Primavera

Young Primavera lives in a paradise, soft, lush, suffocating. She longs for hard, brittle adventure. So, into the desert and the cities she rides.

The story of Persephone in a post apocalyptic world where radiation has created mutant centaurs and mermaids and Primavera, who when she sings makes the world bloom flowers.

A classic journey from innocence into adulthood with all the attendant descents into the abyss and climb into the sun. What’s interesting about this version is that we not only read Primavera’s perspective, but that of her parents Calliope and Dionisio's and of several other characters.

The prose is strewn with razor candy flowers and wounded Rivers, plucking their own feathers in the city of the lost. Not really a light read, but if you’re in the mood for dense rich, brew up a pot of tea and enjoy. ( )

Primavera is the sequel to Block's YA fantasy novel, Ecstasia, but as much as I enjoyed Ecstasia, I disliked the sequel. The problem, for me, was the main character.

Primavera is the daughter of two of the main characters from the previous novel - Calliope and Dionisio. At the end of the first novel, Calliope, Dionisio and their friend Paul went into the Desert and were reunited with Calliope's brother (also Paul's lover) Rafe, and the magic of their music made the Desert bloom into a lush paradise. In this book, Primavera is revealed to be the source of all the magic - when she sings flowers bloom. But she doesn't like paradise and she longs to travel to the sparkling city her parents fled. This is not the reason I disliked her - I could understand and sympathize with her wanting to get away, see the world for herself, become her own person. However, her reason for wanting to get away is mostly her having a hissy fit because she's in love with Paul - her uncle's boyfriend, who is old enough to be her father and thinks of her as his daughter - and she can't get over the fact that Paul is not only too old for her, but also gay and in love with her uncle. Things get even worse when Block writes a section from Paul's point of view that reveals that despite only being interested in men and being in a committed relationship with Rafe, Paul also finds himself attracted to the girl whom he has often thought of as his own daughter. Seriously. What. I almost threw the book across the room at this point:

"Dearest Spring. [Primavera] When you were a baby I felt almost as if you were my own. This may sound strange to you, but because you looked so much like your mother's brother I truly imagined that if he and I had been able to have a child that you would be ours. I heard you sing and I knew that you were like my daughter. . . . . You grew and I was amazed at your beauty. It almost frightened me at times. I didn't want you to come too near. I have never felt for women like this, but when I saw you calling up the sunflowers, I felt my heart beat as it does for Rafe. This I can never tell you." (p. 27)

A man comes to the Desert and gives Primavera a horse-headed motorcycle and she takes off to see the city. Instead of coming to the wondrous fantasyland her parents knew, however, she finds a ruined city full of starving children and giant, mentally-ill rapists. She befriends a poor, orphaned little boy named River, but rather than taking him back to live with her loving friends and family in Paradise, she deserts him, leaving him alone to starve because if she went home she would have to accept that her uncle's lover won't have sex with her. Yeah, not exactly a heroine I can root for.

In the second half of the novel, things come a little bit more into their own. Primavera is captured by a sadist who keeps fauns, bird-women and mermaids in cages and sells them to the giants for sex. Primavera ends up falling in love with a centaur named Pyre and freeing the captive mutants. Still, this is not one of my favourite Block stories. I also think that the poetry was very poorly done in this one - I think it has the worst poetry out of any of Block's books. And I really liked Ecstasia so I feel disappointed that I couldn't get into this. ( )

A sequel to 'Ecstasia' (though I read them in the wrong order anyway). Not just a sequel – for the most part this is a retelling of the same events through the eyes of another character. Rather pointless, then. ( )

The sequel to "Ecstasia". Keeping with the same dark and magical theme, this book completes the "lack of ending" of the first book.

One of my favourite things about Block's work is that it's both accessible and mysterious. Her books read like poetry; there's a surface story there, to be sure, and the reader feels as though all the information they need is before them, but it's up to each individual to piece together just what the story means. I found this book both wonderful and maddening for just that reason. I know I'll want to reread it at least once more, and that I'll spend quite a bit of time thinking over the ideas and themes she's introduced here.

As is often the case with Block's novels, I also found it both beautiful and horrifying. Primavera's story is gorgeous and poetic, but there are some truly heartwrenching scenes. I felt deeply for all involved, and was swept up in their story.

One word of caution to the squeemish: there are some parts containing what might be interpreted as bestiality. I believe Block's saying that people are people no matter what their outer appearance, but some might find these portions offensive. ( )