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Book Review: Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

“Things that are unsightly: birthmarks, infidelity, strangers in one’s kitchen. Too much sunlight. Stitches. Missing teeth. Overlong guests.”

Palimpsest is the story of a city that exists between dreaming and waking, full of living trains, mechanical bees, houses grown from trees, rivers made of coats, and other beautiful, ugly, wonderful, and dangerous imaginings. One of the most interesting aspects of the novel is that access to the city is achieved through sex, as four characters — a woman who loves trains, a man who loves locks and keys, a woman who tends bees, and a man longing for his lost wife — living in different parts of the world discover after chance encounters. As each one longs more desperately to reach the City of Palimpsest, they find they have to put them in increasingly compromising situations with a multitude of complications and consequences.

“Do not ask, he thinks, and tried to clench his throat around it. But the question is a lock and it seeks the key of her and he cannot stop himself, even though the taste of it is like the Volkhov, muddy and reedy and cold.”

The language in Palimpsest is often beautiful, poetic, rich and thick as honey. It’s perfect for the surreal other city of Palimpsest, though for the “real” world it can have feel of distancing, the focus more on the labyrinth of the words than on the characters. At the beginning, when we are just getting to know the characters, I think it creates a distancing effect, making them hard to relate to, their quirks feeling exotic and strange rather than relatable. So, I had a hard time with the novel at first, as it felt more like a complex poem that I couldn’t quite penetrate.

“Every morning she pulled a delicate cup from its brass hook and filled it, hoping that it would be dark and deep and secret as a forest, and each morning it cooled too fast, had too much milk, stained the cup, made her nervous.”

After a certain point, though, when the threads of the characters’ stories began to come together, twisting through the labyrinth of Palimpsest toward the conclusion, I began to really enjoy the novel. I varied between needing to compulsively read and needing to take a break to absorb one or another beautiful phrase. While the ending wasn’t as satisfying as I would have liked, this was still a great journey and one I will reread in the future.

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First Update of 2015

Oh, the joys of winter colds. I’ve spent the past three days curled up in blankets, watching TV and trying not to hack up my own lung. I can’t really remember much of my week beyond that.

What I’m reading

I recently finished A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes novel written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Mystery novels are not my cup o’ tea, but I enjoyed reading about Watson’s first impressions of the great detective and the murder mystery has some interesting elements to it. A fun and fairly easy read.

Now, I’ve started in on Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente, which has some beautiful wonderful writing and fascinating moments, but hasn’t fully captured me yet.

What I’m Writing

I’ve been working on my novel in poems, handwriting a new opening poem and editing what will replace the existing chapter one. I’m torn on the idea of whether to call the poems “chapters” or not. At this point, I’m thinking not, simply because coming up with an individual title, rather than a chapter title, helps me to think of each poem as needing to be complete in and of itself.

I poured out a freewrite that should come together as a completed poem and I’ve been creating some blackout poetry, which I’ve posted up at Tumblr.

Goal(s) for this week: Type up and finish two opening chapters of the novel in poems.

Where I’ll Be

If I’m feeling healthy again by Thursday, then I’m planning to attend the the Cito.FAME.Us open mic, starring Q&A on Thursday at Iguanas in San Jose. I’ll be listing to the creepy-sweet tunes of Q&A and will probably bring something to read, too.

What’s Inspiring Me Right Now

While my feelings on Palimpsest as a whole are mixed, the visual poetic language is triggering my inner poet and has me wanting to play with words. It’s a book I can only read in short spurts, because it has me thinking about language as I read. I find myself reading a page or two only to begin reaching for my own notebook, leading me into my own labyrinth of words and corridors of phrases.

Opportunity of the Week

Far Orbit: Apogee is an anthology of science fiction adventure stories created in the “Grand Tradtion” to be edited by Bascomb James. The covers for past anthologies are gorgeous and though I haven’t read past anthologies by this publisher, they look cool. Payment is one cent per word and the deadline to submit is March 15th.

Linky Goodness

i09 published a list of 67 Science Fiction And Fantasy Movies To Watch Out For In 2015, which has me drooling. Many of these look great, though I’m particularly excited about Avengers: Age of Ultron and the new Mad Max and Star Wars flicks. The list also includes a bunch of indy flicks that look rather interesting, too.

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Books finished in December

1. Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
2. The Arabian Nights: Tales of 1001 Nights, Volume 3
3. The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson
4. Siberiak: My Cold War Adventure on the River Ob by Jenny Jaeckel
5. Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christine Hepperman
6. The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson
7. Audacious (a novel in verse) by Gabrielle S. Prendergast
8. This One Summer by Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki

REVIEWS:

Continue reading “Books finished in December”

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Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by

Fairy tales neatly blend together with the lives of teenage girls in this darkly funny collection of poems for teens. Definitely from a girl’s perspective, these poems explore unfortunate boyfriends, friendships, girl-on-girl cruelty, and other teenage nightmares using the fantastical and strange. As the Hepperman explains, these poems show how a teenage girl walking down the street can feel as though she’s trapped in her own personal tower. Many of these poems are simple, narrative poems told from the point of view of a villain or an innocent, if you believe one is any different from the other. The book is also illustrated with fantastical and surreal black-and-white photography, often evoking fairytale imagery.

A lot of these poems focus on body image, weight issues, anorexia, and so on. It was by far the most common theme among the poems. And for the most part Hepperman explores these issues artfully, though at times it seemed as though there was too much focus on this subject, the impact dulled by overuse and the ultimate message eventually feeling somewhat trite. However, some of these body image poems were also my favorite in the collection, as with “The Wicked Queen’s Legacy”, which shows how easy it is to become obsessed with self-image.

It used to be just the one,
but now all mirrors chatter.

In fact every reflective surface has opinions
on the shape of my nose, the size

of my chest, the hair I wash and brush
until it’s so shiny I can see myself

scribbling notes as each strand
recommends improvements.

— from “The Wicked Queen’s Legacy”

One of the things I really enjoyed about this collection was how darkly funny many of the poems were. For example, the poem “Big Bad Spa Treatment” describes how you can get sumptuously treated with “deep-tissue Massage Mallets, / leaving you loose / and gristle free” and a “honey barbecue facial mask”. And the evil queen doesn’t stop at Snow White in “Assassin,” but laboriously works to take out Sleeping Beauty, Gretel, Bo Peep, Goldilocks and others in her need to be the fairest.

While I can’t say this was the best collection of poetry I have every read (I think there is more mature work out there), it was certainly enjoyable and I would recommend it for just about any teenage girl. I think it would resonate with that age group quite a lot. I would have been obsessed with this collection as a teenager, reading it dogeared and copying quotes down in my journals. I remember facing my own self loathing around my body in high school and the awkwardness I felt around my peers, and I’m sure this book would resonated. It might have even made me feel stronger, as though I could face the world with courage and awesome.