Helpful Score: 6
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.
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.
Helpful Score: 3
My book club selection for the month.
I'd heard Valente described as a steampunk author, but I really
wouldn't classify this as being in that genre. I've yet to acquire her
other books, but I'm on the lookout for them!
Outside of our reality, there is a city called Palimpsest. Those who
have visited the city mysteriously acquire a tattoo-like mark
somewhere on their skin - and an inexplicable desire, almost an
addiction, driving them to return. The only way the city can be
entered is through sex with another traveller who bears the mark on
their body. The travellers to the city spend their time there
obsessively searching for a way to stay - something unknown to any
visitor, unheard-of by the natives, but rumored to exist.
Four people who arrived together in Palimpsest theorize that a
permanent entrance could be found if they find each other and meet in
the "real world," and they seek to do so...
The book is beautifully written, but definitely disturbing and
grotesque. Rich with details and odd obsessions, Valente captures the
feeling of bad dreams that are not quite nightmares - those dreams
that leave you with an unpleasant feeling for the day, but are filled
with fascinating and out-of-place elements that one can't stop
thinking of. The contradiction in the book is that for all its quirks
and oddities, Palimpsest is a curiously 'empty' place, devoid of the
richness of a real world. It is a dream. It is never fully (or, to me,
convincingly) explained why anyone would want to go there, let alone
stay there... but then again, I don't understand that about other
addictions, either, and the four characters are definitely credible
candidates for falling victim to such an escape: Oleg, an immigrant
locksmith without social ties, obsessed with his dead sister. Ludovic:
a bookbinder whose wife has left him because he cared for his books
more than her. November: a beekeeper whose bees are everything to her.
Sei: a woman from Japan who spends all her time riding trains. They
all believe that they will find what they lack in Palimpsest...
Not always a pleasant experience, but worth reading.
I'd heard Valente described as a steampunk author, but I really
wouldn't classify this as being in that genre. I've yet to acquire her
other books, but I'm on the lookout for them!
Outside of our reality, there is a city called Palimpsest. Those who
have visited the city mysteriously acquire a tattoo-like mark
somewhere on their skin - and an inexplicable desire, almost an
addiction, driving them to return. The only way the city can be
entered is through sex with another traveller who bears the mark on
their body. The travellers to the city spend their time there
obsessively searching for a way to stay - something unknown to any
visitor, unheard-of by the natives, but rumored to exist.
Four people who arrived together in Palimpsest theorize that a
permanent entrance could be found if they find each other and meet in
the "real world," and they seek to do so...
The book is beautifully written, but definitely disturbing and
grotesque. Rich with details and odd obsessions, Valente captures the
feeling of bad dreams that are not quite nightmares - those dreams
that leave you with an unpleasant feeling for the day, but are filled
with fascinating and out-of-place elements that one can't stop
thinking of. The contradiction in the book is that for all its quirks
and oddities, Palimpsest is a curiously 'empty' place, devoid of the
richness of a real world. It is a dream. It is never fully (or, to me,
convincingly) explained why anyone would want to go there, let alone
stay there... but then again, I don't understand that about other
addictions, either, and the four characters are definitely credible
candidates for falling victim to such an escape: Oleg, an immigrant
locksmith without social ties, obsessed with his dead sister. Ludovic:
a bookbinder whose wife has left him because he cared for his books
more than her. November: a beekeeper whose bees are everything to her.
Sei: a woman from Japan who spends all her time riding trains. They
all believe that they will find what they lack in Palimpsest...
Not always a pleasant experience, but worth reading.
Helpful Score: 3
Palimpsest is urban fantasy by two of the three most common meanings for the phrase. Half of it is set in a contemporary urban setting -- four, actually, with Seis plot in Tokyo, Novembers in San Francisco, Olegs in New York, and Ludovicos in Rome and half is set in and completely and utterly about the fantastical city of Palimpsest. Its structure is convoluted -- though still simpler than the labyrinthine structure of Valentes previous work, the two-volumes of The Orphans Tales and its prose is dreamlike, distantly beautiful and gossamer-light despite the weight of metaphor attendant on every phrase. It is a work of beautiful yearnings, and clearly Ive been infected by it.
