The Book I Read Twice in 2020 || A Memory Called Empire Review and Chat || January 2021 [CC]
Today we’re going to talk about A Memory Called
Empire. This is one of my favorite reads of 2020
to the point where I read it twice. This was the
second time I read it in 2020 and the first time
I read it I didn’t feel like I could give it a
quality review or at least the review I feel it
deserves and jury’s still out on that but I’m
going to try because I want to talk about it
and I think it’s so good and I want it to find its
correct audience because it’s not for everyone. No
books for everyone I think especially this one
and yeah let’s get into it. What is A Memory
Called Empire? It is a slow, dense, political
intrigue space opera with very lyrical prose and
very complicated and layered theming and
I loved it. I was like a 4 out of 5 stars
I am so excited for the sequel and I just love it.
This is a story that I wouldn’t recommend unless
you want to engage with the material and what I
mean by that is I personally had the most fun when
I was awake and was able to think about the themes
happening next or trying to figure out some of the
symbolic meanings in the poetry that’s introduced
and the vocabulary is very out there for me. For
me personally I’ve read it on my kindle and I
had to tap quite a few words to figure out what
they meant and yeah that makes it a challenging
read means it’s probably not for everyone because
it’s not a pleasure read this was for me more of a
thinky sci-fi read that hit a lot of my boxes for
like, like I said just thinking about things and
the thematic elements I just love it so if you
want to know my surface level thoughts 4 out of
5 stars. It’s imperfect parts of it is based off
some of the pacing issues I felt were in the plot
but boy if you like a sci-fi that makes you think
but also provides a really great story. I don’t
think you can find many that are this good. The
synopsis of A Memory Called Empire involves Mahit,
ambassador from the Lsel station to the
Teixcalaan empire. That is how I will be
pronouncing that name it’s probably incorrect but
it’s also a made-up word so I don’t feel too bad.
The Teixcalaan empire basically annexes
in a bunch of planets into its influence
and the Lsel station is involved with
working with this empire but wants to remain
independent and one day they get a notice saying
we need a new ambassador please send one posthaste
and they’re like okay… but what happened
to our other ambassador you have?
So that’s what Mahit’s doing. She is traveling
to the empire which she has always loved. She
has this strong connection to the literature
and culture of Teixcalaan. She loves a lot of
the culture of this empire that she does recognize
is devouring her own and so she’s going there and
she has to figure out is my predecessor alive?
Is he dead? What am I supposed to do to make
sure the station stays independent? And that’s
the start of the political intrigue and mystery
and it goes from there and what I will say, now
we’ll just get into the review part of the plot
I really liked that every time I had a question
the main character had the same question. Mahit
and I were just very like why is this a thing
and I think that’s really great storytelling
when things don’t make sense but the author and
the main character are recognizing that like
this is a gap in knowledge we need to fill and the
knowledge gaps are filled and there are some small
things that I’m not sure if I completely buy
into by the end of the story but for the most
part I was taken through this whole plot and
I felt really fulfilled in all of the intrigue
introduced, all the answers to the question, how
each action was triggered. Like the big changing
turning points of the moments in the stories like
to a large extent you have to wonder why does this
one ambassador have such an important part in
this moment in this empire’s history because
it’s a very tense moment and why does this empire
need this ambassador right away? Like it’s a very
tiny tiny part of the solar system or the galaxy
compared to what the empire controls and how that
pans out is really interesting. I thought had some
really great payout what I will say about pacing
is that although on average I found it engaging
and it had explosive moments there are lulls in
the middle that I felt both times I read it but by
the end I was just blowing through it and I could
not put it down I was just so in the moment with
it but also leading into a potential con potential
pro depending on the type of reader you are, what
you find brings you joy in your literature the
writing style I think I might have mentioned
this at the top but the writing has a lot of…
it has an expansive vocabulary I’ll say. There
were many times when I had to click on my kindle
and look up the definitions of words because a
word was being used I hadn’t seen in a very long
time or maybe have never seen. The Teixcalaan
culture itself is very based on literature and
allusions and poetry and linguistics so there’s
a lot of layering there that sometimes takes a
minute to unpack. A lot of the theming is talked
about in a very introspective way through our
main character Mahit and so there’s just a lot of
things that sometimes don’t go I think naturally
with the narrative flow but lend itself to a very
purple rich lyrical writing style and depending on
how your brain works with processing that is going
to make or break your experience with this book.
