Biting the Sun

Biting the Sun by Tanith Lee is 2 books, Don't Bite the Sun and Drinking Sapphire Wine, republished as 1 novel. Unlike On Her Majesty's Occult Service that I posted about before, it seemed like one book. There were no random jumps to different mini stories that kept me thinking I was in the second half, in fact, if there wasn't a page dedicated to the title of the second half, I wouldn't have noticed. The 2 stories connected so well, it was a seamless transition. On an flip side though, if I read Don't Bite the Sun without the Drinking Sapphire Wine, I doubt that I would've picked up another Tanith Lee book for a bit. Perhaps its just me, but the first have really had no ending, no climax to build up to and resolve. It laid awesome ground work for the second book, which I truly enjoyed.

In truth, I almost set the book down after the first 15 or so pages. I think only once have I never finished a book that I've started reading.

"Although I have put the Four BEE into equivalent modern English, the Jang slang vocabulary which the writer uses pales in translation. I have therefore left the sixteen or so odd words she employs untouched, and included on the following page a glossary, which provides an adequate, if imperfect guide to what they mean."

Irritating. So irritating. Yes, by the end of the book you have most of the memorized. Until the words are memorized, having to flip back and forth to the beginning is annoying as all hell. Lee uses less and less of the 'Jang' words as the book progresses, but they are extremely common in the beginning. In my opinion, to put normal English words in would've been an improvement to the books ease of reading. For example...

attlevey - Hello
derisann - Lovely, Beautiful
ooma - Darling, honey
tosky - Neurotic

All of those words, plus the others listed in the 'Glossary of Jang Slang' really do not make much of a difference to be in Jang, as opposed to actually using the English word. Our brains, after flipping through the book back to the beginning, would just substitute the English word back into the sentence anyways. There are a couple of swear words that are in Jang, which I can understand - much like the Chinese phrases that aren't translated in Firefly and Serenity, the tone and sound leave you with building your own meanings. The swear words are particularly easy to figure out. But no, instead we're left with normal boring words that should've just been translated originally.

I believe the intent of Lee was to show how the main character is growing out of her Jang stage, which is approximetly 50 years, to the Older Person stage of her/his life. I would tell you the characters name, but I'm not sure its ever mentioned in the book.

Life in the Four BEE, a city with sister cities named Four BOO and Four BAA, is extremely easy. Androids run the government and shops, providing everything for the humans. No one works because the cities run off energy, and if you require anything, your payment is a show of hysterical thank yous that is then siphoned off to the city's energy banks. There are no deaths in Four BEE (or Four BOO or Four BAA) as each human life spark is picked up by androids as soon as death occurs and put in a Limbo tub, awaiting a new body. So if you don't want to wait the required 30 days for a new body, you merely open your bubble underwater and drown, or crash your bird-plane into the Zeefahr Monument.

There are no responsibilities, at least until you're an Older Person, then if you so choose, you can be a Maker and have a child. But for your Jang life, you can do anything irresponsible that you want. In fact, its expected of you. Any Jang not acting as outlandish as the Jang lifestyle dictates is frowned upon by the androids in the Committee. When doing whatever you want finally gets to be boring, and your life isn't as fulfilling as it should be, then you're at the starting point for Biting the Sun.