Thoughts on Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (Spoilers)

[NameIess]

Had to make this one before @Ironwill2112 could get to it. (And hopefully the poll works out well, because it has been a while since I’ve made one and I’m doing it on mobile)

So, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. The best secret project, and my favorite non-Stormlight book that Brandon Sanderson has written. Why? Well despite this book having moments that make me cringe extremely hard (Yumi’s first meeting with Akane, I’m looking at you) Yumi and Painter’s relationship hits hard for me, and the book’s high moments are incredibly strong. Yumi and Painter at the fair, Painter protecting Yumi from the stable nightmare, and the penultimate scene of Painter painting Yumi are all incredible, emotionally resonant scenes.

I don’t want this to be too long, though there’s a lot more I could talk about, but I’ll add this: despite what Hoid might think about the matter, this book getting a happy ending makes it a better story.

[Myst He/Him]

11 minutes ago, NameIess said:

Had to make this one before @Ironwill2112 could get to it. (And hopefully the poll works out well, because it has been a while since I’ve made one and I’m doing it on mobile)

So, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter. The best secret project, and my favorite non-Stormlight book that Brandon Sanderson has written. Why? Well despite this book having moments that make me cringe extremely hard (Yumi’s first meeting with Akane, I’m looking at you) Yumi and Painter’s relationship hits hard for me, and the book’s high moments are incredibly strong. Yumi and Painter at the fair, Painter protecting Yumi from the stable nightmare, and the penultimate scene of Painter painting Yumi are all incredible, emotionally resonant scenes.

I don’t want this to be too long, though there’s a lot more I could talk about, but I’ll add this: despite what Hoid might think about the matter, this book getting a happy ending makes it a better story.

I absolutely love it. I’m generally against romance or romance adjacent stuff(the fact that I consider Yumi to be romance adjacent should tell you that) but I thought it was natural. And it made sense. The moments the two shared were amazing.

I personally would rate this above Stormlight 3, so top 5, but yeah. It’s amazing.

I absolutely loved Design’s personality too.

I could go on and on. I need to reread it anyways. But it’s amazing 

[Frustration]

It was probably my second favorite secret project.

Despite a couple of flaws it was really solid.

I'd probably rank it above WaT but below TSM.

[Treamayne]

For me, least favorite of the Cosmere Secret Projects (but still better than Frugal Wizard). 

Not bad, per se (on the scope of books in general), but the ending ruined it for me. Granted, I have not yet done a re-read. 

My Reactions Post

This post explains better than I could, why the ending did not work for me. Excerpt:

On 7/26/2023 at 8:03 AM, Elegy said:

[T]he fact that the book tries to make the reader feel the sad ending without commiting to it. Which feels like a major fake-out.

<snip>

This one was the worst of all, because it made me feel the deeply emotionally resonant ending that the book could have had. That ending would have been such a stand-out in his work, people would talk about it all the time. But he dropped it for the "everyone's happy, also they take over the noodle shop", which feels like fan fiction, or a meme ending, to the point that I think it's possbible that Hoid just made it up on the fly because everyone in the audience was crying and the tragic ending might be what actually happened, because it felt like such an odd decision.

<snip>

(EDIT: To clarify, the ending would have been better if he hadn't made it seem like he wanted to commit to the sad ending in the first place. Having a happy ending for this story is fine. It's the fact that he wanted the reader to believe that the sad ending had already happened just to undo it that makes me mad. If he hadn't done that, I would have happily gone along with the happy ending, even though it wouldn't have been nearly as emotionally resonant to me as the one he almost did. At the very least, it wouldn't have felt dishonest.)

[Frustration]

48 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

For me, least favorite of the Cosmere Secret Projects (but still better than Frugal Wizard). 

Not bad, per se (on the scope of books in general), but the ending ruined it for me. Granted, I have not yet done a re-read. 

My Reactions Post

This post explains better than I could, why the ending did not work for me. Excerpt:

I agree the ending was probably the worst part of the book.

And honestly I agree with @Elegy. If Brandon had committed and killed Yumi this sub-forum would be a lot more lively. The fact that I can count on one hand the number of threads made more recently than two years ago is quite telling. That's white sand levels of irrelevance.

