Radiance
Usually, when I find an author I enjoy as much as Catherynne Valente, I rush out to buy and read as many of their books as I can, always searching for the next one. But that doesn't seem to be happening with this particular author. Valente has written a whole bunch of books. I've read four of them. But I've read all four of them twice. And I'll probably read them many more times. I'll get around to the rest of her work, too. Everything she's written sounds interesting, and her books are all so different from each other and from anything else I've read.
Maybe that's part of it. When I find an author I like and I want to read more like that, I find the rest of the author's books. But Valente doesn't work like that. Radiance is an entirely different book than the Fairyland series. Her latest, Space Opera (Eurovision in Space), is wholly different again, as are the books on her backlist like Palimpsest (a sexually-transmitted city) and Six Gun Snow White (really, she has the best titles). The point is that to replicate a reading experience I'm left with no other option than to re-read the book.
Not that that's a problem because the thing all of Valente's books do have in common is that they're quotable to the point that pulling quotes often leads to just replicating the book. Every word is chosen with such precision and care and every sentence is something that I want hung on my wall. A brief list of examples from Radiance:
And therein lies the problem. Because this is such a specific book, that I'm scared to recommend it. I want everyone to read it, but the full description can easily be off-putting. There's a lot going on.
The simple pitch is this: Radiance is about a documentarian who disappears, and it's about the people who are left behind, trying to make sense of her disappearance. It's about the stories we tell and why we tell those stories and how those stories ultimately fail us because a life is not a story. Lives don't have beginnings, middles, and ends, not really, and trying to force a person into a narration does a disservice to the person.
So that story sounds pretty straightforward. As straightforward as something like that can be, anyway. But then you through in all the other details that transform this book into a glittery kaleidoscope that leaves you wondering what just happened. It takes place in an alternate history, where Edison was an even greedier asshole and held tight to the patents for sound and color film. So deep into the 1940s, movies are all still black and white silent films. It takes place in an alternate history where the solar system is just like science fiction authors imagined it once upon a time: Venus is a swamp, Mars is a desert, Neptune is just one big ocean, and every single rock is suited to human life. America went up instead of west, so Hollywood is on the moon.
And then there's the fact that Valente plays with genres like a kid on the loose in a toy store. She picks one up only to discard it a handful of pages later and try out another one. There are noir elements, gothic, mystery, fairy tale. And of course the science fiction backdrop. But it's all there for a reason, each genre is chosen specifically, and they all work together remarkably well.
In short, this is an incredibly ambitious book. My second time through I was still discovering new things, finding new connections and a deeper understanding of the themes. And just thoroughly enjoying the language throughout. Valente aims high and knocks it out of the park.
And maybe that's why I'm making my way through her books so slowly, taking my time to thoroughly digest each one. There is so much going on that I can't just run off to the next one. I have to sit with it, enjoy it some more. The next one will be there when I'm ready to tackle it. But which one do I grab next?
Maybe that's part of it. When I find an author I like and I want to read more like that, I find the rest of the author's books. But Valente doesn't work like that. Radiance is an entirely different book than the Fairyland series. Her latest, Space Opera (Eurovision in Space), is wholly different again, as are the books on her backlist like Palimpsest (a sexually-transmitted city) and Six Gun Snow White (really, she has the best titles). The point is that to replicate a reading experience I'm left with no other option than to re-read the book.
Not that that's a problem because the thing all of Valente's books do have in common is that they're quotable to the point that pulling quotes often leads to just replicating the book. Every word is chosen with such precision and care and every sentence is something that I want hung on my wall. A brief list of examples from Radiance:
- Did you know you could fall in love with the way a man loves someone else?
- Buck up, baby blowfish. Just puff up bigger than your sadness and scare it right off.
- It was on the to-do list, but you know to-do lists. They get longer and longer until you might as well just carve the last items on your tombstone.
And therein lies the problem. Because this is such a specific book, that I'm scared to recommend it. I want everyone to read it, but the full description can easily be off-putting. There's a lot going on.
The simple pitch is this: Radiance is about a documentarian who disappears, and it's about the people who are left behind, trying to make sense of her disappearance. It's about the stories we tell and why we tell those stories and how those stories ultimately fail us because a life is not a story. Lives don't have beginnings, middles, and ends, not really, and trying to force a person into a narration does a disservice to the person.
So that story sounds pretty straightforward. As straightforward as something like that can be, anyway. But then you through in all the other details that transform this book into a glittery kaleidoscope that leaves you wondering what just happened. It takes place in an alternate history, where Edison was an even greedier asshole and held tight to the patents for sound and color film. So deep into the 1940s, movies are all still black and white silent films. It takes place in an alternate history where the solar system is just like science fiction authors imagined it once upon a time: Venus is a swamp, Mars is a desert, Neptune is just one big ocean, and every single rock is suited to human life. America went up instead of west, so Hollywood is on the moon.
And then there's the fact that Valente plays with genres like a kid on the loose in a toy store. She picks one up only to discard it a handful of pages later and try out another one. There are noir elements, gothic, mystery, fairy tale. And of course the science fiction backdrop. But it's all there for a reason, each genre is chosen specifically, and they all work together remarkably well.
In short, this is an incredibly ambitious book. My second time through I was still discovering new things, finding new connections and a deeper understanding of the themes. And just thoroughly enjoying the language throughout. Valente aims high and knocks it out of the park.
And maybe that's why I'm making my way through her books so slowly, taking my time to thoroughly digest each one. There is so much going on that I can't just run off to the next one. I have to sit with it, enjoy it some more. The next one will be there when I'm ready to tackle it. But which one do I grab next?
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