Books: The Orphan's Tales In the Night Garden

by Catherynne M. Valente

I read this because it was one of the two Tiptree Award winners this year.  I never would have heard of it if I hadn't attended WisCon.  Valente gave a very moving acceptance speech, which more than any rec made me want to read the book.

The back cover says, "welcome to the Arabian Nights for our time - a lush and fatastical epic guaranteed to spirit you away from the very first page....  Secreted away in a garden, a lonely girl spins stories to warm a curious prince:  peculiar feats and unspeakable fates that loop through each other and back again to meet in the tapestry of her voice.  Inked on her eyelids, each twisting, tattooed tale is a piece in the puzzle of the girl's own hidden history.  And waht tales she tells!  Tales of shape-shifting witches and wild horse-women, heron kings and beast princesses, snake gods, dog monks, and living stars--each story more strange and fantastic than the one that came before.  From ill-tempered "mermaid" to fastidious Beast, nothing is ever quite what it seems in these ever-shifting tales--even, and especially, their teller."

This is a pretty good description.  It is lush and fantastical.  The thing is, the Tiptree is given for works that push the boundaries of gender.  I'm not so sure that this book obviously did that. OTOH, I'm kind of weird in this regard.  When I was reading fairy tales, I was always casting myself in the hero role.  I didn't care that the heroes were normally depicted as male.  It's not always true, there's the story of the seven swans/princes, where their sister rescues them for example, but yeah.  Fairytales generally have male heroes rescuing females-in-distress.  This book has a fair amount of women in active roles, but it doesn't jump out at me.  Maybe that's why it was picked? Because the female characters seem so natural?  It's not like you're thinking, "hey, she's a chick, she isn't allowed to do that!"  The people and cultures are so completely foreign, that I don't think you can have a true gender expectation.  I was disappointed because I didn't see anything overt happening gender-wise.  But maybe that's the point.  There is a small section where the prince who is hearing the stories struggles with the idea that he is supposed to be the rescuer/hero, but feels that she is rescuing him from his fate.  But it isn't really elaborated upon.

The stories are entertaining and interesting and the format is unusual.  It's a good read, and doesn't have to be terribly deep (I spent a lot of time tracing the connections between the stories, but you probably don't have to).  I put the book down in the middle, at the transition between "the book of the steppes" and "the book of the sea."  I think it would have been better to read it straight through.  The connections would have been easier to trace/remember.  I highly recommend this for anyone who enjoys fantasy or fairy tales.  There is apparently a second volume available now too.  I'll probably read it eventually, but I'm still working on my list for this year.