Edited yesterday at 01:35 AM by Frustration

[Returned he/him]

I really enjoyed it. The setting was interesting, as was the split between contexts. I thought that the context-swapping concept was done well and suited the story, the contrasts of different art styles and commitment to them were interesting, and that the setups and reveals were pretty well done (I was intrigued throughout, at least). The romance plot was fine, though I thought the beginning was a little bit rushed/asserted more than shown but it came together in a satisfying way. I liked the structure of the climax, that Yumi could be contained and kept from learning enough to really challenge her containment but that her development and skill in her art could not be controlled.

I thought that the villain, an established and disinterested machine, was an interesting change of pace, and the attendant scholars who were enslaved but happy to be part of their great design was also interesting. I enjoyed the nature of the nightmares, especially Liyun's personality and dedication overcoming the nature of her nightmare existence.

I agree that the ending was awful: unearned, poorly set up and contrary to what was developing, undermining the story and themes of the book to give a tidy, happy ending. The ending alone drags my rating down by at least a star. I also got tired of Design and Hoid quickly, though I think a good portion of that was lingering distaste for Hoid's narration in Tress (which I had finished just before starting Yumi). I liked the pictures as a change of pace, even though I wish they had focused less often on the romance for subjects and composition.

The hierarchies of politeness in speech as expressed through grammar is an interesting and real-world thing to include, and done adequately enough, but only just barely so-- I acknowledge that English doesn't have grammar to do that, and so it can't be expressed as it can in Japanese (which was clearly the inspiration [EDIT: Frustration points out that the specific inspiration is Korean, though similar structures exist in Japanese]; I wonder how a Japanese [or Korean] translation expresses it in the book), but the "this novel is an in-world translation of an in-world language" device is generally one that leaves me cold. What would be subtle and artful as inflection becomes blunt and flat when dialogue is frequently modified with "he said respectfully/disrespectfully". The device wasn't quite overused, but it's fundamentally "tell rather than show" and pretending that it would be "shown rather than told" in some language in which the book is not written doesn't fix that for me.

Edited 10 hours ago by Returned

[Ink and Embers Any pronouns]

I enjoyed it and have it ranked as the second craziest thing I have read in my life. It was chaotic; I thought the character interactions were fun and well-detailed; I appreciated the anti-AI-art aspects; I was grateful for the scenes where Hoid explained what was happening! It is pretty similar in places to Your Name, but very interesting, especially the cultural differences between Yumi and Painter.

[Frustration]

1 hour ago, Returned said:

I acknowledge that English doesn't have grammar to do that, and so it can't be expressed as it can in Japanese (which was clearly the inspiration; I wonder how a Japanese translation expresses it),

Korean actually, as Brandon lived in Korea for two years and learned the language.

[Treamayne]

3 hours ago, Returned said:

I acknowledge that English doesn't have grammar to do that, and so it can't be expressed as it can in Japanese (which was clearly the inspiration [EDIT: Frustration points out that the specific inspiration is Korean, though similar structures exist in Japanese]; I wonder how a Japanese [or Korean] translation expresses it in the book), but the "this novel is an in-world translation of an in-world language" device is generally one that leaves me cold.

I made a thread to explain this back during the spoiler period - extracted:

On 7/12/2023 at 1:40 PM, Treamayne said:

I thought that Hoid's description and definition of the Higher and Lower forms was . . . less than steller. The concept made sense to me, mostly because I studied Korean for years, as well as lived in Korea and Japan. So, assuming the concept Brandon was trying to express is actually based on Korean (which he also studied), I thought I would make a post giving a bit of desciption on the possible inspiration for that aspect of Komashi culture. 

