It is taking me quite a while to work my way through the new Cat Valente book. This is not because I’m busy doing Christmas things. It is very quiet here, and actually I’m working right now (and writing this while the software does test runs). But I still have a lot of time to read, and I’m making slow progress.
There are good reasons for taking time over this book. To stat with, like the previous Orphan’s Tales book, In the Cities of Coin and Spice is an interleaved collection of short fables. That means that, just like with an anthology or collection, there are many convenient put-the-book-down spots. But equally important is the denseness and richness of Valente’s prose. You feel the need to read slowly so that you don’t miss anything.
I can see that these books will not be to everyone’s taste, but personally I’m in awe of them. Even if no all of the stories grab the attention, it is always worth reading them because you may come across moments like this:
Consider this: if a unicorn is innocent, if she is the core and pivot of all possible purity, why should she seek it out? Why should she care if some other creature is innocent, if she herself runneth over with virtue? Why should she, time and time again, though she knows better – she must know! – be lured from the deep and shadowy greenwood by the simple presence of a girl in a white dress? Ridiculous. We want it because we have no idea what it is, except that we know its smell, its weight, its outline against a gray sky. We want it because it is new. We go toward it hoping that we can touch it, that we can understand it, that we may become innocent ourselves.
Or then again there is the story of the kappas who go to live in the high mountains so that the water in their head bowls will freeze and they can continue to be polite and bow without the risk of losing the precious liquid.
One of the stock stories about author readings is that there will always be someone in the audience who asks the question, “where do you get your ideas from”? I guess these people must be wannabe authors who just can’t come up with any ideas for fiction. I know that’s one of the reasons I don’t write much fiction. And yet here is Valente so overflowing with story ideas, many of them really good ones, that she can throw them all away in a handful of pages each. Awesome. (Yes Cat, it is a great word.)
