ariel05
Cro-Magnon Man
Joined: 04 Nov 2005
Posts: 174
Location: Utah
|
 Posted: Fri Sep 12, 2008 6:32 pm Post subject: 18. The Orphan's Tales, Catherynne M. Valiente |
 |
|
Subtitled: In The Night Garden
Wow.
This book is amazing.
It is nominally a book of fairy tales, but the structure and language are beautiful things. Many of the familiar archetypes are represented, though the style is a balance between realism and mythology.
The whole book is a fairy tale, wrapped around two other tales, and those two are wrapped around multiple fairy tales wrapped inside fairy tales inside tales inside tales inside tales, and all tales finding their way back out again. If I had to pick a work to describe the structure it would be "spiral".
It is a sort of variation on 1001 Arabian Nights, in which a girl tells her stories to a young prince (this is the overall tale), and yet the tales are not individuals, but all interconnected.
Somehow, even with the tales within tales, I never lost the threads.
There is a sequel. The only reason I know this is because it's listed on Amazon (and for the Kindle, yay!). The book itself ends leaving me feeling like I'd love to return to the world, to read more stories, but it doesn't end on a cliffhanger note, so there's no desperate need to know WHAT. HAPPENS. NEXT.!?
It's a very graceful book I would highly recommend to anyone who likes fairy tales. |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
