Review: Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
Just shy of two weeks after the novel's release, my review of Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente has appeared at Green Man Review.
Palimpsest runs the risk that all hotly desired lovers do -- it fetches you in with a dream, teases you into a taut state of wanting, and leaves you desolate in the face of reality. Or -- here, have another analogy, for this work seems to throw itself at them -- like its namesake, you may fall in love with the gorgeous purity of its surface text, but flinch in horror from what lurks beneath, barely scraped away.
The plot of Palimpsest is rather straightforward. Four strangers find themselves the newest hosts of a sexually transmitted city. Each of them have slept with an individual bearing an intensely black mark that looks like nothing so much as a small part of a strange city map. Afterward, they experience a bizarre dream in which the four characters, still unknown to each other, find themselves ritually tied together in a frog-headed fortuneteller's shop before being released to wander separately and divided in a truly bizarre otherworldly city. In this city, the vermin are manufactured clockwork creatures of dizzying perplexity and stunning beauty; canals are filled with clothes above rivers of cream; lion-headed priests silently cry aching sermons in breathtaking cathedrals; trains are wild beasts and contain rice paddies, forests, the dead, and the rabbit of the moon. The city offers amazing wonders and staggering horrors. The city is still seeping pus from infected wounds left by war. An alien and glittering tyrant wants to open doors, the city wants to be known, and the four -- Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico -- don't want to leave this place they seem only able to enter in dreams. [Read the rest of the review at this link.]
Thank you to the editors at Green Man Review for giving this review of mine an Excellence in Writing Award.
Please feel free to comment here with any points you would like to discuss from my review. Below, you'll find some rambling elaboration on the book's flaws, some nitpicky observations, questions I was left with, and a listing of some things I liked. And some pretty pictures.
Beware that there are spoilers beneath the cut and also, no doubt, in the comments.
Our Lady of the Palimpsest by Zombizi
THE FLAWS
As many of you know, I was completely enchanted by Catherynne's short story "Palimpsest," which appeared in Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. It grabbed hold of my imagination and left me wanting more. You can read my review of that anthology here and you can see what I wrote about Palimpsest the day Cat finished writing it at this link. I've even made icons inspired by her story, albeit under a different lj-name (icons here).
I'm sad that the novel just didn't work for me. This is what I think is mainly at the core of it: in the compressed form of the short story, the emphasis of the narrative fell on connection. But in the relatively vaster form of the novel, the emphasis fell on disconnection.
Merely a 100 pages in and I was struck by how punishing this vision of promiscuity was: so sad, so lonely. Perhaps the nature of the city-- having to have sex with so many to visit it-- and the existence of the Quartet is meant as a metaphor for how some go through life and endure meeting so many people they just can't fundamentally connect with, who disappoint them, before finding those who come to be their "true" family. But I find that sad, too, for the Quartet is fated, not a forged community, and even then does not guarantee connection (e.g. Sei runs off with her trains and Oleg ensconces himself in a disturbing dream married to his sister-who-is-not-his-sister).
Another flaw I found in Palimpsest is that, for all the pages and pages devoted to four main characters, we don't get very complex characters or get to delve deeply into them at all. Their obsession with the things they've lost is so heavy-handed that we get a very shallow understanding of Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico. In fact, the only truly multi-faceted and deeply-explored character in the novel is Palimpsest itself... and oh what a terrifying, seductive beast it is.
THE NIT-PICKING
As far as I am aware, it is impossible to have sex on the shinkansen the way it is described that Sei and Sato Kenji do. I know, I know: artistic license. But I just can't let this one go. Here, please, watch this video of various models of shinkansens and please notice that there is no space to stand between carriages. Why? Because it would be stupidly dangerous and the design of the shinkansen is all about reducing wind resistance.
While I can buy that map-carriers of Palimpsest would be concentrated in certain areas-- either because of how STDs spread or because they're congregating at designated areas for passports-- I absolutely cannot buy that Sei was able to find all the successive bits of train tracks that she needed in the same geographical area. Honestly, statistically, what are the chances?
The Internet is a very large and unmoderated place populated by many companies and their various infrastructures. Even after reading the Tabula Rasa part of the ARG, I cannot buy that all of Oleg's posts to various sites could have been deleted so quickly and efficiently.
