Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by: Brandon Sanderson

 

In keeping with the four Secret Projects from Brandon Sanderson, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is written to take Sanderson largely outside of his own comfort zone in writing a primarily fantasy romance.  While Sanderson has written several romance subplots, like many male fantasy authors, it’s not something that is necessarily his strong suit.  The romantic subplots have a tendency to follow the same general structure and with Yumi and the Nightmare Painter Sanderson has taken that structure while expanding it to the length of a novel.  The general plot beats and progression for the third of the secret projects is actually quite predictable, Sanderson sets up a pair of love interests who are complimentary opposites forced into a mutual situation and the relationship builds from there, though with a general twist of this being a Cosmere novel and like Tress of the Emerald Sea, is narrated by Hoid to the reader (Hoid being present for Painter’s half of the novel in the form of a statue).  Yumi is essentially a monk summoning spirits to grant the wishes of the villages she travels to, while Nikaro is the Nightmare Painter, tasked with holding back living nightmares from destroying his society.  Yumi’s world is bright and warm with flying plants and spirits that must be summoned by Yumi as yoki-hijo, while Painter’s is dark and he is tasked with destroying the lesser nightmares with his own paintings.  There’s a large portion at the beginning of the novel wonderfully dedicated to showing each characters’ dissatisfaction with their particular lives, even if that is largely subtextual, before the true inciting incident of the pair being bound to go between their worlds every day or so.  Yumi has to navigate Painter’s world while Painter has to navigate Yumi’s.  The rest of the book is the “investigation” and exploration of their respective roles as they fall in love with one another.

 

The actual plot beats of the romance are perhaps the most predictable thing about the novel, as well as one of the large twists about their respective worlds that the narration from Hoid actively lampshades.  However, Sanderson being predictable does not mean that he is writing a bad book, far from it.  There’s this clear love throughout Yumi and the Nightmare Painter, the reader clearly understanding how much of this was a love letter to his wife much like Tress of the Emerald Sea.  The general romance may be simple, but it’s a simple romance story done incredibly well, especially when Sanderson gets to dissect who Yumi and Painter are.  Both characters are being held back due to their own situations and decisions they have made that they must overcome, both fulfilling these restrictive roles in rather oppressive societies, albeit societies that are oppressive in very different ways.  Yumi comes from an esteemed religious upper class background which has forced her into an exclusively ritualistic life while Painter’s lower class position is working within a system that only allows advancement for those already with wealthy connections.  Perhaps the best sequence of the novel is this point where Yumi and Painter, on Painter’s world after several weeks of dealing with the body swap shenanigans, go to a carnival and for the first time really cut loose.  Sanderson uses this after both characters have revealed their particular damage and one of the bigger twists about the nature of their world has been revealed.  It’s where the slower burn of the romance can actually come to fruition without a kiss since when in each other’s world they become incorporeal, Painter only being seen in this form by Design, a cryptic from Roshar who owns a noodle shop and is a delightfully inhuman character.  Yes, this is still a Cosmere novel so there are actually a lot of references to other pieces of the Cosmere, including some things that have not been published yet, but luckily Sanderson is wonderful at straddling the line of giving the correct ones enough explanation so well-versed readers will understand the references.  It is a bit integral for the climax of the novel to work with an understanding of the Cosmere, but as an ending it’s actually outside Sanderson’s usual type of ending.  There is that usual increase of pace to the climax, but it is a much more reserved ending that reflects on the nature of art and why art is important.

 

Overall, Yumi and the Nightmare Painter was an almost surprising success. Sanderson’s Asian influences never feel as if he is attempting disrespect and there are clearly ideas being drawn from cultures he is familiar with.  Things are added once again by the deluxe edition’s illustrations by Aliya Chen add to that understanding, Chen doing something more somber and suitable for the more reserved tone than the previous two Secret Projects.  Yumi and the Nightmare Painter is a novel that works so well because Sanderson plays to his strengths where he can with a pared down story that focuses in on the characters, the supporting cast being quite small for a fantasy novel and especially for a Sanderson novel.  While it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Tress of the Emerald Sea it genuinely reads among some of Sanderson’s strongest works.  9/10.