Starry River of the Sky

Throughout the larger plot of Starry River of the Sky, Lin’s characters spin smaller tales that link together to reveal startling truths about their backgrounds, their inner fears, and their deepest flaws and talents. Even when they portray their own stories as events that happened to someone else, sharing their experiences in this indirect way helps them to learn who they are even as it allows those around them to understand them more fully. Through the tales that Rendi and Madam Chang tell, along with the two versions of the mountain-moving story, Lin uses the myriad splinters of stories to explore the many ways in which telling fictional tales can unveil larger truths.

Even the most fantastical stories can provide insight into the past. For example, in Chapter 8, Rendi realizes that Madam Chang’s stories are like a wagon because “when she told them, Rendi had felt transported” (47). Although Rendi doesn’t realize Madam Chang’s identity until much later in the book, her many stories of the moon illustrate the details of her past, and the clues she weaves into her tales eventually allow the young hero to act upon his realization that she is the Moon Lady. Even without this knowledge, though, the evening stories in the inn bring Rendi to a different time and place, allowing him to benefit from Madam Chang’s wisdom in a more thorough and intimate way than simple conversation could achieve. When Rendi does finally realize her identity at the end of the book, he is not surprised, because Madam Chang’s stories have already laid out the truth and let Rendi come to this natural conclusion. Similarly, Rendi’s tales of the rich magistrate are distinctly autobiographical and provide much-needed exposition into his reasons for running away from home. In addition to revealing the details of his life to others, Rendi’s stories also let him address his inner conflicts and come to terms with what happened at home. In this way, his gradual transformation illustrates the common truth that telling one’s own stories allows for a greater degree of introspection. By sharing his pain through stories, Rendi works through his emotions and begins to see a path forward that includes his family. Presenting the events as fiction also gives him necessary distance from the troubling events of his past and offers insights that he could never derive from memory and emotion alone.

Despite the many ways in which Rendi and Madam Chang cloak their identities in their tales, stories cannot hide the truth, and this also holds true for the more traditional stories that are included in the novel. For example, Peiyi brags to Rendi about her ancestor who moved the mountain, presenting him as a wise man who convinced the mountain to leave. Peiyi’s family has lived on the laurels of this ancestor, believing they are descended from the man who brought their town prosperity by removing a great obstacle. However, when Madam Chang later tells the true story, it becomes clear that Peiyi’s ancestor was not a man of great wisdom. Instead, he was an angry and bitter man who hated the mountain that blocked his view of the sky and his access to the world. Instead of wisely convincing the mountain to leave, he insulted the mountain and then twisted his retelling of events to present himself as a hero. The ancestor’s version of events has persisted, but now that the consequences of his actions have reached a dire point, they can no longer be ignored. This brings out the truth of Madam Chang’s tale and exposes the lies of Peiyi’s ancestor, who is not who he was previously thought to be. This progression implies that although stories may hide the truth for a time, all lies will eventually come to light.

Throughout the novel, the various characters’ storytelling choices present the truth in very different ways, and they also reveal the many layers of storytelling that Lin has included in the novel, for the characters of Starry River of the Sky are characters in the novel even as they become the authors of their own tales. This metafictional element allows the novel itself to offer more insight about the nature of storytelling than any one tale within the novel could achieve on its own. As characters, Rendi and Madam Chang play assigned roles in the novel that mirror the archetypal elements of the Hero’s Journey, with Rendi as the hero and Madam Chang as the mysterious and wise helper. These roles come with predefined expectations, namely that the hero will save someone and that the helper will give advice and possibly disappear as mysteriously as they arrived (which Madam Chang does). From this, it is clear that Rendi will undergo a great emotional transformation that will help him to grow into the hero he needs to be. The pattern of the novel also implies that Madam Chang will impart wisdom that Rendi must then use to solve puzzles, both internal and external. By mirroring this larger storytelling pattern, the very framework of the novel reveals the true nature of both Rendi and Madam Chang, with no further explanation required. When this larger structure is combined with the stories that each of these characters tell, Lin creates a firsthand account of the characters’ innermost feelings and worries, thereby transcending the limitations of their preassigned roles. Thus, the novel itself reveals one truth (the journeys that the characters are meant to take) even as the individual character’s tales reveal another truth (who they specifically are within the context of those journeys).

There is no right or wrong way to tell a story, but regardless of the framework, stories reveal truths about the person telling it and those around them. The characters of Starry River of the Sky embody this ideal as they reveal their own truths, which then affect the other characters and serve to deliver the author’s larger message to the world. In this way, those who enjoy a story become participants in every story they hear, even if their role is simply to observe and ponder the tale’s deeper meaning.