  Hide contents

1. Relationships are important. So important, in fact, that the language naturally skews to reflecting the Connection between people. For example:
   • In English a simple noun like "uncle" has multiple translations in Korean - because the word "uncle" parses to a definition of the relationship:
     • Father's Brother (unmarried) - Samcheon (lit. third-relation) 삼촌
     • Mother's Brother (unmarried) - Waesamcheon (wae = maternal side) 외삼촌
     • Father's Older Brother (married) -  Big Father - Kunabeoji (or "more [age] than father") 큰아버지
     • Father's Younger Brother (married) - Little Father - Jagunabeoji (or "less [age] than father") 작은아버지
2. It's not only distinct nouns based on a relationship, the entire root form of a word can change based on relationship. Using the wrong form can be (intentionally or accidentally) insulting - especially using a child/animal form when it is obviously not "correct." For example:
   • To eat (note: infinitive [dictionary] forms of a verb are unconjugated ending in 'da,' 'ida,' or 'hada'):
     • Meokda 먹다 - Informal (yourself, somebody of similar rank or age, anybody younger)
     • Dushida 들다/드시다 - Polite/Honorific (restaurant server to customer, anybody older than you or above you in heirarchy)
     • Japsushida 잡수시다 - Extremely polite (honored boss, grandparent, etc.)
     • (Meogi[rul]) Juda 먹이를 주세요 - Animal (Feed an animal) - in this case the verb is Juda and "meogi" is what they are being fed - however just saying an animal ate something uses meokda and the conjugation carries the rest of the deprication.
3. Additionally, the conjugation of the word being used can change based on the way the topic is discussed
   • Discounting the oddity that most verb roots can be conjugated into nouns, adjectives, adverbs, etc. - there are generally at least six different basic conjugations per verb depending on the object being discussed:
   • Brief Summary - Me talking to a boss is different than me talking to a friend, which is different than me talking with a friend about our boss, etc.
     • Talking to/about somebody of greater age/rank gets an honorific conjugation (~십니다 - Formal Honorific)
     • Talking to/about somebody of greater age/rank with whom you know or have a good relationship (~세요 - Informal Honorific)
     • Talking to somebody of similar age/rank gets a normal conjugation (~ㅂ니다 - Formal)
     • Talking to somebody of similar age/rank with whom you know or have a good relationship (~요 - Informal)
       • Also most common internet conjugation
     • Talking to child, animal or somebody significantly below you in rank or age (~아/야 - Informal, commanding)
     • Generic or unknown audience (or talking down in a possibly insulting way) - use the dictionary infinitive form.
4. Suffixes
   • 씨 (sshi) non-gendered form of address to somebody of similar rank or age
   • 님 (nim) non-gendered form of address to somebody of higher rank or age (or showing honor)
   • 이 (i) non-gendered pronoun for something/someone near the speaker - English: This
   • 그 (gu) non-gendered pronoun for something/someone near the listener- English: That
   • 저 (jeo) non-gendered pronoun for something/someone away from both the speaker and listener- English: That over there

 

Summary - Based on context, the "highly"/"lowly" could be a verb change or conjugation change. While we don't know if Komashi uses either or both; the context of those tags will hopefully make more sense and be more impactful knowing from where it may have derived. 

Hope that helps

[Returned he/him]

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Korean actually, as Brandon lived in Korea for two years and learned the language.

Thanks, it was the Japanese names (Yumi, Akane, etc.) that threw me.

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

I made a thread to explain this back during the spoiler period - extracted:

Nice primer! I understand the concept well enough. But whatever the specifics, they aren't properly expressible in English which can make it awkward to directly "translate", especially without the actual antecedents. I like the highly/lowly approach taken in Yumi for a bit of exoticism and worldbuilding (it really emphasizes the different social context) but dislike it as prose style. I don't like the approach much as a literary device either, and Hoid's "this is the best I can translate it to your language" puts it firmly in that territory. Mostly a personal taste and preference thing for me, not much of a critique beyond that.

Edited 8 hours ago by Returned

[Schizoposting]

In Yumi, like in other Romantasy, I think that there's a tension between the romance and the fantasy: it's not obvious to me, what the romance has to do with the themes about art, and the struggle against the Father Machine. In regular fantasy, romance is usually just a sub plot to show character growth, or something of that sort—but when both are equally prominent, the story can feel disjointed. 

But it has been a while since I last read Yumi, so if anyone has different opinion on this matter, I'd be curious to hear it.