THE LINGERING QUESTIONS
1. Since every tourist-wannabe-immigrant to Palimpsest is made part of a Quartet on their first night, what happens when there's not a multiple of four on any given night? What if only three people sleep with carriers one night, or nine?
2. Once you sleep with someone, do you always have access to that part of the city?
3. Do maps duplicate or is everyone unique? So when Palimpsest is mapped in full, will the virus stop? Or will the city grow beyond itself?
4. If you have a particular need such as Sei does, to follow the trainlines, how can you assume you'll find what you need within the mapped system? That more map doesn't need to be spread to pristines to open up more places?
5. How do you choose which part to visit -- like Yumiko meeting Sei in Yumiko's own map? (Or was this a continuity error, since it's later revealed that you can't enter your own map unless you sleep with someone who has a contiguous section?)
6. Can you travel between unconnected pieces you've unlocked?
7. Can others-- Casimira, Lyudmila-- bypass rules for you and take you where they will?
(I feel like that this one may have been addressed in the novel, but that I'm not quite understanding it.)
FAVORITE BITS
I loved November's lists.
I loved November's memories of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making and the bits of that fictional children's novel that were revealed in the book and online at H.F. Weckweet's site.
I loved the scene in which Lucia transformed the walls of her home's hallway in a paroxysm of love and madness and sorrow.
I loved the fledgling relationship that sprung up between Ludovico and November and how it was allowed to blossom in Palimpsest (and especially regarding the bees).
I love that Cat so fearlessly and completely charted her demonic, desirous city.
Maggie Taylor's Girl in a Bee Dress
PALIMPSEST ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB
The original short story.
Theophania, the Glass-Blower (a haunting, excised piece of the novel).
Quartered, a companion album by S.J. Tucker.
Catherynne's release day Livejournal post, including icons.
Palimpsest merchandise.*
An interview with Catherynne revealing inspiration for the narrative.
Promotional videos: [Palimpsest the Trailer.] [The Trains of Palimpsest.] [The Dead of Palimpsest.]
ARG websites: [Tabula Rasa.] [Sato Kenji.] [H.F. Weckweet.]
* I really want one of those pendants from RockLove, but because my name means "bee" and I have developed a fascination with compass roses rather than because of Palimpsest.
Palimpsest runs the risk that all hotly desired lovers do -- it fetches you in with a dream, teases you into a taut state of wanting, and leaves you desolate in the face of reality. Or -- here, have another analogy, for this work seems to throw itself at them -- like its namesake, you may fall in love with the gorgeous purity of its surface text, but flinch in horror from what lurks beneath, barely scraped away.
The plot of Palimpsest is rather straightforward. Four strangers find themselves the newest hosts of a sexually transmitted city. Each of them have slept with an individual bearing an intensely black mark that looks like nothing so much as a small part of a strange city map. Afterward, they experience a bizarre dream in which the four characters, still unknown to each other, find themselves ritually tied together in a frog-headed fortuneteller's shop before being released to wander separately and divided in a truly bizarre otherworldly city. In this city, the vermin are manufactured clockwork creatures of dizzying perplexity and stunning beauty; canals are filled with clothes above rivers of cream; lion-headed priests silently cry aching sermons in breathtaking cathedrals; trains are wild beasts and contain rice paddies, forests, the dead, and the rabbit of the moon. The city offers amazing wonders and staggering horrors. The city is still seeping pus from infected wounds left by war. An alien and glittering tyrant wants to open doors, the city wants to be known, and the four -- Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico -- don't want to leave this place they seem only able to enter in dreams. [Read the rest of the review at this link.]
Thank you to the editors at Green Man Review for giving this review of mine an Excellence in Writing Award.
Please feel free to comment here with any points you would like to discuss from my review. Below, you'll find some rambling elaboration on the book's flaws, some nitpicky observations, questions I was left with, and a listing of some things I liked. And some pretty pictures.
Beware that there are spoilers beneath the cut and also, no doubt, in the comments.
Our Lady of the Palimpsest by Zombizi
THE FLAWS
As many of you know, I was completely enchanted by Catherynne's short story "Palimpsest," which appeared in Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. It grabbed hold of my imagination and left me wanting more. You can read my review of that anthology here and you can see what I wrote about Palimpsest the day Cat finished writing it at this link. I've even made icons inspired by her story, albeit under a different lj-name (icons here).