For me I felt like for the first time I was
reading a book and understanding what people say
when they were like I really loved reading that
sentence, that was a good sentence. Now I could
be wrong. I have no sense of what that actually is
in literature. I don’t have a degree in reading or
writing. I am actually someone who usually doesn’t
like writing to be in the way of my narrative
experience but in this case there were times
where I was just highlighting sentences and just
sitting in the paragraphs and I was just enjoying
reading, like I couldn’t imagine doing this in
any other way but physically reading if that makes
sense. I couldn’t experience this through a movie
or through a tv show, audiobook maybe by for me
I just prefer physically reading when I’m like
dissecting a sentence but it was a really
interesting experience. Now that said that’s
not going to be for everyone. That’s a lot of
work and if you’re not connecting with the themes
or the characters or you don’t care about the
intrigue plot or the plot’s going too slow for you
then this is going to be more of a hindrance
right? But for, but if you’re someone who
likes to have this in their stories and
you don’t see it as often in some sci-fi
I think you’re going to really like it here
because it does what I think a lot of classic
sci-fi does really well but with a modern twist
and with a very compelling story. Now let’s talk
about the characters and whether you might connect
them. I’m gonna talk about just two of them
because I feel like this is our main cast. We
have Mahit, the ambassador from Lsel station.
She is very tall I kind of imagine her as C.J.
Craig from West Wing if you’ve ever seen that,
I don’t know, just like a really tall political
figure and then you have Three Seagrass um the
naming convention in Teixcalaan is a number noun
sort of thing, they talk about it in the book
and both of them I felt this time around I really
got to see their sass and sarcasm with each other.
So Three Seagrass kind of shows up and is like I’m
your liaison and you know Mahit smartly is like do
I trust you and Three Seagrass is just like well
you might as well. So they have this really funny
banter that I do think would be hit or miss. My
first time reading it I didn’t see the banter as
much but the second time I just was loving their
quips back and forth. They were very clever quips
because they’re both very clever individuals
who are at the top of the Teixcalaan empire,
this is a place where word play is important so I
enjoyed their interactions. I enjoyed a lot of the
side characters but I do think this is one where
you could see them as not being that vibrant but
for me at least especially the second read I had
these strong visions of these people and how they
were interacting and this is a very introspective
story. I think it’s third person limited,
again don’t have a degree in reading. The last
time I actually spent time learning that was
15 years ago but you get a lot of the
introspective thoughts of Mahit and her experience
in this empire that she both loves and will never
actually belong to and I thought that was really
interesting and I really liked her musings.
There’s a couple other character parts that
I don’t want to talk about because I don’t want
to, I don’t know, I don’t want to spoil things
but I think the character work is pretty good but
I think it also depends on how well you’re meshing
with the word play and the writing style.
Now let’s briefly talk about the world . I
really like the world building. I think the world
building was used so well to bring across a lot of
themes that were in this story. So we have the
Lsel station and we have the empire. These are
the main things we’re looking at Lsel station you
have a lot of very tall people presumably because
gravity doesn’t you know make you stop growing
maybe? I have no clue actually why they’re so
tall but they’re tall that’s my hypothesis and
they’re shorter on in the empire presumably
because gravity and things like that and also
although the empire like I’ve alluded to really
appreciates literature references,
allusions basically literary art
they are not emotional people. They, the idea of
a big smile is very barbaric to them and that’s
a word that’s used many many times in this
work so they don’t like to be very emotional
but yet use an art form that I associate with
lots of emotion and things like that so I thought
that was very compelling. They… these two worlds
have very different connections with each other
and technology and the idea of self which is a
part of the theme like what is a self there’s
um this question that’s always asked is what
is the Teixcalaan definition of you? Or of we,
things like that so in Teixcalaan culture there
are these cloud hooks that you kind of put over
your eye and that’s your access to the mainframe,
kind of their internet, their social media
and there’s a moment when characters don’t have
access to that and the Teixcalaanlis in that
area are suddenly lonely. They don’t have that
instant tap into what they’re used to as their
local global community setting versus with the
Lsel station they’re a much smaller group much
more intimate, only 30,000 people and the way that
they preserve knowledge is through these things
called imago lines which are really cool they’re
introduced very early on but if you don’t want
to know anything about some things I guess you
could tap out now but the imago lines are briefly
when you are alive you record yourself your
thoughts, your personality into this thing
at the back of your head and then they find
someone who has compatible personality based,
what they said, on the endocrine system and
then they can put you together and you kind of
not meld into a new person like the person having
this imago line put into them is still themselves
to an extent but they have the knowledge,
the experience, the memories of the person
with them so that’s how they keep generational
knowledge because they’re a station in space,
they don’t have time or the ability to let people
keep learning how to be pilots each generation.
