Tag: Catherynne M. Valente

Blog Hop: Autumn Books

On By cherylmahoneyIn Blog Hop, Ruminations8 Comments

I’m participating in the Book Blogger Hop again this week, which invites book bloggers to answer a bookish question and visit each other’s blogs.  Hosted at Soon Remembered Tales this week, here’s today’s question:

With Autumn upon us and Halloween drawing near, what books remind you of fall? What ones do you enjoy reading that are about autumn?

My first thought was that Autumn doesn’t seem to get that much play in fiction.  Summer and winter, with their more dramatic temperatures, seem to be more usual choices–and then of course, spring is the traditional setting for love stories.  (Also for L. M. Montgomery books, which while not all in the spring, all have that feel.)

But perhaps I don’t think of Autumn as a frequent setting because I don’t read the right books.  Perhaps Autumn comes up all the time in ghost stories and horror novels.  I wouldn’t know.

Anyway, I thought a bit more, and I did hit on two favorite books where Autumn plays a role.  First, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland by Catherynne M. Valente features a heroine named September.  While not entirely set in Autumn, there is a scene where September turns into a tree–and begins to dry and crumble as Autumn comes in.  It’s truly frightening, and one of the most striking moments of the book.

Second, I thought of Peter Pan in Scarlet, Geraldine McCaughrean’s sequel to J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan.  I imagine there are all seasons in Neverland (probably delightfully crammed together), but in a metaphorical sense, Neverland exists in a perpetual summer time.  This book explores what happens when the magic begins to crumble, and Autumn comes to the island.

I was in Kensington Gardens this September, where Peter Pan lived before going to Neverland.  True to the magic of the Gardens, Autumn seemed to arrive over night.  My hotel was nearby so I was visiting daily–and one day it was warm summer, the next it turned cold and drifts of leaves covered the ground.  It’s not hard to imagine that the fairies decided it was time for a season change, and went to work!

Autumn in Kensington Gardens

Quotable Catherynne M. Valente

On By cherylmahoneyIn Quotable1 Comment

“Stories have a way of changing faces.  They are unruly things, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers.”

– Catherynne M. Valente

The Author Who Brought Together So Many Classic Literature Elements in a Book of Her Own Making

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Reviews, Young Adult1 Comment

I’ve mentioned, haven’t I (I have), that I love classic children’s fantasy.  So to those familiar with the book, it will be no surprise that I found The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente to be absolutely delightful.

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland follows the time-honored traditional fantasy plot of an ordinary child spirited away from the drab world to strange and magical lands, to meet dear friends and fight evil and have adventures.  This book was a bit The Phantom Tollbooth and a touch Alice in Wonderland, with more than a little L. Frank Baum, a dash of C. S. Lewis at the end, had a narrator who could be sitting in a pleasant study somewhere with J. M. Barrie–and there was some that was just pure Valente.

The story centers on September, who lives in Omaha until one day she’s carried away by the Green Wind to go to Fairyland.  In Fairyland she accepts a quest to help a witch named Good-bye, meets A-through-L, a wyverary (a cross between a wyvern, which is rather like a dragon, and a library), and finds herself pitted against Fairyland’s oppressive ruler, the Marquess.

The characters and the places September visits have all the whimsy of L. Frank Baum.  The capital city of Fairyland is Pandemonium, which good Queen Mallow wove out of thread–so all the cities are cloth.  September catches a ride with a herd of bicycles, and goes to Autumn, where it’s perpetually Fall.  She meets a community of Nasnas, where the people are halves (right down the middle vertically), and are only whole when they join up with their twins.  It’s strange and sometimes funny and very whimsical.

The narrator came from the same school of storytelling as J. M. Barrie.  My favorite character in Peter Pan is the narrator, who really seems to be sitting somewhere telling you the story, complete with occasional moments when I-the-narrator directly addresses you-the-reader.  Valente uses the same trick here, comparing one place to your grandmother’s house, and promising that I-the-narrator hasn’t forgotten about a subplot you may be wondering about.  Like Barrie, it’s charming.

