Before starting A Song to Drown Rivers, I wasn’t familiar with the Four Great Beauties of China beyond a vague recollection of the phrase. As I started, I did a quick google of Xishi and her story, which has two possible endings – one where the king she served has her assassinated for fear the skills she used to topple the Wu kingdom may be turned on him, and another where she and Fanli are able to live out in freedom and happiness. The execution of the ending of A Song to Drown Rivers gives me a lot of feelings, but overall I really like what Ann Liang did.
In a lot of ways this feels like a slow, quiet story because it’s the quiet political intrigues of the women’s spaces, the power of concubines and beautiful women. I’m glad I read it via audio as it helped things progress for me, and by the end I really loved Xishi and her story. There’s also so many excellent lines throughout that just made my brain buzz in delight. One scene, Xishi is talking about how those in the palace think she’s a fox spirit or a witch, so she is going to use that perception to further her deceptions and goals. There’s also a realization about how everything she did was for the glory of kings, but where does that leave her and other regular folk in the tales? There were also several scenes that broke my heart, even some that I didn’t expect to hurt that way. It really delved in the complexity of people and how there is no one right and true understanding of someone.
This was a really fascinating book and beautifully told, and I loved the narration (Natalie Naudus also narrates Lin’s chapters in Andrea Stewart’s Drowning Empire trilogy, which I adore). This was such an emotional journey on multiple levels, and an absolutely epic love story alongside the struggles of war and political machinations. This did a lot of things I absolutely loved, and definitely recommend people give it a chance.