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.
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