The Habitation of the Blessed

I love Catherynne M. Valente: her writing, her stories, her characters, her worlds. I loved the citizens Pentexore in this book, the strange, legendary, immortal creatures said to populate an Eden-like far-away land. But I had a much harder time being as generous as they were to Prester John, the priest who sets off in search of the tomb of St. Thomas, or Brother Hiob, the priest who many years later follows in search of Prester John, so I didn't always soak the world in as I have many of her other works. I would start elsewhere if you are looking to try out her writing, as this isn't as accessible, but still, good. ( )

by Catherynne M . Valente

Though there are several important excerpts at the beginning of the book, I decided to use the opening line from the first chunk of narrative: "I am a very bad historian. But I am a very good miserable old man."

I've been a fan of Valente's short fiction for a year or two now, and loved The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland. And actually, I was searching the library catalog to see if they had Deathless listed at all, because Russian fairytales are love, when I saw this one.

One of Valente's trademarks is her lush prose, and this book was no exception. At the same time, though I was constantly caught by the images, the repetition, and the glorious flow of words, I didn't feel as if the style had take over the substance. This is a fascinating story of what-if: what if Prester John were real? what if a group of monks set off to find him in his deathless land?

I've admitted many times in the past to having problems with multiple character narrations. However neat they sound in theory, I've often found that they slow down the pace of the book excruciatingly, and that the characters are usually not sufficiently differentiated. This book suffers from neither of those problems. The story clips right along, possibly a result of its excerpting* structure, and the different voices who make up the body of the text are all fantastically different.

Though I'm both an Orthodox and an orthodox Christian, the theology of the book didn't bother me. I never felt as though its suggestions were made to be titillating or shocking. In a way it's hard for me to define, I felt as if it was both sincere and respectful. This might be different for others, and I admittedly will swallow all sorts of things as long as they're well written. Also, I think Valente has a better grasp of Nestorianism than most people who attempt to write about it.

Hiob might be my favorite narrator, but I enjoyed them all, even John.

I'm about to go all English-majory for a moment, so please excuse me in advance. But one of the things I loved about this book was that whatever cohesive narrative you create from it is a creation. Because all of the narrations are first-person and therefore inherent personal and unreliable, they are none of them true, and yet together they create a sort of truth. Perhaps it's the post-modernist in me, but I love this.

* Awkward, but sounded so much better than excerptatory, which is probably more correct and terrible English.

Catherynne Valente, previously:
Fairyland, briefly, twice ( )

When I was a kid, the library had a set of books of mythology from various countries. They were small and mysterious and smelled good, and I have mostly forgotten their contents but I remember where they were on the shelf and how excited I was to go get another one. Valente has written a book that pulls in all of those vaguely remembered remarkable characters and weaves them in with sex, religion, gender, and cultural politics to make something that smells just like those old, beloved volumes and fits in the same place in my head. ( )

Did not finish.

I have read a number of Valente's books and absolutely adored them. Like her previous books this book was beautifully written with excellent imagery. The book is told from four viewpoints and was a bit harder for me to read than previous books. As such, it was probably my least favorite book of hers to date, that being said it was still incredibly creative and beautifully written.

Brother Hiob of Luzerne stumbles upon a tree that sprouts books instead of fruit while working at a missionary in the Himalayans. He is allowed to pluck three books from the tree. The first is written by Prester John himself and tells of Prester's journey into magical lands. The second is written by Prester's wife Hagia; an immortal who carries her face on her chest and has no head. The third is a collection of nursery tales by a being named Imtithal who was a nanny.

This book has a lot of what I have come to love from Valente; crazily creative creatures and descriptions that come alive to the reader, beautiful writing that is incredibly rich and weaves wonderfully magical pictures, and tons of mythological references. The story alternates between Brother Hiob, Prester John, Hagia, and Imtithal. As such it progresses slowly and has more of a plodding mythological and somewhat religious tone to it than previous works.

I enjoyed hearing from Brother Hiob who had to alternate his reading because each of the books he pulled off of the tree started rotting as soon as he plucked them off. As such he becomes obsessed with reading these stories before they rot. I also enjoyed Prester John's viewpoint as he stumbles into a magical and wonderful land after crossing a sea of sand. Although Prester John's very catholic religious viewpoints are a bit tiresome at times, it is interesting to see how this new land reacts to his very orthodox viewpoint.

I also enjoyed Hagia's viewpoint. She is immortal and is a blemmye (has no head, but her face is on her torso). She falls in love with Prester John. Although most of her accounts are about her various lives and loves and it is isn't until later in the book she meets with Prester John.

I did not enjoy the sections by Imtithal as much. Imtithal has three children she takes care of and is a being with huge ears that can enfold her whole body. You don't really know how she is related to Prester John until much later in the story. Imtithal tells a number of creation myths to her young charges. I had trouble connecting these with the other parts of the story and constantly had to work on focusing on the stories because my mind would start to wander. I just couldn't relate to the stories or relate them to the overall book.

This book is a slow read. The writing is incredibly beautiful and well done, but you need to take time to read it and really pay attention to understand what is going on. There is a lot of ambiguity here. The constantly switching viewpoints makes the story progress slowly and presents more of a puzzle that the reader needs to piece together than a cohesive story. It is masterfully done, but slow to read.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and continue to enjoy Valente's beautiful writing and the absolutely crazy and wacky creatures and worlds that she weaves. This book was a slow read and one you really need to pay attention to and think about while you read. I wasn't crazy about the changing viewpoints and the way you had to piece the story together. I also had some trouble relating Imtithal's sections to the rest of the story. If you are a fan of mythology and beautiful writing and don't mind some ambiguity I can definitely recommend this to you. I didn't find it to be quite as magical and wonderful as previous books I have read by Valente, but it was still very well done. ( )