Power play

Over the last couple of years, I've become fascinated by the role that power plays in fiction. Sometimes, that's on a geopolitical (stellarpolitical?) stage, where we watch as political structures maneuver their way around the chess board; on the human level, where interpersonal relationships and the resources they draw on clash against one another; or financially, where economic disparities squeezes out conflict between classes. I'm convinced that stories like George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell endure not just for their fantastical trappings and characters, but because they're exploring the relationship of people to the various power structures that exist in their worlds. Paolo Bacigalupi's fantasy novel, Navola, brims with this mindset: a dense, intricate exploration of a merchant family's grip on power and how quickly it can unravel.

Bacigalupi is probably best known for his near future thrillers like The Windup Girl or The Water Knife, both of which present bleak, climate change-infused futures for the world and the desperate fights over resources that follow. He's noted that exploring those apocalyptic futures took its toll, and when the opportunity came to visit Italy and learn Italian, he jumped at the chance for a change in scenery. Navola grew out of that experience, and while it's a novel wrapped in the trappings of a historical novel with some fantastical elements, there's still plenty that carries over. If The Windup Girl and The Water Knife are solid arguments against corporate greed and abuse of power, Bacigalupi continues many of those arguments in Navola, just in another set of clothes.

The book is set in the city of Navola, a Mediterranean-inspired society where the di Regulai family has carved out a profitable niche as merchant bankers. Through generations, they've worked to stretch their reach across the known world, financing corporations, merchants, and governments, and in doing so, extending their political influence just as far. We're introduced to the family's heir, Davico, a teenager being groomed to eventually take over the family business. Like any kid, he'd rather be hanging out with his friends in the countryside, playing with his dog, or sneaking glimpses of the pornographic sketches in his father's vast library.

His father has plans for him and his future, and Davico is put to work studying the ins and outs of his family's business. His training goes far beyond memorizing figures and the nature of the goods that travel across the world: he has to begin to learn how to parse the relationships that he'll be engaged with, and the intricacies of mercantile intentions and diplomacy.

Complications soon arise. As his father plots out the next phase of the family business, Davico chafes at his training and the restrictions and responsibilities that this world puts on him. He becomes infatuated with his adopted sister, Celia di Balcosi (the last member of a family who the di Regulai family destroyed), who herself is being groomed to serve the family's needs through an arranged marriage to a rival family. He's not well suited for this mindset: he's fascinated by sex and passion, but is ill-equipped to understand how these can be used as means to an end. As Davico's feelings grow and tensions in his world come to light, he's pushed to brutal and unthinkable limits that will forever transform him and the world that surrounds him.

We've experienced a wealth of these sorts of dense, corporate thrillers in recent years: look no further than TV shows like Succession or Game of Thrones, where their cast of characters fight tooth and nail at the chance of attaining power for themselves. Navola feels as through it's a story in that vein, but with a reluctant protagonist who doesn't realize until it's too late that he's not quite out for the sort of court intrigue and backstabbing politics that are coming for him. He's saved only by chance by a fantastical object owned by his father: a fossilized dragon's eye that he forms a bond with that eventually gives him the insight and will to fight for his life.

This is a slow burn of a novel: a densely-plotted and rich book that begs to be read deliberately and carefully, carrying the reader along as we sink into Davico's world and begin to realize just how dangerous it is. Navola is a masterclass in pacing as the we see the layers of characters and the tenuous bonds that hold them together pile up. Bacigalupi has never shied away from horrific things happening to his characters, and when Davico's eventual downfall comes with a horrific personal cost, it pays off handsomely, hammering home the lesson that in this mercantile world, there is nobody that you can trust.

But this isn't entirely an exercise in masochism: Bacugalupi brings Davico to the absolute breaking point, before reshaping him from those shattered pieces. He slowly becomes the person that he needed to become in order to survive, and by the end of the novel, it's brought him to a point where he's ready to take on the world.

Navola is a coming-of-age story with a devastating learning curve as Davico's comfortable and familiar life comes apart like the collapse of a earthen dam; first with a gradual trickle before a violent collapse. It's a hard and cynical lesson for all involved, but it's one that this hyper-capitalistic world has brought to their doorstep whether they were ready for it or not. Meeting that challenge means shedding every part of that comfortable life, no matter what the cost.