Review: Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

[talkstowolves]

Just shy of two weeks after the novel's release, my review of Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente has appeared at Green Man Review.

Palimpsest runs the risk that all hotly desired lovers do -- it fetches you in with a dream, teases you into a taut state of wanting, and leaves you desolate in the face of reality. Or -- here, have another analogy, for this work seems to throw itself at them -- like its namesake, you may fall in love with the gorgeous purity of its surface text, but flinch in horror from what lurks beneath, barely scraped away.

The plot of Palimpsest is rather straightforward. Four strangers find themselves the newest hosts of a sexually transmitted city. Each of them have slept with an individual bearing an intensely black mark that looks like nothing so much as a small part of a strange city map. Afterward, they experience a bizarre dream in which the four characters, still unknown to each other, find themselves ritually tied together in a frog-headed fortuneteller's shop before being released to wander separately and divided in a truly bizarre otherworldly city. In this city, the vermin are manufactured clockwork creatures of dizzying perplexity and stunning beauty; canals are filled with clothes above rivers of cream; lion-headed priests silently cry aching sermons in breathtaking cathedrals; trains are wild beasts and contain rice paddies, forests, the dead, and the rabbit of the moon. The city offers amazing wonders and staggering horrors. The city is still seeping pus from infected wounds left by war. An alien and glittering tyrant wants to open doors, the city wants to be known, and the four -- Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico -- don't want to leave this place they seem only able to enter in dreams. [Read the rest of the review at this link.]

Thank you to the editors at Green Man Review for giving this review of mine an Excellence in Writing Award.




Please feel free to comment here with any points you would like to discuss from my review. Below, you'll find some rambling elaboration on the book's flaws, some nitpicky observations, questions I was left with, and a listing of some things I liked. And some pretty pictures.

Beware that there are spoilers beneath the cut and also, no doubt, in the comments.

Our Lady of the Palimpsest by Zombizi

THE FLAWS As many of you know, I was completely enchanted by Catherynne's short story "Palimpsest," which appeared in Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. It grabbed hold of my imagination and left me wanting more. You can read my review of that anthology here and you can see what I wrote about Palimpsest the day Cat finished writing it at this link. I've even made icons inspired by her story, albeit under a different lj-name (icons here). I'm sad that the novel just didn't work for me. This is what I think is mainly at the core of it: in the compressed form of the short story, the emphasis of the narrative fell on connection. But in the relatively vaster form of the novel, the emphasis fell on disconnection. Merely a 100 pages in and I was struck by how punishing this vision of promiscuity was: so sad, so lonely. Perhaps the nature of the city-- having to have sex with so many to visit it-- and the existence of the Quartet is meant as a metaphor for how some go through life and endure meeting so many people they just can't fundamentally connect with, who disappoint them, before finding those who come to be their "true" family. But I find that sad, too, for the Quartet is fated, not a forged community, and even then does not guarantee connection (e.g. Sei runs off with her trains and Oleg ensconces himself in a disturbing dream married to his sister-who-is-not-his-sister).

Another flaw I found in Palimpsest is that, for all the pages and pages devoted to four main characters, we don't get very complex characters or get to delve deeply into them at all. Their obsession with the things they've lost is so heavy-handed that we get a very shallow understanding of Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludovico. In fact, the only truly multi-faceted and deeply-explored character in the novel is Palimpsest itself... and oh what a terrifying, seductive beast it is.

THE NIT-PICKING

As far as I am aware, it is impossible to have sex on the shinkansen the way it is described that Sei and Sato Kenji do. I know, I know: artistic license. But I just can't let this one go. Here, please, watch this video of various models of shinkansens and please notice that there is no space to stand between carriages. Why? Because it would be stupidly dangerous and the design of the shinkansen is all about reducing wind resistance.

While I can buy that map-carriers of Palimpsest would be concentrated in certain areas-- either because of how STDs spread or because they're congregating at designated areas for passports-- I absolutely cannot buy that Sei was able to find all the successive bits of train tracks that she needed in the same geographical area. Honestly, statistically, what are the chances?

The Internet is a very large and unmoderated place populated by many companies and their various infrastructures. Even after reading the Tabula Rasa part of the ARG, I cannot buy that all of Oleg's posts to various sites could have been deleted so quickly and efficiently.

THE LINGERING QUESTIONS

1. Since every tourist-wannabe-immigrant to Palimpsest is made part of a Quartet on their first night, what happens when there's not a multiple of four on any given night? What if only three people sleep with carriers one night, or nine?

2. Once you sleep with someone, do you always have access to that part of the city?

3. Do maps duplicate or is everyone unique? So when Palimpsest is mapped in full, will the virus stop? Or will the city grow beyond itself?

4. If you have a particular need such as Sei does, to follow the trainlines, how can you assume you'll find what you need within the mapped system? That more map doesn't need to be spread to pristines to open up more places?

5. How do you choose which part to visit -- like Yumiko meeting Sei in Yumiko's own map? (Or was this a continuity error, since it's later revealed that you can't enter your own map unless you sleep with someone who has a contiguous section?)

6. Can you travel between unconnected pieces you've unlocked?

7. Can others-- Casimira, Lyudmila-- bypass rules for you and take you where they will?
(I feel like that this one may have been addressed in the novel, but that I'm not quite understanding it.)

FAVORITE BITS I loved November's lists. I loved November's memories of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship of Her Own Making and the bits of that fictional children's novel that were revealed in the book and online at H.F. Weckweet's site. I loved the scene in which Lucia transformed the walls of her home's hallway in a paroxysm of love and madness and sorrow. I loved the fledgling relationship that sprung up between Ludovico and November and how it was allowed to blossom in Palimpsest (and especially regarding the bees). I love that Cat so fearlessly and completely charted her demonic, desirous city.

