The atmosphere is not that of a giant epic, it remains very intimate, very introspective. The main character, Shen Tai, is a young peaceful and thoughtful man whose temperament runs regularly to the weight of tradition, his upbringing, his childhood, his family ... His classic golf young man of good family is sometimes punctuated a terrible decision, or even spectacular. This is how he chooses his own risk, to honor the memory of his father by transforming the mourning period of confinement in a mission of unimaginable dedication to everyone.
This decision - to rescue the souls of the dead from the last battlefield, whether its people or former enemy - far from exposing to shame and punishment, earns him the admiration without terminal of all.
A princess of the country, exiled by marriage into the ground so recently enemy, honors a gift that defies imagination, rare 250 horsepower, incredible value.
This unexpected gift and excessive tear Tai definitely his relative anonymity and exposes the depravity of politics, which he would have undoubtedly preferred to escape ...
Therefore, he must use his intelligence and friendships available to him often unexpected way to stay alive, just. For all the powerful dart a leering this horde of mythical animals, the life of the young man who did more weight than their gaze.
The story unfolds with a slow full of finesse and reflections. Despite the epic theme, the vast majority of the story will target every time a handful of characters: Tai mostly, but also his sister, Li-Mei, upset the fate, the powerful of this imperial world, and also some tertiary characters, which give an original touch to the frame.
The action really occurs at the end of the book, after a smooth production that I did not expect this book, given the starting theme.
The atmosphere is in harmony with the will of almost all the characters live their lives according to the principles of harmony and tradition, blooming in music and poetry. The violence that sometimes arises is only more shocking.
A particular emphasis is placed on the place of women in this story, but only those who benefit from the dubious blessing to be beautiful, young, and for certain, well-born.
This blindness to the plight of other women, so numerous, and fascination with seduction - than acquired as natural - the beauty of this story seemed curiously naive. Tai (and the author may also, I asked myself the question) seems to idealize the position of courtesans, even as all the obligations of their servitude are exposed with delicacy and empathy.
I have with this book, the graceful and balanced writing, 5 stars, even if my reading approval rating would rather 4 stars, probably because of the historical context, which is not particularly stirs neither my interest nor my curiosity, and also for a wave due to affinities.
My only experience of the author until then had been Tigana, a novel which I had never been able to hang on and I read painfully line after line, page after page, without ever being touched or not passionate. On advice I tried again with "Celestial Horses," and I have not been disappointed, finding in this novel all the qualities that enthusiastic readers of "Tigana" were noted.
Yet, curiously, the two books have a similar atmosphere. But in "Tigana" characters, without being stereotyped, were frozen, their emotions without being clichéd, had agreed, and the atmosphere of the book seemed to me very flat, and reading ... sluggish.
"The Celestial Horses" is of a different drum in my opinion, with a more mature writing, and has a personality that completely escaped "Tigana".
This conclusion is of course the result of the analysis that I made to explain my difference of opinion between these two readings, and not an absolute judgment!
(Read in English)