They need to keep that knowledge so they have
this chance to survive in the very abrasive and
cruel world that is space so the pilots have
14 generations of knowledge and I think that’s
really interesting. It’s one of the coolest
things about this world to me and there’s also
I hope it comes up in the next book but there’s
also talk about other things in the further
expanses of space and that’s what I’ll leave there
and let’s get into the themes cause I’m pretty
sure this is where the book has me. The book has
me so hard with these themes. The first theme I
want to talk about is preservation of memory and I
kind of led into that with the imago lines right?
They both have this both cultures preserve memory.
We have this dynasty of an empire I mean what’s
a dynasty without its legend, without its memory.
I mean the book’s name is a memory called empire,
which I feel is a very Teixcalaanli title for a
book personally and Three Seagrass even has a line
“so much of who we are is what we remember and we
tell” and this is when they were discussing stuff
about the imago lines and things like that because
the idea of an imago line to a Teixcalaanli person
is quite horrifying they can’t fathom it, it feels
like cheating to them and on the flip side like we
said with the imago lines well they’re preserving
memory in a kind of more scientific way maybe even
a more concrete way because as Mahit will talk
about is they preserve memory in the Teixcalaanli
empire to an extent of they hold on to things that
should be left behind, should be forgotten, should
be dead and they also get warped. Like people will
start believing that these stories these grandiose
tales are real and you know that leads to issues
like if you do everything in such a dramatic way
how how are you able to do something constructive
and that’s a part of the problem we’re in in this
book so this preservation of memory is a really
big part that I really loved about this story
and the idea of memory also leads into the
parts of well what is it to be a person.
Like what does that mean to be a person? Like
I said earlier there’s always this question of
what is the Teixcalaan definition of you because
obviously adding in an imago line changes things
right? Like me if you were to ask me what makes
you you I would say a lot of who I am is based
off my past experiences, so my memory however
flawed. Like our memories are inherently flawed.
We do not remember things exactly especially at
moments of trauma or great stress in our lives
our brains actually rewrite that history in
small insignificant ways most of the time
so who am I if suddenly my memories are mine plus
somebody else’s together? And I think that’s a
discussion that’s talked about a lot in this book
and I don’t know what the answer is honestly like
there are definitely answers given but it’s really
interesting. And one conversation I had about
individuality in this book that I thought was
interesting was this tie-in to personality and
how a personality type is closely tied to who an
individual is and both cultures kind of have this
um we meet a character who says well personality
types exist all over and I I think I’ve been
thinking about this my whole life I’m sure you
all have too. You meet people and you’re like oh
you remind me of this person on tv or this person
I’ve met. Like people kind of fit into these loose
arbitrary boxes you make in your mind sometimes
based off how extroverted or introverted they are,
how hard working they are, what hobbies they like
to do, what type of energy they give off. We kind
of subconsciously compile all these things and we
don’t put a person in a box but we have groups of
people that remind us of other people. In a
similar vein the stationers they talk about
how personality is mostly the endocrine system
which is your… essentially just your physiology
there’s a lot of hormones that go on and off and
that’s what they were claiming makes a lot of
your personality and it’s through that testing
of the endocrine system that they kind of test
compatibility for the imago lines and I just think
that conversation was interesting. I find a lot of
the conversations in this story really interesting
including the next one which is the nature of
empire. Oh my goodness do I like this conversation
especially since the definition of empire can be
very different. So this is a very traditional
empire you know central point keeps annexing
in planets but I feel like it’s also more of a
cultural empire, which is very similar to what
we have in our world. We have this western culture
empire that seeps into every culture and you know
it’s impossible it’s just how capitalism has
had it worked out and I think there’s really
a lot of parallels between what we notice in
our lives versus what’s happening here like you
have Mahit from this other place who loves the
stories and the lore told and Texicalaan. Like
it is very similar to like when I went
