The Winged Turban
The Winged Turban by Joshua Grasso starts of as a rather simple story vaguely modeled after older European novels of the ‘upper class life’ genre. A woman is married by contract to another man and it explores her thoughts and worries over the future and all a loveless marriage entails. It soon gets more interesting, however, with a mysterious painting of a woman wearing a winged turban (the cover art of it is gorgeous as you can see) and the subsequent involvement of a wizard. The book basically splinters off into multiple different directions, woven together with the themes of love and socio-political constructions.
Magic plays a large part throughout the novel. The magic system feels more classical and mystical than spectacular and awe-inspiring. It comes across rooted in tradition and order — like an academic discipline rather than something fantastical and primal. This type of magic is one school of thought on how magic works, and I think Joshua Grasso has done very well with this style.
Speaking of style, his style is more-inline with the books I usually read: older, classical books. It made wonderful sense given the setting of the book and I enjoyed that aspect of it. It felt more authentic. The execution of it was very good for the most part. There were some punctuation/quotation/dialogue ticks (problems?) that bugged me and made it harder for me to read, but I’m pedantic so take that with half a grain of salt.
As for the plot and characters, the actual heart of the novel, the cast is pretty large and the plot starts straightforward and then gets complex. I’m not sure why, but I felt like it was all a bit hard to follow at times. I’m not the type of reader to get confused or lost, but I felt like there needed to be more clarity in some aspect somewhere in the novel. I can’t fully explain it. There seemed to be so much going on and it wasn’t juggled completely right. I’m interested in re-reading it one day, so perhaps a second go of it will fare better for me.
Anyway, on the quality of the characters: I enjoyed them and was interested in seeing where they ended up. The plot was about the same. I wanted to know what would happen so I was compelled to keep reading.
And finally, the belated conclusion to this review, the answer to the question: did I enjoy The Winged Turban? Yes. It kept me flipping the virtual pages, even with the flaws I encountered. I’m interested in the other works set in the same world. And would I recommend it? Yes.
