felt like a symphony.
And when I came to the passage when the musical movement were described, word failed me.
It vivid. I can see in the front of my eyes the despair, the struggle, and the acceptance. I see heroism embodied and selflessness crystallized. The movement break through the barrier of limitation that is writing. Not all of us is musically inclined. Not all of us could synthesize song in our head with a flair of grace. People used their eyes the most. So what we could and often do as an avid reader is imagining the potrayal of picture, of images, and of scenery to paint a picture of the forlorn fantasy that the author wish to convey.
Music is one of the greatest limitation. Chance are, if you never heard the piece, you'd never felt the song through writing.
But this. This Superstars of Tommorow succeed. Wholesomely. It managed to create an equivalent music substitute that I never been able to experience via a written or even drawn medium.
And that is why I wrote this review. To tell the author, the translator, the editor, and the whole qidian community, that you had managed to score another fans.
