The Saint of Bright Doors

Hardcover, 368 pages

English language

Published July 11, 2023 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.

ISBN:
978-1-250-84738-6
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(5 reviews)

Fetter was raised to kill, honed as a knife to cut down his sainted father. This gave him plenty to talk about in therapy.

He walked among invisible devils and anti-gods that mock the mortal form. He learned a lethal catechism, lost his shadow, and gained a habit for secrecy. After a blood-soaked childhood, Fetter escaped his rural hometown for the big city, and fell into a broader world where divine destinies are a dime a dozen.

Everything in Luriat is more than it seems. Group therapy is recruitment for a revolutionary cadre. Junk email hints at the arrival of a god. Every door is laden with potential, and once closed may never open again. The city is scattered with Bright Doors, looming portals through which a cold wind blows. In this unknowable metropolis, Fetter will discover what kind of man he is, and his discovery will rewrite the world.

2 editions

Strange, mythical, captivating

( em português → sol2070.in/2025/06/livro-the-saint-of-bright-doors/ )

A strange, mythical, and captivating novel: The Saint of Bright Doors (2023), by Sri Lankan author Vajra Chandrasekera, winner of the 2024 Nebula Award—one of the most important awards in speculative fiction.

Strange, perhaps, because it comes from another culture. In Buddhist Sri Lanka, it may not have sounded so exotic, despite its heresy against the dominant religion. Classified as fantasy and full of magical realism, it is a queer Oedipal saga where legends are reality.

We follow Fetter from childhood, when his pagan mother eliminates his shadow and trains him to commit all five of the most serious religious crimes, including murdering saints and even his mother and father.

It is necessary to situate the book to understand it better. The Buddhist religion is often seen in the West with an aura of greater coherence, critical practical spirit, and pacifism. But in countries …

Weird, inventive, and pointed commentary at the same time

I tore through this book, and might just re-read it immediately, which is something I never do.

It starts out as a fantasy story that feels exceptionally weird because Chandrasekera's willing to do his world building / exposition very slowly. I kept going through a lot of confusion because the writing itself is just so beautiful. And then gradually as the exposition falls into place it becomes clearer that the book is at least partly a critique of religious fanaticisms and chauvinisms... but each time I felt I really had a handle on the book something in its world would shift - either the protagonist learning a new piece of his own story or a significant detail the the author waited until a dramatic moment to show the reader. Even the ending feels like another instance of that, and it is a relatively unclear ending, though it fits the whole …

Magical realism vibes, unsatisfying narrative, but well imagined and well written

I can't quite pin down why I didn't get on with this book. It's well written, there's some interesting worldbuilding, but ultimately, the story is kind of unsatisfying. I don't really like magical realism, I'm not sure if this counts as magical realism (it's set in a whole distinct fantasy world, it's not got much realism there) but I get magical realism vibes from it, and I think I didn't like it for the same reasons I don't like magical realism. (Which I also can't really pin down or express precisely).

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