Maggie Taylor's Girl in a Bee Dress

PALIMPSEST ELSEWHERE ON THE WEB

The original short story.
Theophania, the Glass-Blower (a haunting, excised piece of the novel).
Quartered, a companion album by S.J. Tucker.
Catherynne's release day Livejournal post, including icons.
Palimpsest merchandise.*
An interview with Catherynne revealing inspiration for the narrative.
Promotional videos: [Palimpsest the Trailer.] [The Trains of Palimpsest.] [The Dead of Palimpsest.]
ARG websites: [Tabula Rasa.] [Sato Kenji.] [H.F. Weckweet.]



* I really want one of those pendants from RockLove, but because my name means "bee" and I have developed a fascination with compass roses rather than because of Palimpsest.

Comments

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

I wish you had liked it more. I'm sad that you didn't. I'm not going to debate all the points here or point out the answers to your nitpicks (except yes, I know about the Shinkansen. We all take liberties.) If the book doesn't stand alone without my commentary, that's a failure on my part.

I appreciate you thinking about it as much as you obviously have.

[yuki-onna.livejournal.com]

Oh, and the pendants are coming, one component is delayed.

[arielstarshadow.livejournal.com]

The book "worked" for me; for me, the book was about becoming lost, and then finding your way again, about being disconnected and then re-connected.

As far as the nitpicks:

1. In looking at some of the photos, it looks like there might be just enough room to squeeze in between the carriages (almost impossible to really tell because no one takes clear pictures of the in-between spaces), but I'm more than willing to let that one go.

2. It sounded as though there were a LOT of Palimpsest tourists in Kyoto - Sei talks about how exhausted she is, and how many she's had to sleep with, to find all of the "pieces" she needed to find. I remember her mentioning sleeping with multiple partners in a night - so we didn't get to see all of her visits to Palimpsest, only those relevant to the trains. I'm figuring she saw a hell of a lot more of the city than any of the other three (which, when you stop and think about it, is in fact quite appropriate).

Also, we're given hints that Casimira )and maybe even Palimpsest itself) chose these four to be the first, and so they may have been pulling strings behind the scenes to make sure each one was able to get what they needed?

3. I can buy it. After all, you can Google yourself, and you can have Google send you alerts based on keywords. All certain folks would have to do would be to plus in certain keywords, and they'd be guaranteed to see posts with "Palimpsest" and "tattoos" and whatnot in mere seconds/minutes. People trying to find others wouldn't be attempting to hide their messages; after all, they want to be found, so the messages would be publicly posted.

On to the questions!

1. I don't know the answer to this one and there's not enough in the text to do anything more than guess. We have no idea how often "blanks" get brought in. Perhaps they have to "wait?" Meaning their entrance to the city is delayed until there are others?

2. From my reading, yes. Casimira says something to November about having to take a circuitous route because she only has access to certain parts of the city.

3. Again, no way within the text to answer this one. It really depends on a number of factors: a) how big is Palimpsest? b) how much of the city does each person get? If they only get a block or two, it could take generations for the entire city to spread, especially since it seems a lot of the current tourists don't want to bring more "blanks" in. There was definitely the idea of exclusivity, of "they don't deserve it."

4. I don't think you can make any assumptions. *laugh* Except to go back to my point up above, about these four having been specially chosen, and thus TPTB were moving things around to help them.

5. I think that meant that you can't simply go to bed at night and enter the map on your skin. We have numerous occurrences of people entering "their" sections of the map - not just Yumiko, but Gabriel.

6. Just a guess, based on Casimira and November's travels, but I'd say yes, that the carriages will somehow take you from point A to point B.

7. From the reading, I would think that would be no. Because again, Casimira talks about having to jump through hoops to get November to her house that other time, due to what areas of Palimpsest were open to her.

[alankria.livejournal.com]

I found the occasionally-unhappy promiscuity and the obsession over the city quite negative -- but interestingly so, rather than offputtingly so.

It bothered me a little that the four characters had so little to give up in order to leave our world behind -- it seemed a little too easy (especially how easily November seems to leave her flesh bees), and I wanted more complications. But, on the other hand, I don't know if that would have fit well within the novel.

It also bothered me a little that there didn't seem to be a middle ground in reactions to Palimpsest. Either people throw themselves into it, albeit sometimes after a bit of denial, becoming willing to do absolutely anything to get in, or they completely withdraw and refuse it. Where are the people who are not willing to compromise their sexuality, for instance? (Not everyone in the entire world is bisexual.) The polarity of reactions didn't quite feel real, even though I can understand the city creating a lot of strong reactions.

But, those few minor things aside, I loved it. I think my favourite detail is the mythology built up around the trains in Sato Kenji's book.

[ironed_orchid]

Okay, I finally finished it, and now I can participate.

I also feel disappointed that the sex in the novel was so much a means to an end, something distasteful which had to be endured, specially for the women - because the notion that women have sex not for its own sake, but to get something else (be it security, love, financial support, etc) is still so prevalent, and it's not an idea I want to see perpetuated. The men in the quartet also have sex they might not have otherwise, and with people they don't care about, but for Oleg this is part of his destroying of himself, while Ludo seems to make affectionate, if troubled, connections to the remaining members of Nerezza's quartet.

I did get involved with the story and the the characters and the city more as I read, but I think this will not be one of the books by CMV which leaves a strong mark... of course, sometimes it's not until awhile after reading that I realise how much a novel has affected me.