I Am A Blank Paper On Which You & Your Magic Wrote A Girl

[redbrunja]

I had to check out Deathless about six times from the library, but I finally finished it.

It’s amazingly well-written… but that’s about all I can say. The best parts have already been excerpted and passed around the internet. Deathless is all about the language; I couldn’t really connect with the characters.

Also, another example of a book (partially) set during the Seige of Leningrad where I love the language and am interested in the place but I can’t connect to the characters.

Comments

[intrikate88.livejournal.com]

I found that I was able to connect more with the characters in Deathless than in other of Cat Valente's books BECAUSE she toned down the language. She writes so much like a prose poem that while a short story of hers is okay, but anything longer and the story and characters get absolutely lost in the wild tangles of language. So Marya's determination and her connection with the changing Soviet Union through the lives of the mythic figures around her really stood out a lot better.

Basically I love Catherynne Valente, I just wish she would find a balance between language and story, and Deathless was the closest of hers I've found yet to achieving that.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

I can understand that. I’m really looking forward to reading The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, because I have hope that either the different characters or shorter stories (I believe this is a book of linked short stories) will either allow me to connect with the world or get lost in the language or both.