She is a secretive woman, but one whose secrets are laid bare before her during this first scene. There are reasons for her actions - jewels are frowned upon in post-Second Empire France, for example, and so throwing diamonds away is a kind of patriotic act - but only Liliet knows them. In her first scenes, we’re privy to her decadence: she throws diamonds in the trash, allows herself to go and get fitted for a new dress in the middle of a ball, and, since she needs to protect her oh-so-precious voice, needn’t speak to anyone if she doesn’t wish to, the last of which is a fortunate thing for a woman who enjoys celebrity but not always the social gatherings that go with it. The Queen of the Night opens on 19th century Liliet Berne, famous and legendary, a rare type of soprano as well as a courtesan - a combination of roles that offers a woman like her, one without family or born-into social status, the power of a noblewoman. Such is the nature of time in The Queen of the Night - constantly folding back on itself, the past leading to its own past, the present nowhere to be found until it emerges from the shadows like the surprise star performer and becomes the perspective we didn’t know existed, making the closing of the novel a constant, moving thing rather than a box shut tight over the narrative. This line appears about midway through the stunning new novel by Alexander Chee, and it’s one of the instances in which Chee illuminates both much of what came before and Liliet’s journey as a whole.
Such is tragedy,” Liliet Berne asserts regarding the Verdi opera Il trovatore, and in doing so gives the reader a roadmap to her own narrative.
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