Review: The Spear Cuts Through Water, by Simon Jimenez

 

The people suffer under the centuries-long rule of the Moon Throne. The royal family—the despotic emperor and his monstrous sons, the Three Terrors—hold the countryside in their choking grip. They bleed the land and oppress the citizens with the frightful powers they inherited from the god locked under their palace.
With the aid of Jun, a guard broken by his guilt-stricken past, and Keema, an outcast fighting for his future, the god escapes from her royal captivity and flees from her own children, the triplet Terrors who would drag her back to her unholy prison. And so it is that she embarks with her young companions on a five-day pilgrimage in search of freedom—and a way to end the Moon Throne forever. The journey ahead will be more dangerous than any of them could have imagined.

“This is a love story to its blade-dented bone.” Simon Jimenez's The Spear Cuts Through Water defies the boundaries between genres. Is it a sweeping narration of the bonds between people? Is it an oral story? A stunning theater performance? An analysis of the monsters of our own creation? Is it going to make you cry about turtles? Is it a beautiful love story? Is it a tragedy? Is it full of hope? Yes. A sound, earth-shattering Yes to all of the above. This book changes you. I'm trying to find a way to talk about this, but the truth is that this book left me speechless.

The basics, then. The plot, as seen above, is pretty straightforward while also being filled with twists and turns and moments so powerful and touching in their simplicity. At its core, it's also a love story about two violent people, showing them slowly getting closer and finding comfort in each other. But this isn't the story. This is the performance, as shown to the protagonist: you. Is it a real story? Did it happen, in the past of the protagonist's world? Absolutely. Does it blend perfectly with the performance, until you lose yourself in the narration? You bet it does.

If you don't like the second person narration, it's likely you won't like this novel. It's very diffucult to get it right, after all. But this novel gets it exactly right. It doesn't take you out of the book, but rather draws you further in, leading you to the Inverted Theater and its wonders. There are also small segments in the first person, like a chorus in a Greek Tragedy, punctuating the more poignant moments, and it works. Everything works perfectly, like clockwork, creating a stunning tapestry of a novel.

Every character is important. Every small interation counts. Love is the most important thing there is, especially loving yourself. The world is rich, lived in, with astonishing bits of worldbuilding (did I say you'd be crying about turtles?); even the glimpses we get about the present, though less developed, are intriguing. The prose is truly phenomenal, lyrical and evocative. There are terrible depths of depravity and gut-wrenching moments of hope.

The Spear Cuts Through Water is my favorite book of the year. Perhaps it will become yours too?

✨ 5 stars