Elizabeth Lim’s second novel in the Blood of Stars series, “Unravel the Dusk,” reaches deep into your prefrontal cortex and implants a strong desire to embroider and to create. She makes sewing exciting, infusing time consum- ing, mundane tasks with danger, dignity and purpose. In the world of “Unravel the Dusk,” embroi- dery and tailoring is regarded and honored as capital-A Art. The highest title of Master Tailor is reserved only for accomplished men. Women, while able to practice the craft, are hampered by sexism. In the first book, “Spin the Dawn,” Maia rebels against the status quo. Taught by her aged father, once a Master Tailor, Maia struggles to keep her family shop open after her brothers are drafted into war. After the war ends, Maia has two dead brothers, a crippled brother and a fragile father. When her father is called upon by the emperor to craft clothing for the future empress. Maia worries that her father would not survive the arduous trip. To save what remains of her broken family, Maia passes herself off as her brother and goes to the capital in her father’s place. If her decep- tion is discovered, Maia would be executed. Aided by a divine pair of heirloom shears, Maia undergoes three trials to do the impos- sible. Maia must retrieve divine materials to craft three legendary dresses: one from the laughter of the sun, one from the tears of the moon and one from the blood of the stars. Edan, the emperor’s enchanter, assists her as they travel to the far-flung corners of the land. Edan is revealed to be a jinn, a magician turned genie, bound to a thousand years of servitude. He serves as Maia’s love interest and as a prime example of Lim’s cross-cultural exchanges. While the Blood of Stars duology focuses on a single kingdom, the world Lim creates is vast. She allows Chinese folktale and Persian mythol- ogy to interact and exist side by side. Jinn magic is not native to the Sino-inspired kingdom; thus, Edan is introduced as an enchanter. The cultur- al diffusion recalls historical cultural diffusion that occurred because of trade routes like the Silk Road. The small details help anchor Lim’s fantasy world and lends it verisimilitude. In the second book of the series, Lim focuses more on developing a tight narrative and less on lateral world building. Court politics takes cen- ter stage, with Maia attempting to uphold the tenuous peace and her own sanity. In the first book, the three divine dresses serve as Maia’s questing goal. They are mythic and unattain- able yet vital to preserving peace. In the second book, Maia’s central conflict is within herself. She no longer needs to continue crafting with the threat of life or death. Maia already peaked in her tailoring career. At the conclusion of the first book, the King- dom plunges back into war with the rebel com- mander, aided by demonic forces. Maia must rally her allies to combat the demonic threat. Thus, in “Unravel the Dawn,” Maia is less a seamstress and more a demon, an agent of war. While crafting takes up less space in the sec- ond novel, “Unravel the Dawn” still reminds us that there is dignity in working with our hands, producing labors of love, beauty and sweat. Hav- ing fewer crafting moments was disappointing but Maia’s character transition from creator to destroyer was exciting to read. Throughout the Blood of Stars duology, Elizabeth Lim unflaggingly stresses the magic of beautiful art and trade skills while bringing the suspense and drama. She depicts a robust world, fraught with political and social tension. For Maia, sewing is not compliance with the patriarchy. Rather, every stitch is a rebellion, a stand against the patriarchal status quo and looming demonic powers. 6 Thursday, July 2, 2020 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com ARTS SUMMER SERIES SUMMER SERIES My mother’s copy of ‘The Bluest Eye’ When my mother was in college, she would spend hours at the campus bookstore. She would browse the stacks of books assigned for literature classes that she was not taking. She would spend her money buying other people’s mandatory reading, and later would fall in love with the books she found. This was how she came across Toni Mor- rison and “The Bluest Eye,” and how I came to find it in my bookshelf. I asked her why she never actually took these literature classes, especially when I realized that numerous books left to me were a result of her bookstore prowl, and her answer was simple. She didn’t like the analysis of the books, much like her disdain for the analysis of poetry. She couldn’t ever derive the deeper meaning of what she thought