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keilexandraThe Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden
by Cathrynne M. Valente
483 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
This book took me SO LONG to finish. I had heard continual buzz throughout the F/SF community and therefore had high expectations; when my friend finally lent it to me, I tried to read it but found the plot confusing and Valente's style distracting. She is quite fond of similes.
Because of its reputation, however, I felt that In the Night Garden deserved at least a complete reading. The beginning was too detached between stories, but as I persevered, I could appreciate the reoccuring characters and unexpected connections. Even the prose became less annoying, although I still prefer a different style of lyricality--Valente's is a tad too poetic without enough narrative grounding (I didn't much like her poetry either, at least in Apocrypha).
So what happens in the novel? ...I have no freaking idea. I loved the religious, sexual, and racial diversity. I loved the cover design. I loved the meta-structure, how stories are irregularly interleaved rather than perfectly nested (my favorite was Al-a-Nur); yay for convolution! But it's not a book easily summarized, only described. Having finished it, finally, I can understand why there has been so much excitement over the work. I'm not exactly the right audience and certainly not Valente's biggest fan, but I will definitely be picking up In the Cities of Coin and Spice (and not only because of the cliffhanger ending). The frame story captured my interest through sheer persistence; I sympathize more with Dinarzad than the boy. Essentially, an elfish girl lives in the Sultan's garden and tells stories to one of the Sultan's many sons--yet this simple description cannot possibly capture the essence of the tale as a whole. The narrative has an ethereal fairy-tale quality, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't for me. Nonetheless, The Orphan's Tales is the best fairy tale novel I have read, in this regard trumping even Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer (though overall I liked Kushner's better than Valente's).
Final verdict: so confusing but equally so fascinating. Do give Valente at least half the book to prove herself--the scales tipped at around 1/3 for me.
by Cathrynne M. Valente
483 pages (trade paperback)
Genre: Fiction/Fantasy
This book took me SO LONG to finish. I had heard continual buzz throughout the F/SF community and therefore had high expectations; when my friend finally lent it to me, I tried to read it but found the plot confusing and Valente's style distracting. She is quite fond of similes.
Because of its reputation, however, I felt that In the Night Garden deserved at least a complete reading. The beginning was too detached between stories, but as I persevered, I could appreciate the reoccuring characters and unexpected connections. Even the prose became less annoying, although I still prefer a different style of lyricality--Valente's is a tad too poetic without enough narrative grounding (I didn't much like her poetry either, at least in Apocrypha).
So what happens in the novel? ...I have no freaking idea. I loved the religious, sexual, and racial diversity. I loved the cover design. I loved the meta-structure, how stories are irregularly interleaved rather than perfectly nested (my favorite was Al-a-Nur); yay for convolution! But it's not a book easily summarized, only described. Having finished it, finally, I can understand why there has been so much excitement over the work. I'm not exactly the right audience and certainly not Valente's biggest fan, but I will definitely be picking up In the Cities of Coin and Spice (and not only because of the cliffhanger ending). The frame story captured my interest through sheer persistence; I sympathize more with Dinarzad than the boy. Essentially, an elfish girl lives in the Sultan's garden and tells stories to one of the Sultan's many sons--yet this simple description cannot possibly capture the essence of the tale as a whole. The narrative has an ethereal fairy-tale quality, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't for me. Nonetheless, The Orphan's Tales is the best fairy tale novel I have read, in this regard trumping even Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer (though overall I liked Kushner's better than Valente's).
Final verdict: so confusing but equally so fascinating. Do give Valente at least half the book to prove herself--the scales tipped at around 1/3 for me.