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Title: Palimpsest
Score:
Author: Catherynne Valente
Rating: Not available
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Review of Palimpsest

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Comments for Palimpsest

• Posted on 2009-10-19
  A beautiful and dreamlike journey to the city of dream, the city of Palimpsest
  
  Previous to this book I had read a short story of Valente's called "A Delicate Architecture" in the Anthology "A Troll's Eye View"; I loved that story and was eager to read a full length novel by Valente. This novel was absolutely wonderful. The imagery Valente creates is phenomenal, and the premise of the story is one of the most creative I have read in some time.
  
  This is the story of four stangers. Oleg a locksmith that lives with his dead sister, November a beekeeper who is obsessed with her bees, Ludovico a rare book binder who loves his books above all else, and Sei a young Japanese woman who is enraptured by trains. All four of them have something in common, they all chance to meet strangers that they connect with and sleep with. Each of the strangers bears a spider-webbed map-like mark on their body. The four protagonists in turn find themselves with a black map mark and when they dream after the encounter they find themselves in the city of Palimpsest, a city that can full-fill all your dreams. For a while and at a cost.
  
  This was a very creative premise. Basically the only way to enter Palimpsest is to have sex with a stranger. Then when you enter Palimpsest you can only visit the parts of the city that you have previously visited or the parts that are marked on the map-like tattoo of the stranger you sleep with. So, the more people you sleep with, the more parts of the city you can visit. But you can only ever visit in dreams; the characters spend a lot of the book trying to figure out how to stay in Palimpsest permanently.
  
  Palimpsest is a city like no-other. Palimpsest is a character in herself, and often encounters the characters on their journey through her. Each of the four characters are all a bit ironic because they each have things they obsess and love over all other things, and they are not conventional things like people; yet, the characters are continually forced to enter into interactions with other people to enter Palimpsest at all. The plot and story are intricate and mysterious, and by no means straight-forward. I found myself loving the plot and loving the fact you have to constantly think and try to figure out exactly what is going on.
  
  If you are the type of person who likes your narratives easily understood and likes quick straight-forward writing styles I would steer clear of this book. Nothing about this writing is straight-forward. Valente weaves intricate and luscious pictures out of the most mundane things. She brings everything so alive that you can picture it glittering and sparkling in your mind. In fact everything is detailed so delicately and deliberately at times the plots spins away for a while and you are lost to the environment of the book. Much of the beginning of the book and all of the scenes that take place in Palimpsest have a very surreal and dream-like quality to them. I thought they were beautiful beyond imaging, but if I wasn't the kind of person who likes being ale to image and savor every beautiful and glinting detail of the world, I suppose it might have been irritating.
  
  Given the premise of the story, I should mention that although sex is pivotal to the story it actually isn't really involved in much of the story. The sex scenes are very brief and not gone into in great detail or even very explicit detail. Keep in mind all these characters love something and, in general, it is not people. The sex is used a vehicle to get into Palimpsest, as such, it is dealt with in that way. So, people who don't like sex in their books, should still give this a try as it is not a huge part of the story.
  
  I loved this story to death. The writing was absolutely enrapturing. I savored every word I read. The story was incredibly creative and very interesting to piece together. People who don't like a dream-like quality to their books and who prefer straight-forward stories should steer clear though. Will I be reading more Valente? You bet! I would like to read everything she has written.
  
  
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• Posted on 2009-10-14
  Poetic and Sensual
  
  Somewhere beyond sleep, a city wondrous and terrible waits for those who know the way there. Catherynne Valente's dream-fantasy is a brilliantly sensual and poetic tale that follows four strangers who arrive together in the mysterious city of Palimpsest on one night, their fates irrevocably intertwined.
  
  With descriptions that mix steampunk style with a heave dose of the surreal, Valente has created a fantasy realm that is wholly original even as it echoes familiar mythology.
  
  And her characters are as original and as vivid as her setting.
  
  The writing style is descriptive to the extreme. Some the images seem random, but for the most part, the prose is beautiful and effective at conveying a city that mixes the familiar with the utterly alien.
  
  The book follows four plotlines involving four separate lead characters and it takes a while before they get to the point of interacting with each other. This, combined with some of the rules for travel to Palimpsest that the author has established, result in the opening chapters having a redundant feel to them. However, the strong descriptions and engaging characters are more than enough to overcome these structural issues, and the book just keeps getting better as it builds momentum and the four plots become one.
  
  This story is definitely adult material, as sex functions as the mechanism for travel between dimensions and therefore is a constant element of the plot, although it's no more explicit than what would be found in many books in the romance category.
  
  Palimpsest is also a very powerful tale of addiction, loneliness, and the search for understanding in the world and beyond. Palimpsest is one of the most original works of literature I've read recently. It's a book with a ton of depth that does a great job of really evoking the dream-world that it so richly describes.
  
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• Posted on 2009-09-29
  good idea but poorly writtem
  
  the writing is very blah. the concept is fantastic so i was pretty disappointed with the execution.
  
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• Posted on 2009-08-19
  Poetic and magical
  
  This is the first book of Valente's that I've read, but definitely not the last, as I am completely enamored of her writing style. This is a bizarre modern fantasy that is so rich, poetic and imaginative that I could only read a chapter or so at a time and then had to put it down because it was almost too much to absorb. But inevitably, I'd be drawn back before long. I could not decide which of the four main characters I enjoyed the most; there was something about each one of them that I loved. Dreamlike and achingly beautiful.
  
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• Posted on 2009-07-30
  Oy, such a book!
  
  Wow! Talk about bang for your buck! This has got to be one of the most original pieces of fiction I've read in a long time.
  
  Unlike some of the other reviewers, I have not read any of Valente's other books. I have been reading her online serial "The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making" and decided I needed an actual physical book that I could hold in my hands and read before turning in at night. Immediately this book invaded my dreams, which is appropriate considering it is a novel about a city that can only be entered in the dream state.
  
  This is certainly NOT children's or YA fantasy. The content is very erotic and polyamorous, but although the eroticism is interesting in its own right, it also drives the story. The sex scenes are not cut-and-pasted onto the storyline. But it's the dream sequences that bring this story alive, the lucid dreaming of the four main characters. Valente mixes and matches Eastern & Western mythologies with Freud & Jung and Lewis Carroll and comes up with something wholly original. Its fantasy, but surrealism as well, and is ultimately as satisfying as a story that you don't want to end can possibly be.
  
  The only reason I didn't give it a fifth star is that it's a difficult book. It is dense. I don't mean dense as in opaque or obtuse, but densely packed with information and imagery. The images seem to flow one into another like an epic poem in some weird meter. I had some difficulty midway through the book, but once my mind wrapped around the rhythms of the book, or vice versa, it became much easier for me. But the book is definitely not for everyone.
  
  Catherynne Valente has an incredible mind and as dark as this book is, it is also full of humor & wit. She gives us a fresh new look at everything from The Doors of Perception to immigration to "finishing" schools. And you'll never look at hymenoptera the same way again!
  
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