to Venezuela as a kid I would watch
the tv in Spanish of what was playing in the
United States and so that happens to a lot of
kids. You love this other culture’s media but when
you then go to that culture, so when my Venezuelan
cousin comes to the United States they might love
it, they might have spent all this time learning
the language, learning the culture. There is
no universe unfortunately when in which she is
automatically accepted into the culture, she’ll
never be American by other people’s definition
and that’s what Mahit has to go through in this
story is that she loves this culture, she wants to
connect with it. She spent all this time learning
it but there is no amount of work she could put
in to not be considered a barbarian, which is a
word that is used so much in this story even to
the point where I feel like it’s a little over the
head brow beaten for me because like they honestly
even kind of know that she’s not a barbarian, they
like know that they’re playing with it like it’s a
word play that they keep using even though there
are many things that Teixcalaan culture does that
if you’re reading it from our standpoint here
in our current times you’re like that’s a very
what I guess I would call it old-style barbaric
way of doing things. Like there’s blood sacrifice,
like there are lots of things that still exist in
this refined “civilized” empire that claims that
they are above everything that we might consider
barbaric so like that definition is very different
uh I’m rambling but this this empire and
studying it and the conversations that
Arkady Martine has through these characters
is so interesting. It’s this predator,
like it is always described as this predator even
by a character who loves it so much it just eats
and eats and it even eats its own leaders its own
people because I think it was a line in this book
that I really liked that “nothing empire touches
remains itself” things always change with this
outside influence, like I said even the people
within the machinations like citizens who are
born in that empire if they get high enough up
into the empire chain their work, their meaning,
their individuality is no longer their own and
it is it’s a discussion and I think it’s really
interesting that we are dropped into this story at
a moment of civil unrest in this empire because we
get to see the different things Arkady Martine
says are reasons why this empire is in a state
of unrest and potential solutions. I don’t know if
I agree with the solutions but I did like thinking
about why are we in this position. Why are people
leaning this way or that way? It’s very relatable
based off what we’ve been currently going through
the past four years in the United States at least
and oh man it was it was really something that
I liked to think about. This was the point where
I really liked engaging with the work because
this is not spoon fed to you. You have to think
about this part because this is the scenario
you’re given but you’re not given the why,
there’s no easy why as to why we’re in this point
it actually moves quite quickly and for me I
think the hypothesis I came up with is there’s
this stagnation that comes at every point in an
empire’s place, that you can only spread so far,
you can only be the same for so long. If you don’t
adapt, if you don’t change, if you don’t address
the issues that are happening to your people
there’s going to be civil unrest. That was
something I took away from it I think for
a large part people were done with the status
quo and they were unsure about the future but I
don’t know that. This was something that was never
spoon fed to me, this is my own interpretation and
that’s what I love about this work. There are
so many conversations. so many interpretations
and yeah tie that in with a story and characters
I found really fun and the payoff at the end.
I forgot how it was going to end and I was
still just like yes I really love this story
so if any of this sounds like it’ll work for you
I really think you should give it a go especially
with the sequel coming out. I also think people
who like stories like Dune would probably connect
well to this one because I feel like Dune
is also a very thematic space opera. That
that one kind of holds your hand a
little bit more on its philosophy
but in terms of like a politically intriguing
space opera they both have some overlap there.
I do think I like this one a little bit more
but they’re both really great works and if you
made it this far, if you’ve read it I would love
to talk to you about anything just make sure you
add spoiler tags for anything of note and if you
haven’t read it do you think you will? Do you have
any other questions and if you just want me to
have an emoji to let me know that you are here
leave a spaceship, a spaceship emoji
would be wonderful and otherwise like
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to I’ll see you in the next one bye!
