Palimpsest gets off to a slow start, and the long, rather treacly descriptions of the different places in the city were a bit much.  It did remind me of the world in Mirrormask, or one of the weirder episodes of Doctor Who, but the kind of detailed strangeness that works in a visual medium can be too much when it’s described at great length.  Each of the Palimpsest chapters began with one of these long descriptions.  Some of them were interesting and cool, but some weren’t, and after a while my brain went on overload, and I started skipping them.  I think it would have worked better if these had been more character-centered.  Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludo are stand-ins for us, discovering the city as we do, and I would have liked to see more of their interactions with the city, with characters in the city, and with characters from the real world inside of Palimpsest.

I liked November best because she made lists – not dull lists but interesting lists.  Things which are gone in the morning: sleep, darkness, grief, the moon.  Women.  Dreams – and, Things that are left in the morning: memory, thought, snow.  Light.  Work.  Disease.  Dreams.  I like this.  Things that cannot long be kept secret: death in the family, the loss of a ring, corruption of the spirit, boredom, illicit love.  Sickness.  Addiction.  Pregnancy.  Lovely.  I love making lists.

The story is graceful and gradual and mysterious.  The history of Palimpsest unfolds slowly, with the stories coming to us from many different characters.  I like how it begins to fit together carefully, like puzzle pieces – the city’s past and present, while the four central characters come together to determine its future.  They all four have to find each other in the real world, in order to move to Palimpsest permanently, which is their most desperate desire.  Palimpsest wants them as much as they want it, offering them their heart’s desires in the city.

Actually that is sort of creepy.  It is like that Barbara Michaels book where the house wants to make the people happy, and it makes them be happy using its creepy powers.  Palimpsest shapes things for November and Sei and Ludo and Oleg.  They want to move there, of course, but the book leaves you to wonder whether this is what’s best for them.

Is it just me?  Is it not more creepy for a place to make people happy?  Than to make them miserable or insane like in The Haunting of Hill House?  I don’t know why I find this so creepy!

Other reviews: things mean a lot (thanks for the recommendation!), BSC Review, Reading the Leaves, Stage and Canvas, Scooter Chronicles, and let me know if I missed yours!

The post Palimpsest, Catherynne Valente appeared first on Reading the End.

The post Possibly the nicest dream I have ever had appeared first on Reading the End.

I waited until down here to put an excerpt, mainly because I wanted to defend my choice of excerpt. I am quoting this bit not because it is perfectly representative of the book at large (not that it isn’t – it’s a collection of personal essays, and this is the beginning of one; it’s just not the best bit the book has to offer), but because it is so true of me.

Even if you are a waiter for a very short time, you are doomed to have waiter nightmares for the rest of your life.  You go into work and your uniform is missing or you can’t figure out how the tables are numbered or you’ve suddenly developed a limp.  Your dead aunt Rose, who was always impossible to please, pops up at one table or someone you made fun of at camp or an ax murderer is demanding their appetizer.  You miss your wedding because no one will cover for you.

Seriously, that is me.  Not the waiter part (happily I have never been one and I don’t think I will unless I become completely destitute and no one else will hire me, because I hate, hate, hate obnoxious people making idiotic and ill-considered demands, to obey which I have neither the time nor the inclination), but the dreams part.  I dream about my jobs so much.  It’s ridiculous.  When I worked at the romance novels online bookstore, I was constantly having dreams – boring dreams, as it wasn’t a high-stress job – about doing my work there; when I worked at the college bookstore, I was constantly having dreams about the bookshelves all falling down and crushing people, and coming to work during the first-week rush and losing my voice (ha, ha, nope, that wasn’t a dream, that actually happened), and running over the children who were always there with a book trolley loaded with chemistry textbooks, and arriving too late to prevent someone from impaling someone else with a box cutter.

Well, anyway, back to talking about this book.  It was a nice, friendly, amusing collection of personal essays; and the stuff she wrote about her grandmother was very sad; and heeheehee, who is scared of moths?

The post Why I’m Like This, Cynthia Kaplan appeared first on Reading the End.