I'm sad that the novel just didn't work for me. This is what I think is mainly at the core of it: in the compressed form of the short story, the emphasis of the narrative fell on connection. But in the relatively vaster form of the novel, the emphasis fell on disconnection.
Merely a 100 pages in and I was struck by how punishing this vision of promiscuity was: so sad, so lonely. Perhaps the nature of the city-- having to have sex with so many to visit it-- and the existence of the Quartet is meant as a metaphor for how some go through life and endure meeting so many people they just can't fundamentally connect with, who disappoint them, before finding those who come to be their "true" family. But I find that sad, too, for the Quartet is fated, not a forged community, and even then does not guarantee connection (e.g. Sei runs off with her trains and Oleg ensconces himself in a disturbing dream married to his sister-who-is-not-his-sister).
Another flaw I found in Palimpsest is that, for all the pages and pages devoted to four main characters, we don't get very complex characters or get to delve deeply into them at all. Their obsession with the things they've lost is so heavy-handed that we get a very shallow understanding of Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico. In fact, the only truly multi-faceted and deeply-explored character in the novel is Palimpsest itself... and oh what a terrifying, seductive beast it is.
THE NIT-PICKING
As far as I am aware, it is impossible to have sex on the shinkansen the way it is described that Sei and Sato Kenji do. I know, I know: artistic license. But I just can't let this one go. Here, please, watch this video of various models of shinkansens and please notice that there is no space to stand between carriages. Why? Because it would be stupidly dangerous and the design of the shinkansen is all about reducing wind resistance.
While I can buy that map-carriers of Palimpsest would be concentrated in certain areas-- either because of how STDs spread or because they're congregating at designated areas for passports-- I absolutely cannot buy that Sei was able to find all the successive bits of train tracks that she needed in the same geographical area. Honestly, statistically, what are the chances?
The Internet is a very large and unmoderated place populated by many companies and their various infrastructures. Even after reading the Tabula Rasa part of the ARG, I cannot buy that all of Oleg's posts to various sites could have been deleted so quickly and efficiently.
THE LINGERING QUESTIONS
1. Since every tourist-wannabe-immigrant to Palimpsest is made part of a Quartet on their first night, what happens when there's not a multiple of four on any given night? What if only three people sleep with carriers one night, or nine?
2. Once you sleep with someone, do you always have access to that part of the city?
3. Do maps duplicate or is everyone unique? So when Palimpsest is mapped in full, will the virus stop? Or will the city grow beyond itself?
4. If you have a particular need such as Sei does, to follow the trainlines, how can you assume you'll find what you need within the mapped system? That more map doesn't need to be spread to pristines to open up more places?
5. How do you choose which part to visit -- like Yumiko meeting Sei in Yumiko's own map? (Or was this a continuity error, since it's later revealed that you can't enter your own map unless you sleep with someone who has a contiguous section?)
6. Can you travel between unconnected pieces you've unlocked?
7. Can others-- Casimira, Lyudmila-- bypass rules for you and take you where they will?
(I feel like that this one may have been addressed in the novel, but that I'm not quite understanding it.)
FAVORITE BITS
I loved November's lists.
I loved November's memories of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making and the bits of that fictional children's novel that were revealed in the book and online at H.F. Weckweet's site.
I loved the scene in which Lucia transformed the walls of her home's hallway in a paroxysm of love and madness and sorrow.
I loved the fledgling relationship that sprung up between Ludovico and November and how it was allowed to blossom in Palimpsest (and especially regarding the bees).
I love that Cat so fearlessly and completely charted her demonic, desirous city.
Maggie Taylor's Girl in a Bee Dress
PALIMPSEST ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB
The original short story.
Theophania, the Glass-Blower (a haunting, excised piece of the novel).
Quartered, a companion album by S.J. Tucker.
Catherynne's release day Livejournal post, including icons.
Palimpsest merchandise.*
An interview with Catherynne revealing inspiration for the narrative.
Promotional videos: [Palimpsest the Trailer.] [The Trains of Palimpsest.] [The Dead of Palimpsest.]
ARG websites: [Tabula Rasa.] [Sato Kenji.] [H.F. Weckweet.]
* I really want one of those pendants from RockLove, but because my name means "bee" and I have developed a fascination with compass roses rather than because of Palimpsest.