In the Night Garden

Valente has tapped into some mythic archetypes and borrowed some fairy tale trappings and woven them into something both familiar and wonderfully strange. Tales are entwined and nested together like matryoshka dolls--exotic, fabulous, sometimes tragic, and sometimes horrifying tales. The creation story of the great Mare is worth the price of admission alone, but that's just the beginning of the thread of stories tattooed on eyelids of the mysterious orphan as told to the prince in the night garden.

I'm certainly going to read the second book, In the Cities of Coin and Spice, in the hope that I'll find out what happens to the Stars, or how the orphan acquired her tales.

This was yet another book I discovered from a Bookslut reading. The piece she read was so brilliant. Both faithful to the logic of fairy tales and yet turning all expectations on your head. Even Andrew was intrigued. It's funny. In the first section, I felt like there were a few missteps in the language. A few phrasings that jolted me out of my suspended reality. But either they went away or I got too sucked in to notice, because the second section flew by like nothing. Despite numerous interruptions and demands on my time from work, family, the need to actually eat and sleep, I was immersed. By the end, I was ready to shave my head and call myself a Sigrid. Truly, a remarkable book.

[a:Catherynne M. Valente|338705|Catherynne M. Valente|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1220999852p2/338705.jpg]'s award-winning [b:In the Night Garden|6156690|In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1)|Catherynne M. Valente|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1432316335s/6156690.jpg|196179] is a stunning achievement. A girl, cursed with mysterious dark colouring around her eyes, lives wild in the magnificent gardens of a royal palace. One day she's sought out by a boy prince, to whom she reveals her secret: the dark rings around her eyes are actually infinitesimally tiny writing spelling out magical stories. She begins to tell him what's written on her skin. Her tales twist, branch and fold back upon one another in marvelous show more intricacy. Witches, skin-changers, djinns, wizards, living Stars, maidens, monsters, orphans and many other fantastic creations populate Valente's richly woven tapestry. This novel is such a gorgeous thing to experience because it brings back the childhood joy of discovering the magic of storytelling and just how far a really good story can take you. show less

Reading this book has left me practically speechless. Almost anything I could say about it will fall flat in the sheer enormity of the experience.

So what DID I experience?

Scheherazade.

Dark fables incorporating wide mythologies reminiscent of all the best obscure fairy tales twisted in wonderfully unique ways, couched as stories within stories, adding tiny slivers of fate within each until it brings us back, wholly, to our Scheherazade, our poor orphan telling her story from the words tattooed on her eyelids. :)

My particular favorites were the witches drowning in light, the ones who would not die, the irascible pirate mermaid, and all the selkie stories. The dog monks were a great treat as well.

More importantly, this is VALENTE. show more Everything she writes is lyrical and fascinating and careful and poetical. From the words to the ideas to the characters and their ultimate fates, we run the whole line from vengeance to magical sex-change love to living stars in the sky.

I personally can't understand why it took me this long to get to her earlier work. It's fantastic. :) show less

Just a few random images to give you an idea: A young girl who’s just found out she’s really a fox rides on the back of the queen on the loons to the top of a slender mountain, to convince a couple of stars in human form to let go of their head, which has faces on both sides and which has been cracked by a jealous son of a ship-builder, to let it split and the light come out of it. Three dog-headed monks from the Chrysanthemum tower, vowed to pacifism, set out to the gold-crazy city to assassinate a false popess. Behind a cathedral a Monoped, hobbling on one colossal foot, seeks out an old hag chained to the wall, clad only in a dress made by her own hair and without a mouth, to get her advice on how to avenge the living death of show more his beloved, now possessed by a tribe of greedy moon-children.

And in the night garden outside a palace of countless royal children, a young prince sneaks out to hear the shunned orphan tell her tales, all written in miniature letters in the black folds around her eyes – the above and many many more.

This haunting labyrinth of mythology, fairytale, fantasy, tropes, winks and connections is like diving in honey. It’s powerful, rich, flowery, poetic, TOO MUCH – but just wonderful. Presented in just the merest of bites as we weave in and out of the layers, this becomes an engrossing, mesmerizing read. As you go along, you start to see how the different stories are also connecting across time and space. And, as with all good fairytales, there are life lessons and images of the world to glimpse here too. The pointless war between Griffins and Arimaspians is heartbreaking, the idea of the Quest as purpose in life is deceptively deconstructed. But most of all, this is just a stunningly original, great ride.

Part of me wants to come up and breathe before diving into “In the cities of coin and spice”, the second half of this book. But I’m afraid to lose too many threads. I’ll just inhale deeply, and immerse myself in honey again. show less

In a far off garden, cloistered away from the Sultan's harem lives a girl with exotic tales tattooed on her eyelids. No one is supposed to speak to her, but the young prince loves sneak away and listen to her stories. In the Night Garden is a compilation of those very same stories, as well as that of the lost girl and enraptured prince. I absolutely love this book (books really). I can't say that enough. If I hadn't wanted to be an author before reading it, I sure would have after. It grabbed my attention, held it, and then shook it for all it was worth. I wanted it to go on forever, to find one more amazing character or vivid local. This book is full of them. It's like literary velvet. The prose is beautiful, the stories engaging, and show more (though some have complained about the complexity) I loved the way they all interlock. It is simply fabulous, and I highly recommend it to anyone who loves mythology, folk stories, and/or high fantasy. Approach it with patience, it is convoluted, but so worth it. show less

A story within a story.
We sit in the moonlit garden and eavesdrop with bated breath on two children whispering tales to each other.
It is a retelling of the Thousand Stories told to that mad Arabian king. But it isn't. It is something new. It is a new world with its own folklore.

This is probably the best rendition of a retold fairy tale that I have ever read. And I do not say that lightly. It is so beautiful because it doesn't follow the standard "formula" of a fairy tale. It nods at the old fables we know and love, and then takes it in a completely different world, different path.

A star is only a hole that light shines through. And how can I ever see the story of the Six Swans or the Goose Girl in the same light now? Or the fox that show more captained a ship? Or the typical princess in a tower? It is a merging of stories, elements of fairy tales woven into a new thing.

This book is not for everyone, I know. Some people will read this and complain of the complexity of keeping each storyline straight. You must have a soft spot for fairy tales to love this book.
And yes, I fell in love. The entire thing is simply too beautiful.

It was only a tragedy when the book closed upon its last page and I thought, just like the boy begging for the next part, no please continue the story.

Five stars. This is a novel to be savored. show less