Review: Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente

[ed_rex]

The wound of the 'sexually-transmitted city'

In a recent blog entry Catherynne M. Valente offered a sardonic reply to reviewers who have used phrases like "not for everyone" and "dense" to describe her work.

"'Not for everyone' is certainly one--dude, no book is for everyone, why does this need to be said, even the most popular books have entire cultures of hate around them, if books were either black or white, for everyone or no one, then there'd be five books published a year and that would be it. No one would have to write reviews."

Having now read the Hugo Award-nominated Palimpsest, I find it hard not to echo the phrase, "not for everyone".

Palimpsest is far from your average genre novel, and a reader seeking from it the comforts of the familiar is likely going to wander away confused and disappointed. Palimpsest does not boast a standard plot or setting and features no obvious hero or villain. And then there's the language ...

Worse then the lazy descriptions of her work as "dense" and "not for everyone", says Valente, "is the oft-repeated saw" that she writes "more poetry than prose".

Valente's second objection is simply correct. Her prose is complicated and artful, loaded with imagery and metaphor, but it is not poetry, stealth or otherwise. It is presumably sometimes mistaken for poetry because Valente dares to dance from present tense to past, from second person to third (and back again). She is a writer willing to play with language, to push and pull it into new and interesting shapes — almost always, I am happy to say, while keeping in mind that she is first of all telling a story — however (ahem) difficult or even "dense".

None of which make of a piece of writing, poetry, any more than inclusion of parts for viola and bassoon of necessity make of a piece of music, a symphony.

All that said, is Palimpsest a good novel?

On first-reading, yes it is. Very much so.

Click here to catch a glimpse of the 'sexually-transmitted city' (no significant spoilers).

Comments

[eagle]

The characters were rather hard to like. I had that problem too. Sei and November salvaged that a little bit, but even with them I liked them better at the start of the book and less and less as it went on.

The imagery was beautiful, but it was also aggressively nasty in a way that bothered me at times.

There are some bits of writing in there that, for me, just shone, but then I also like Jacqueline Carey. :) But it's a book that I'd only recommend with substantial caveats.

[feuervogel]

I think it's the nastiness that did it in for me, too. The sympathetic characters were just horrible, unsympathetic people. The only character I remotely liked was Sei, and as you say, she got less likeable as the book progressed.

There was some really good writing in there, but there's a line between vivid descriptions and purple prose, and imo, she crossed it.

Ah! *There's* the second Carey reference!

[ed_rex]

I'm with you in terms of (there's that concept again!) being particularly selective about whom I would recommend Valente too.

On the other hand, there are a lot of people to whom I wouldn't recommend Doctor Who, either, if for very different reasons.