Its not the sort of book that is suited for a wide audience the prose is too poetic, the structure is too difficult, and the premise would earn it an NC-17 rating were this ever turned into a movie, even though most of the sex (and there is necessarily a lot of it) is practically fade-to-black. I didnt love it, despite being in its target audience (and having read Valente before), but I did admire the heck out of it and in retrospect I think it may have moved me deeply at the end.
But that question mark is why the book ultimately frustrated me. There was a great deal that I loved about the book. I loved how well Valente drew the four real-world cities and (more importantly) the strange isolated little burrows the four main characters inhabited in those cities; I loved even more the peculiar but very much character-reflective neighborhoods each of them inhabited in Palimpsest. I loved the city of Palimpsest itself, and the dark beauty Valente imbued it with; and deep down I got how it would be addictive. I even really enjoyed the structure, though I tend to have a better-than-average instinctive grasp of patterns, so I never once got lost.
But ultimately, even though I loved Valentes lyrical prose at the beginning of the novel, and even though I thought it absolutely the right sort of prose for a story of this sort, it distanced me from the muted tragedy inherent in the ending. One of the things I loved most about the previous Valente work I read (the two volumes of The Orphans Tales) was the way she wove joy and tragedy together in every page. She does the same thing in Palimpsest by the end, but I didnt feel either emotion until I thought about the story afterwards, and Im pretty sure that that disconnect was because of distance created by the prose.
As a flaw, thats a pretty minor one after all, I feel the emotion NOW but it is a flaw, and I wish with all my heart that I could have loved Palimpsest more.
Its not the sort of book that is suited for a wide audience the prose is too poetic, the structure is too difficult, and the premise would earn it an NC-17 rating were this ever turned into a movie, even though most of the sex (and there is necessarily a lot of it) is practically fade-to-black. I didnt love it, despite being in its target audience (and having read Valente before), but I did admire the heck out of it and in retrospect I think it may have moved me deeply at the end.
But that question mark is why the book ultimately frustrated me. There was a great deal that I loved about the book. I loved how well Valente drew the four real-world cities and (more importantly) the strange isolated little burrows the four main characters inhabited in those cities; I loved even more the peculiar but very much character-reflective neighborhoods each of them inhabited in Palimpsest. I loved the city of Palimpsest itself, and the dark beauty Valente imbued it with; and deep down I got how it would be addictive. I even really enjoyed the structure, though I tend to have a better-than-average instinctive grasp of patterns, so I never once got lost.
But ultimately, even though I loved Valentes lyrical prose at the beginning of the novel, and even though I thought it absolutely the right sort of prose for a story of this sort, it distanced me from the muted tragedy inherent in the ending. One of the things I loved most about the previous Valente work I read (the two volumes of The Orphans Tales) was the way she wove joy and tragedy together in every page. She does the same thing in Palimpsest by the end, but I didnt feel either emotion until I thought about the story afterwards, and Im pretty sure that that disconnect was because of distance created by the prose.
As a flaw, thats a pretty minor one after all, I feel the emotion NOW but it is a flaw, and I wish with all my heart that I could have loved Palimpsest more.
Can't tell you how many times I almost stopped reading it. I just did not like it. Far too many sexual encounters. It seemed like there one one or more in every other chapter, many of which were only 3-6 pages in length. Beyond that I just didn't get what the author was trying to do with this book. Imagine a city of fantasy and the only way you can get to it is to have sex with another person who has a map of the city on their body. If you don't have the map you will have it after you have sex with someone who does. Strange things happen in this city - violent, extremely strange and good. My advice is don't bother. Since it was a library book and I read it for a reading challenge I thought it might get better as the story progressed. For me, it never did.
