Valente, Catherynne M. - The Orphan's Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice (spoilers)

[oyceter]

I finished the first book a little less than a week ago, and amazingly, I still remember a good deal of it (for my personal values of "good deal;" i.e. I could recall more than just the main characters' names).

Much like Kate mentions in her review (link below), I think I enjoyed reading the first book the most for the thrill of discovery and surprise. I was never quite as startled by the other three as I was by the third, though my delight in the language and the worldbuilding and the characters and Valente's takes on race and gender and fairy tales and stories and everything never waned.

Pretty much everything I wrote about the first book applies to this as well, so I will use this as my giant spoiler post.

I am so confused! Are Solace and Sorrow twins, or changelings? And if so, did Solace used to be the sultan's child, or just the child of someone in the palace? And if so, where'd she get her tattoo?

The overarching presence of monsters in the first book seems to have become constructed and/or modified bodies in this one. There's not much of a difference between monsters and modified bodies physically, but it feels like the external societies the modified bodies live in in the second book are less judgmental.

Or, you know, I'm just making that up.

But there's the wicker wife (OMG CREEPY) and the tooth man (OMG EVEN MORE CREEPY) and Hour and Immacolata off the top of my head for constructed bodies, and Folio and the spider as modified bodies. Also, Solace and Sorrow both have their tattoos. Continuing with the theme of monsters and multi-something bodies, there's Oubliette and the manticore. Then we also have people who take off bits of their bodies, most notably Seven. The Yi are terrifying because they take over bodies.

In the first book, I don't remember as many constructed/modified bodies, though my memory sucks. Are there more transformed bodies like Ruin (I can think of: Aerie, Madagin, the selkie, the woman who turns into a wolf)? I tend to think of modifications as something smaller in scope, and transformations as something that completely changes the body (Aerie going from girl to goose to woman).

Oh wait, Giota is modified by her sisters.

Oh, I also wanted to know, are the Yi and the Hsien the same? And are they related to Idyll? I read that on FemSFWiki, but cannot remember any details.

Valente overturns a lot of fairy tale tropes in the first book with her take on monsters and witches and maidens and crones; the second seems to have more direct takes off fairy tales, though the first had a splinter of the Seven Swans. I had: the Frog Prince, Beauty and the Beast, the Red Shoes/Cinderella, and the Two Sisters (or whatever the one about pearls and frogs coming out of mouths was called). I also saw a trace of Mulan in the story of Widow. I particularly loved how the sisters in the BatB analogue ended up turning on their father-turned-beast.

I also love Sorrow's direct rejection of the boy claiming her story as his own; he is reading them to her, but they are hers. And I am glad Dinarzad got something in the end, and I hope her marriage doesn't end up too badly.

And oh, the cities, the dying cities, Marrow and Shadukiam and Ajanabh and Urim, all dead or clinging to the edges of life.

And I should say more or think more, except I am just sad to not be in that world any longer.

Links:
- kate_nepveu's review (both books, no spoilers)
- meganbmoore's review (spoilers)
- minnow1212's review

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

And here I thought I was going to be the first person I know to post on it(theoretically doing so later tonight.)

One thing I noticed was how much darker the "happy" fairy tales were(such as the unicorn or the mermaid wife) and howthe traditionally evil figures were made sympathetic, such as the sirens.

I though the line about how the story was still hers even if he spoke the words, and the part where, now that it was the more traditional type of storytelling he was used to-the male telling the story to the female-it was felt, were the best lines.

[oyceter]

Kate's got a post up too ;).

I loved Sorrow's retort to the boy so much.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I think we just all got to it at the same time.

I can't help but think I'm missing something important with Aerie, but I can't put my finger on what.

[kate_nepveu]

Changlings, 512-13, which was my spoilery issue with the book: http://kate-nepveu.livejournal.com/298695.html

We don't know about Solace's biological parentage, though I wonder if there's a hint in the brief sadness of the Sultan when he tells Sorrow to tell her foreign court that they were kind to her.

I also loved that Sorrow went beyond the written story to offer something to Dinarzad.

The city with the bone coins *freaked me out*.

[oyceter]

Huh, ok, now I'm even more confused as to the reason for swapping in the first place. Because... yeah. Why swap?

Marrow = SCARY!! That entire book freaked me out, but especially the city and the TOOTH GUY gaaaaah.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Sneaking in without looking at spoilers:

Can I read In the Cities of Coin and Spice without first reading In the Night Garden? Insofar as I saw it in the new books section of my library and checked it out because the author name sounded familiar, but the first book would require an interlibrary loan.

[oyceter]

I don't think so -- everything's interconnected, and a lot of the major plot points have roots in the first book, so it'd be incredibly confusing.

[minnow1212.livejournal.com]

Thanks--I think I picked it up thinking it was more short stories set in the same universe, before you and Yoon started talking about them and I realized that might not be the case.

Shall return until can read the other one.

[oyceter]

No prob! Hope you get a chance to get your hands on the first book soon.

slightly OT

[estara.livejournal.com]

If you find the idea of a wickerwife scary and interesting, you ought to read Greenwitch by Susan Cooper, from The Dark is Rising Sequence.

Re: slightly OT

[oyceter]

I've actually read that, thanks! I found the wicker wife in the book frightening not so much because of the wicker factor, but because of the whole cannibalism and sacrifice to her husband, so I actually don't read Greenwitch as being that creepy, as it's more about empathy.