"They raise us to be soft as silk..."
Book Review: The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
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“When history fails to shed light on the truth, myth creates its own.”
A capsule summary would make The Priory of The Orange Tree sound like the most cliché fantasy trope: three kingdoms whose allyship hangs by a thread, a once-imprisoned Nameless One now intent on destruction, and a handful of chosen ones tasked with saving the world.
In reality, threads from different colour packs are woven into a rich-hued tapestry, one you can only see in toto at the end of the book. The Priory of The Orange Tree has all the elements you'd expect to see in high-fantasy fiction: swords, enchanted jewels, dragons, even its version of the Wicked Witch of The West. But the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
What's the book about?
After 1,000 years of peace, three kingdoms are on the brink of catastrophe: the Nameless One awakens from his slumber in the Abyss where he was bound. It was the binding of this terrible fire-breathing that led to the creation of the three kingdoms.
Virtudom, headed by the female Berethnet line, take the Six Virtues for their religion and abhor fire-breathing dragons. In the East, dragons that channel the power of water are revered and, by extension, so are the Dragon Riders. The South is home to a mysterious society of female mages—the Priory—founded by the Mother after the binding of the Nameless One.
But now, as the Nameless One threatens to overthrow the world as they know it, they must set aside their differences and put an end to the cycle of slumber and rebirth.
“They raise us to be soft as silk, distract us with luxury and wealth beyond measure, so we never rock the boat that carries us.”
Author Samantha Shannon was tired of women being passive agents in legends (aren't we all?) and decided to take matters into their own hands.
As a result, the characters in The Priory of The Orange Tree are complex, well-developed and defined by so much more than their sexuality (unlike in some LGBT-representing books). Despite being female-led in a world of male-dominated storylines, the novel doesn't trumpet that fact. Instead, it takes it as a given, resulting in a storyline that is satisfyingly deep and devoid of typical man-writes-woman tropes (no "heaving bosoms" here, folks).
You’ll find chosen ones in the literal sense—by heritage, circumstance, or choice—but that is far from being their defining personality point or indeed the focus of the book. Not a single one holds the precise truth: they all have skewed beliefs; they're all tussling with their destinies. Where do we come from? Where are we going? What is our purpose? To these questions, they each have their answers, taught by tradition or honed by belief. In a way, this depiction holds up a mirror to the real world and its theological conflicts, reflecting the messiness that exists outside the pages of the book.
The characters' growth, too, is complex. It involves questioning the very foundations of everything they believe, forming their own beliefs, and understanding that one person's history is not another's. Despite having to fight the Nameless One in the end, the real progress happens in the fighting of their demons.
And what an environment to do it all in! The world-building in The Priory of The Orange Tree is exceptional. Every detail is paid attention to even if the location comes into focus only for a moment. It felt a bit like Genshin Impact: every expedition unlocks a new faraway land, taking you further and further away from the central setting, as it were.
If given enough room to breathe, the diversity of characters, themes and environments could fill up 2-3 books. But despite being a whopping 800+ pages long, the pace of the narrative is staccato. It takes time to develop, then speeds up; it spends a couple of hundred pages in one location before hurling the reader into another and back again in 10 minutes. Personally, this didn't take away from the pleasures of the book — I was still invested throughout.
The intricacy of it The Priory of The Orange Tree has me hoping that Shannon will revisit this world in a sequel or a related novel. There's so much more potential to realise!
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