This is the first novel I’ve read by Valente, so I’m not much qualified to comment on her overall writing style–but I did read a short story, in Troll’s-Eye View, which was what led me to The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland.  I had heard about the book, but somehow it didn’t quite grab me.  Then I was so blown away by her short story, I decided I had to try the book.  The short story was beautifully written–magical, dark, creepy and wonderful.  Parts of this book were dark, a bit was creepy, and a lot of it was beautiful and magical and wonderful.

The dark bits brought just a little realism into the fairy story.  I love Baum and Barrie and all the rest, but no one ever bleeds, or gets really, really tired, or really, really hungry, or has to deal with deep-down-scary choices.  September gets into some very hard spots.  It was just enough to make me think, yes, this is what a child questing through Fairyland would really go through, without being too much and losing all the magic and whimsy.  The creepy bit was primarily at one point when September starts to turn into a tree–a crumbling, winter tree, with cracking branches and shedding leaves.  Beautifully written.  So scary.

If you’ve read the classics, read this book.  If you haven’t read the classics, read it anyway, then go read the classics.  And then, hopefully, come back to Valente again–I’ve been searching her website and I can’t find a promise of a sequel there, but the book itself promises one.  I think I’ll end with that quote (no spoilers)–and it’s such a beautiful line, it may do more than anything I can say to convince you of the loveliness of this book:

All stories must end so, with the next tale winking out of the corners of the last pages, promising more, promising moonlight and dancing and revels, if only you will come back when spring comes again.

Author’s Site: http://www.catherynnemvalente.com/

Other reviews:
Things Mean a Lot
The Little Red Reviewer
Tethyan Books
Tell me about yours and I’ll add a link!

Sympathy for the Devil

On By cherylmahoneyIn Fantasy, Juvenile, Reviews1 Comment

I found Troll’s Eye View in a very writerly fashion–I was doing research to see if anyone had come up with the same angle as I have for retelling “The Twelve Dancing Princesses.”  Subtitled “A Book of Villainous Tales,” it’s a collection of short stories, retelling fairy tales from the villain’s point of view.  That includes “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” although calling the oldest princess the villain seems like a stretch (granted, she didn’t mind people being beheaded, in the original version).

The book is edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and has some impressive writers included, like Garth Nix, Jane Yolen and Neil Gaiman.

There were some excellent stories in here, although I was dissatisfied with a number of them too.  I don’t know if you can tell from the picture, but it’s a slim book, and they fit fifteen stories into it.  I ended up feeling that several were nice ideas that didn’t get much development.  I think I’m the wrong age for those too.  I love children’s books, and very often find ones that are completely enjoyable to me as an adult.  Many of these stories, I think, really are better for just kids, who wouldn’t mind a simpler narrative.

And there were the excellent ones.  “Castle Othello” by Nancy Farmer is really clever meld of Bluebeard and Shakespeare, with a good twist to the ending.  Neil Gaiman contributed a dark poem based on “Sleeping Beauty.”  Nix and Yolen both had some good humor, although I think the shortness of the stories limited their scope.  Ellen Kushner’s “Twelve Dancing Princesses” retelling (actually, “The Shoes that Were Danced to Pieces” was how she titled it) was a clever idea, although another one with limited development–and not the same as my idea, fortunately.

My favorite, by far and away, was “A Delicate Architecture” by Catherynne M. Valente.  This would not have been the case when I was a kid, and in fact I think it probably would have given me nightmares!  But as an adult I can appreciate the creepiness of some of the images, and the beauty of the writing.  It starts out almost as a more poetic Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a little girl describing the wonderful creations of her father the candy-maker.  There’s beautiful, vivid imagery…until the story takes a darker turn, and then the images are just as vivid, but turn into nightmares.  (Spoiler warning, because I can’t resist telling you about it!)  The little girl becomes a young woman, until finally she learns that her father’s fanciful tale of creating her from sugar is all too true.  After that she’s treated not as a person, but as a cooking implement, and hung up on the wall of the kitchen at the royal palace, to be used for the desserts…and that’s the image that would have given me nightmares as a child!  Finally she becomes a gnarled old woman, who escapes into the woods to build a house out of candy…  It’s an excellent story, and makes me want to read more by Valente!

The book on the whole was more mixed.  But it was also a quick read, and worth it for the good ones!