Valente, Catherynne M.: The Girl Who Circumnagivated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

[calico_reaction]

Comments

[inverarity]

This was my favorite book of the year. (My review here.)

[calico_reaction]

Awesome. This would've been mine if I hadn't read something else right after, but I still haven't gotten my top ten in order yet, so we'll see. :)

I've added your review to the post!

[rocalisa]

I've skipped the review because I still want to read this one. I was really hoping to read it this December and did manage a couple of chapters, but I'm just not feeling well enough to stick at anything right now. It's so frustrating, but there's nothing I can do about it. So I answered "No, for other reasons" on the poll. I think I'm just going to have to survive the summer holidays and hopefully I can start improving after that and then get stuck into some reading, including this.

[calico_reaction]

Bless your heart. I hate it when health refuses to let you do anything, not even read! Hopefully, though, you will improve and get back to doing all the things you love, including reading! Whenever you get back to this, please come back and comment!

[thebluerose]

oooh Oooh my library FINALLY has a copy, have reserved it and will hopefully get it in a few days and can read while Im on holiday.

Report back soon - will be interesting as I generally tend to miss rather than hit with Valente, the only book of hers I managed to finish and enjoy was Palimpsest.

Which is a shame as she is a very cool lady and I was lucky to meet and speak with her at Worldcon in Melbourne last year. Her and Seanan McGuire who is also a cool lady.

[calico_reaction]

What others of hers have you read besides Palimpsest? I'm curious to know what didn't work for you. :)

[thebluerose]

I tried the first Gardens of Night and Magic book, and also the Prester John book. And another one Ive forgotten. My issue with them is that they are essentially a group of short stories bound together with a bit of narrative. Im sure that it all makes sense in the end but I really really dont like short stories, and I even less like ones that dont make sense till you have read a lot of other ones that dont make sense, and collectively they make a bit more sense at the end.

Thats how her writing feels to me in these books.

[calico_reaction]

Ah... okay, that does make sense. I haven't yet read DEATHLESS, so I don't know if that's written in the same short-story style or not, but as you've discovered, THE GIRL WHO CIRCUMNAVIGATED FAIRYLAND definitely isn't in that style. :)

[temporaryworlds]

"...that a children's book that's utterly enchanting and has roots in the books mentioned above, was inspired by a book that's utterly adult, a story where its characters access a different kind of fairyland, one accessible like a sexually transmitted disease"

This completely blows my mind actually. Most people don't write a sex-fueled fantasy novel and then turn around and say "this inspires me to write a children's story." I really admire the breadth of her work. Not to mention the fact that even though each of her projects are quite different, they still have elements that mark them as a Valente novel, such as her talent with the English language and her great female characters as you mentioned.

[calico_reaction]

I could be wrong about the genesis of this novel, mind you. Maybe she always planned to write it and used its title as a kind of pre-Easter Egg in Palimpsest, but I thought it was the other way around, that she wrote The Girl Who... because so many people had commented on what she had written about it in Palimpsest.

[juushika]

Yeah, Palimpsest came first and she never intended to write Fairyland. The book's origin story is here, and well worth reading, because the inscription is spot on—Fairyland is a ship of our own making.

[calico_reaction]

Thanks for that link! I'll have to take a look later. :)

[stfg]

I first read parts of this book when it was on-line only, but did not finish it. I bought it in hardback when that came out though, and finished it almost immediately.

I find the book delightful. I love the narrative voice and its sense of humor. The world is just a little bit ridiculous, and the narrator is charming in showing that to us. September and the Wyverary and Saturday and the Marquess are all great characters.

Some books improve with re-reading and this was one of those. When I read it this month, I already knew where the action was going and could sit back and enjoy the language and the small details.

I bought a hand-knit hat at the original fund-raising auction this book was written for. It gives me a bizarre sense of connection and ownership that I don't have with most books. It's been great to see it succeed.

[calico_reaction]

That's really cool, about the hand-knit hat!

I look forward to reading this again one day, that's for sure. Just read the prequel short story this evening, and I look forward to the sequel later this year. :)