Endurance, Tanaka Yoshiki

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language: Japanese (English tr. Daniel Huddleston)
country: Japan
year: 1985
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
series: Legend of the Galactic Heroes, #3
dates read: 11.10.22-17.10.22

Endurance (tr. Daniel Huddleston) is the third book of Tanaka Yoshiki’s Legends of the Galactic Heroes series, and it’s a testament to how much I enjoyed it that I still gave it 4.5 stars even though it felt kind of like an intermission in some ways. the plot turns around a siege, but we get very little examination of the siege itself, which feels like a missed opportunity given its very distant third person. we could easily have had a panoramic view of the siege from both sides like some of the battle writing in Dawn.

in contrast to my concerns about Reinhard’s characterization after Ambition, he’s absent from most of the book: Yang takes center stage, and the Empire is represented mainly by several of Reinhard’s admirals. this was a good choice, I think — we still get an external view of Reinhard through Mittermeier and von Reuentahl (who also get their own more developed characterization) but we also get a complete break from him during the siege sections narrated through Kempf and Müller. that we rarely get Reinhard’s interiority also, I think, makes it harder to give in to the temptation to relate to or admire him, as the external views we’re getting, even from his strongest supporters, become more and more actively concerned about the very fine line he’s walking between benevolent dictator and iron-fisted tyrant.

Yang is really the star of the show here; we also get our first view of Julian as an independent character, and it’s now apparent that he’ll be important for the history the series is presenting. this is probably for the best: although Julian worries me somewhat, I think from an ideological perspective the Alliance side of the narrative has needed more diversity of perspectives to parallel its interest in true democracy and its suspicion of the liberal democratic state.

mainly, though, this book — even more than the first two — is a meditation on the futility of war, the fragility of democracy, and the dangers of concentrated power. the military conflict felt like an afterthought (or, I think, an intermission, particularly with the end of the book promising a dramatic confrontation to come). the distant third person allows its narrator to be unabashedly philosophical, with regular asides (beyond the characters’ own reflections) on the ethics of war and on liberal democracy’s vulnerability to the concentration of power. it also highlights how precarious even Yang’s position is — not in the court of inquiry, but in that there is a part of him that does think it would be easier if he had Reinhard’s absolute control, or at least could operate without responsibility to elected officials — only to the people he’s trying to protect. in some ways it’s Yang’s laziness, not his morals, that is his greatest virtue.

as a final thought, I’m looking forward to the Phezzan sections being more integrated into the narrative in their own right, rather than just standing as ominous interludes.

again, Huddleston’s translation is good, with just a few places that felt more like copyediting errors than translation problems. it’s an engaging and fast-paced read; the only reason it took me six days is all the WoW I’ve been playing.

edit: I forgot my other complaint, which unfortunately I think probably will never be addressed, namely that there are a bunch of characters who I think it would make way more narrative sense to not be straight — Reinhard and Kircheis, obviously, but also von Reuentahl (like, come on), and for that matter Yang. especially given the background narrative about the rise of “traditionalism” and social conservatism in the Alliance I really just feel like it would make sense to explore this dimension. but given the series’s inattention to gender so far I don’t expect this will get any more attention. I’m also still disappointed that Tanaka just…killed off Jessica Edwards, who I think could have been a really compelling addition to the Alliance sections. seems like a waste.

moods: dark, reflective


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