Special Double Review
by
Christos Antonaros & Eric Kimminau
Strange Horizons, October 5, 2015
“Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sundar
Reviewed by Christos Antonaros
“Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sundar is a story about deep family values and motherly love.
The author artistically uses a supernatural creature—the dragon—to describe the relationship between a mother and her child, from the beginning of labor to the mother’s final moments of existence. By using the phrase “I didn’t love my baby …,” while at the same time showing her love and care by her actions, the author demonstrates the contradictions inside the mother’s mind about the disability of her child. She carries it on her back, feeds it and shelters it with her wings, despite the negative thoughts of jealousy for the rest of the healthy baby-dragons that were born and flying over them. She takes him far away from the rest of the healthy dragons, where he doesn’t feel different and he dances in joy. Like a true mother, she even forgives him when he accidentally burns her wing. In the final act, the child returns the love of its mother, by taking care of her while she is dying.
What I like most about this story is the poetic writing, the extraordinary symbolism, the colorful description of the setting, and the vivid portrayal of the dragon characters. Naru Dames Sundar led me with a few words through a journey of fire, love and self-sacrifice of a mother. My favorite quote comesfrom the closure, describing the dragon mother’s love: “… maybe it was something else, some hidden place between words, incommunicable and unknowable.”
While I am not a parent yet, I look forward to sharing in the experience Naru describes in this story. Naru’s writing brought back memories from my mother, with all the countless times she forgave me.
Strange Horizons, October 5, 2015
“Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sundar
Reviewed by Eric Kimminau
If you are not a parent, or have never been a parent, “Broken-Winged Love” by Naru Dames Sundar may not inspire the same thoughts or feelings as I believe it will for those of us blessed with children. A story of denial, constantly repeating “I didn’t love my baby,” yet repeated demonstrations of the love only a parent could have for their child, reflects the truth. The story explores the life of a mother dragon raising her deformed child, eventually taking him to a remote land where he could be nurtured and grow, without the taunts and derision of his peers. Her selfless act to save her child not only cost her the loss of “flying carefree into the endless blue, adrift among clouds” but eventually, after losing her ability to fly from the resultant rage trapped in the broken body of her child, she comes to understand that, just as his remaining wing was no more a part of his being, so was the denial of her love for him no longer a part of her. I give this one my highest recommendation.
Eric Kimminau is a BBS geek turned IT professional. A dragon for his children.