to be insignificant details, and she did not care to delve into the motifs of revered classics. It would strip her of the enjoyment of these books and discourage her reading habits. So when she read “The Bluest Eye,” she was only privy to her own interpretations. “It was a punch to the gut.” Set in Lorain, Ohio, in 1941, the book begins with narration by Claudia MacTeer, a woman describing events that happened around the time she was nine years old. That fall, her young friend Pecola was having her father’s baby. Claudia recollects how she and her sister Frieda planted marigolds in hopes that their success would signify the health of Pecola and her baby. But they did not bloom. No marigolds bloomed that fall in Lorain, and Pecola’s baby did not survive. “What is clear now is that of all of that hope, fear, lust, love and grief, nothing remains but Pecola and the unyielding earth.” The autumn the year prior, Claudia’s family had taken in Pecola temporarily after her father tried to burn down the family home. Pecola is a quiet and awkward little girl, obsessed with Shirley Temple and the belief that whiteness is beautiful, her own Blackness inherently ugly. Morrison uses Pecola to show “how something as grotesque as the demonization of an entire race could take root inside the most delicate member of society: a child; the most vulnerable member: a female.” Pecola moves back home to live with her unstable, alcoholic father, Cholly, distant mother Mrs. Breedlove and a runaway brother, Sammy. Pecola cannot escape. She begins to think it is the life she deserves because she is ugly, a belief reinforced by how she is treated in her community: She is invisible to the adults in the community, she is teased by boys at school and is framed for killing a boy’s cat. Pecola starts to believe she could transform her life if only she were prettier. She prays for blue eyes in an effort to change how the world views her, and she the world. One night, when Pecola is 11 years old, Chol- ly returns home drunk. He sees her washing dishes and experiences several heavily con- flicting emotions: tenderness, hatred and lust, all fueled by guilt. He rapes Pecola and leaves her unconscious on the floor. Her mother finds her, disbelieves her story and beats her. Pecola, now pregnant, visits a self-pro- claimed psychic with her wish for blue eyes. He tricks her into killing a dog, and tells her its sudden death means her wish will be granted. After this, Claudia tells us how she and her sister learned through gossip that Pecola was pregnant. Pecola, who can no longer go to school, believes everyone’s disregard for her is rooted in their jealousy of her blue eyes. “A punch in the gut” is an understatement. This novel stuns you — not only because it is blatantly apparent in its exposure of how the innate discrimination of society destroys young souls, but also purely by how it is writ- ten. The form and structure is incredibly lyri- cal and evocative. Morrison chose to break the story into distinct parts that, although divided by each season, are mostly narrated non-chronologically. It is the objective of the reader to reassemble the story. This choice was Morrison’s solution to centering the novel on Pecola, who is an incredibly delicate and vul- nerable character. By giving the reader greater responsibility, Morrison hoped to provoke an “interrogation of themselves” rather than lead them into the comfort of pitying Pecola and ignoring the greater issues at hand. There are many frequent shifts between narrators and perspectives that emphasize Pecola’s shattered world. This ever-changing structure forbids the dehumanization of the characters who hurt Pecola, and shifts focus onto the systemic nature of the issues that occur. I found the structure to achieve its pur- pose, and was surprised by Morrison’s claim in the forward that “it didn’t work: Many readers remain touched but not moved.” The quick shifts prevented me from becoming numb to the discomfort. Each distinct por- tion of the novel induced a sense of uneasi- ness, and forced me to acknowledge where this vexation was sprouting from: In each part, the same underlying beast was pulsating. I could trace my discomfort back to the root of the issue, the discriminatory system, that was responsible for the characters’ suffering. The shattered world was explicit. For a reader not to be moved means the reader was not paying attention. LILLY PEARCE Daily Arts Writer Sewing and palace intrigue in ‘Dusk’ Read more at michigandaily.com LIZZIE YOON Daily Arts Writer Read more at michigandaily.com BOOK REVIEW BOOK REVIEW