Review: Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente
Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente
The book says:
Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse-a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important-a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life-and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.
On the whole, I really liked this book. I read it on a three day road trip to my new city, so in a way that had agreeable symmetry. The premise is sensual and intriguing from the start: a sexual encounter leaves you with a spidery black tattoo upon waking, and vivid dreams that don't quite make sense. But if you then have sex with another person with a similar tattoo, you find that the tattoo is in actuality a map, and you will be transported to the place tattooed on your partner's body. Your travels in the city of Palimpsest are limited to the streets upon your lovers. In other words, you have to get around to get around.
I liked the use of sex in this book. It is always sensual, owing in part to Valente's relentless use of synaesthesia-friendly metaphor-- but not always about love. Nor is it all about lust. What begins in lust often transforms as new streets are sought-- sex is borne from pity, from sorrow, from transcendence, from just plain business. In many ways, I found the 'real world' bits of this book to be the real gems, because they are about the strange and idiosyncratic constructs we create to connect to unknown others like us-- rings used as hanky codes of a sort, strange and secret clubs.
The four main characters are beautifully written. We only see part of their wholes-- that is, one definitive relationship and one symbolic thing that represents each character. From that, we may extract their personalities. Sei is a train, and we know of her mother. Oleg is a key, and we know of his sister. Ludovico is St. Isidore's Etymologiae, and we know of Lucia. November is a bee, and we know of her self-containedness, her obsessive need for order. Though we only are privileged with a portion of their lives, there is space left in the margin to fill in the blanks-- it is as if most of the puzzle pieces are there, but it's more interesting to fill in the empty spaces ourselves. The Sei bits dragged some for me, but I admit that's because I am not at all interested in trains. That, and Sei never quite connects to her fellow characters in the way that the others do, and for that I never truly felt like she found her place in her Quarto the way the others managed. For all that November began as the solitary one, Sei ends in that place. I found myself secretly wishing she'd find Sato Kenji once more, but that's what fanfic is for, I suppose.
I liked that the history of Palimpsest was spooled out slowly, and that by the end, we know what has transpired. Things that seemed terribly confusing in the beginning make sense by the end, and I had several "oh, I get it now" moments. My only complaint on this score is that I feel Casimira was not nearly as fleshed out as she ought to have been; it's true that this is not her book per-se, but as a central figure and representative of Palimpsest, I wanted to know more about her motivations and her own inner world. I did like that she could not easily be labeled a villain, a savior, a victim. But the juxtaposition of the three with so little to connect them made her feel too disjointed to me, and I feel it is a flaw in the book. Plus, I had a very hard time accepting her as a mate for November after a certain act-- and if you've read the book, you know what I mean.
As for the world itself, when J asked me what the book was like, I said... "sort of an eroticized Labyrinth." Which is not exactly correct, but it gives you the sense of a world that vaguely mirrors ours, but in a way that is surreal and unexpected. I think maybe I should have said the Mirrormask world, which is a bit more sinister and perhaps more appropriate, as Casimira reminded me not a little of the Dark Queen. I liked that Valente frequently interjects tangentially related vignettes from the POV of Palimpsest's natives-- they do build a rich and full city; Valente is a first-class world-builder. However, their placement-- at the beginning of chapters-- did make the pacing drag a little. I found myself driven to discover more of the central plot as the book gained steam, and often wanted to skip ahead to get there.
The language is mostly beautiful-- Valente is a true sensualist and reading the book is often like slowly unwrapping a rich sweet. However, at times, it is a bit overkill and repetitive... I propose a Palimpsest drinking game. One sip per instance of "...had the [body part] of a [insert animal here]..." and one shot every time an abstract concept is described as being taken into and/or housed inside oneself, metaphorically. You'd be stone drunk by the first 30 pages or so.
Anyway, I heartily recommend this book. The problems I had with it were vastly outnumbered by the times I sighed, "that is lovely." It's stayed in my belly, in my mouth like rich chocolate. There is much room here for a fandom, too-- she's created a gorgeous world for others to expand upon in their own daydreams. I would love to read Palimpsest fanfic, or another volume about the city.
I was also inspired to do some jewelry-- I'd like to start with the central Quarto. I've definite ideas for Oleg and November. It'll be awhile until I have all the right components assembled. We'll see.
