The Half Closed Eye
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The title “The Half Closed Eye: part of the truth revealed” was inspired by a description in Barry Hughart’s “Bridge of Birds”. The wisemen in the city all have signs above their doors with an open eye proclaiming their knowledge and cunning, but our hero, Number Ten Ox, can’t afford any of them. It is then that he finds a sign featuring a Half Closed Eye. “‘Part of the truth revealed’ the eye seemed to be saying. ‘Some things I see, and some things I don’t.’” (Bridge of Birds, p. 16)Here Number Ten Ox finds Master Li, a sage with a slight flaw in character, to help save his village in a plot that just gets thicker and thicker with every page. Overall it is a delightful tale set in medieval world that Westerners tend to overlook.
Hughart has two sequels to this novel that won him both the “World Fantasy Award” and the “Mythopoeic Fantasy Award”. They are “Story of the Stone” and “Eight Skilled Gentlemen”. Visit the Barry Hughart Bibliography for even more information. |