The book says:
Between life and death, dreaming and waking, at the train stop beyond the end of the world is the city of Palimpsest. To get there is a miracle, a mystery, a gift, and a curse-a voyage permitted only to those who’ve always believed there’s another world than the one that meets the eye. Those fated to make the passage are marked forever by a map of that wondrous city tattooed on their flesh after a single orgasmic night. To this kingdom of ghost trains, lion-priests, living kanji, and cream-filled canals come four travelers: Oleg, a New York locksmith; the beekeeper November; Ludovico, a binder of rare books; and a young Japanese woman named Sei. They’ve each lost something important-a wife, a lover, a sister, a direction in life-and what they will find in Palimpsest is more than they could ever imagine.
On the whole, I really liked this book. I read it on a three day road trip to my new city, so in a way that had agreeable symmetry. The premise is sensual and intriguing from the start: a sexual encounter leaves you with a spidery black tattoo upon waking, and vivid dreams that don't quite make sense. But if you then have sex with another person with a similar tattoo, you find that the tattoo is in actuality a map, and you will be transported to the place tattooed on your partner's body. Your travels in the city of Palimpsest are limited to the streets upon your lovers. In other words, you have to get around to get around.
I liked the use of sex in this book. It is always sensual, owing in part to Valente's relentless use of synaesthesia-friendly metaphor-- but not always about love. Nor is it all about lust. What begins in lust often transforms as new streets are sought-- sex is borne from pity, from sorrow, from transcendence, from just plain business. In many ways, I found the 'real world' bits of this book to be the real gems, because they are about the strange and idiosyncratic constructs we create to connect to unknown others like us-- rings used as hanky codes of a sort, strange and secret clubs.
The four main characters are beautifully written. We only see part of their wholes-- that is, one definitive relationship and one symbolic thing that represents each character. From that, we may extract their personalities. Sei is a train, and we know of her mother. Oleg is a key, and we know of his sister. Ludovico is St. Isidore's Etymologiae, and we know of Lucia. November is a bee, and we know of her self-containedness, her obsessive need for order. Though we only are privileged with a portion of their lives, there is space left in the margin to fill in the blanks-- it is as if most of the puzzle pieces are there, but it's more interesting to fill in the empty spaces ourselves. The Sei bits dragged some for me, but I admit that's because I am not at all interested in trains. That, and Sei never quite connects to her fellow characters in the way that the others do, and for that I never truly felt like she found her place in her Quarto the way the others managed. For all that November began as the solitary one, Sei ends in that place. I found myself secretly wishing she'd find Sato Kenji once more, but that's what fanfic is for, I suppose.
I liked that the history of Palimpsest was spooled out slowly, and that by the end, we know what has transpired. Things that seemed terribly confusing in the beginning make sense by the end, and I had several "oh, I get it now" moments. My only complaint on this score is that I feel Casimira was not nearly as fleshed out as she ought to have been; it's true that this is not her book per-se, but as a central figure and representative of Palimpsest, I wanted to know more about her motivations and her own inner world. I did like that she could not easily be labeled a villain, a savior, a victim. But the juxtaposition of the three with so little to connect them made her feel too disjointed to me, and I feel it is a flaw in the book. Plus, I had a very hard time accepting her as a mate for November after a certain act-- and if you've read the book, you know what I mean.
As for the world itself, when J asked me what the book was like, I said... "sort of an eroticized Labyrinth." Which is not exactly correct, but it gives you the sense of a world that vaguely mirrors ours, but in a way that is surreal and unexpected. I think maybe I should have said the Mirrormask world, which is a bit more sinister and perhaps more appropriate, as Casimira reminded me not a little of the Dark Queen. I liked that Valente frequently interjects tangentially related vignettes from the POV of Palimpsest's natives-- they do build a rich and full city; Valente is a first-class world-builder. However, their placement-- at the beginning of chapters-- did make the pacing drag a little. I found myself driven to discover more of the central plot as the book gained steam, and often wanted to skip ahead to get there.
The language is mostly beautiful-- Valente is a true sensualist and reading the book is often like slowly unwrapping a rich sweet. However, at times, it is a bit overkill and repetitive... I propose a Palimpsest drinking game. One sip per instance of "...had the [body part] of a [insert animal here]..." and one shot every time an abstract concept is described as being taken into and/or housed inside oneself, metaphorically. You'd be stone drunk by the first 30 pages or so.
Anyway, I heartily recommend this book. The problems I had with it were vastly outnumbered by the times I sighed, "that is lovely." It's stayed in my belly, in my mouth like rich chocolate. There is much room here for a fandom, too-- she's created a gorgeous world for others to expand upon in their own daydreams. I would love to read Palimpsest fanfic, or another volume about the city.
I was also inspired to do some jewelry-- I'd like to start with the central Quarto. I've definite ideas for Oleg and November. It'll be awhile until I have all the right components assembled. We'll see.