Folded World [Paperback]

Picking up immediately where The Habitation of Blessed left off, at the beginning of The Folded World Brother Alaric is given the opportunity to pluck more books off the tree. He randomly chooses three books, and he and the other monks begin copying; trying not to pay attention to what they are reading, endeavoring not to succumb to the power of memory, as Brother Hiob did. They have to copy fast, these books are living things and have already begun to rot.

Put together in a similar style as Habitation of the Blessed (and you really must read these novels in order), we learn the stories in each of the three books as Alaric is copying them, but unlike Alaric, we are free to be seduced by them. The three narratives twist and tumble around one another, leaving hints here and there of things that happened, or perhaps things that are to come. Valente's prose is as always, so beautiful you want to cry, filled with metaphors that at first blush seem like they shouldn't work, but with laughter on the lips you find they work perfectly. I need to open the monster Thesaurus I just bought, so I can find the word that means "more incredible that I could have ever thought possible", and use it to describe The Folded World. I wanted to read this entire book out loud, just to see if the words sounded as beautiful as they looked (for the record, even though I only read portions out loud, they did).

The Book of the Ruby is written by Prester John's wife Hagia, and tells of John's crane-warrior daughter Anglitora. How Aglitora came to John's court bearing a helmet and a letter inviting John back to Christendom, his army of creatures is needed to win Jerusalem. In a land where to live is to be immortal and to die is to grow again in the fertile soil, no one remembers what war really means. War is a game with biting and chasing, war is a novelty, and everyone wants to make John happy enough that he stops trying to convert everyone.

The Left Hand Eye and the Right Hand Mouth is written by Vyala the Lion. She is caretaker to Sefalet, the daughter of Prester John and Hagia. Poor Sefalet is truly of two minds about the world, and I get the impression her parents wish she had been born differently. When half the court goes off to war, Sefalet, Vyala and the rest of the court are sent to Babel to build a cathedral on the ruins of that tower. It would have helped if John had told them what a cathedral is supposed to look like. With the help of a genius architect, they begin to build. And then the stones start talking.

The Virtue of Things is in the Midst of Them is by John Mandeville, and it is all lies. Except the parts that aren't. Shipwrecked on the other side of the wall in Pentexore, John Mandeville finds himself the guests of Ymra and Ysra, who rule on that side of the diamond wall and can never escape. But John Mandeville knows the truth of it, that telling stories is dangerous work indeed, because the truth has teeth.

Prester John is hardly in this story at all, because this part of the story isn't about him at all. It's about his wife Hagia, his daughters Sefalet and Anglitora, the paradise that made him King because they thought it would make him happy, and about a man who told only lies, until he told only the truth. This is a story about Lions who gain one child to lose another, mothers who fear their children, the languages of Emeralds, what really happens when you hunt a unicorn, and going home. It is about how history is collected and told, the nature of God, the nature of love, and how the pain of failure and the pain of truth can be the same thing. Although this book is filled with much sadness, I was intensely happy while reading it. Wrapped up in two hundred and fifty one pages and over flowing with wonder and beauty and tragedy and utter perfection, The Folded World is a religious experience, albeit not "religious" in the way we've been taught to use the word.

Enjoyable on multiple levels, you can read The Folded World as a fairy tale of monstrous proportions starring a preacher who failed to convert a flock, or further as a war story that starts out noble and exciting and honorable until you get there and the blood starts flowing, or even deeper yet.

If you've never read a Catherynne Valente, do yourself a favor and start reading her. Start with The Habitation of the Blessed, or Deathless, or The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of her Own Making, or The Orphans Tales. Valente writes like no one else, as if no one ever told her "You're doing it wrong. Books aren't supposed to be things that glow with light, they're not supposed to be stained glass windows into the soul, they're just supposed to be simple things full of paper and ink and words that make sentences, ", she writes like she's never been afraid of anything, like the possibilities of the world are truly infinite.

Prester John has been king in Pentexore for many years now, aided by his wife Hagia the blemmye. He loves the creatures he rules and has spent his time teaching them about Jesus Christ and trying to reconcile the creation story in Genesis with his new knowledge of the world. When one of John's daughters brings a letter from Constantinople, asking John to bring his army of monsters to fight the Muslims in Jerusalem, he decides that they'll go. Although he is happy with his new life in Pentexore, he is still a faithful Christian and he feels that it's his duty to clear the sacred city of infidels.

The creatures of Pentexore, though they claim to be Christians to please their beloved King John, think the whole Christianity thing is a game involving silly hand motions and recitations. When they agree to fight on John's side, they have no idea what they're in for. To them, war means "mating and keening" and they don't understand the ancient battle between the Christians, descendants of Abraham's son Isaac, and the Muslims, descendants of Abraham's first but illegitimate son Ishmael. When they cross the wall into John's world, they are shocked at the treatment they receive and the way humans treat each other.

The Folded World is similar in structure to the first novel in Catherynne M. Valente's PRESTER JOHN series -- a monk is alternately copying chapters from three different books (written by Hagia, Vyala the White Lion, and the explorer John Mandeville) and desperately trying to transcribe them before they rot. All the while, he tends to the dying Brother Hiob and attempts to understand what Pentexore means for his own faith.

The greatest impact of The Folded World comes not from its ideas about creation, salvation, eschatology, or faith, but from Catherynne Valente's powerful presentation of every creature's struggle to understand the world, its beauty and terror, and his own place in it. I cannot think of another author who can fill one book with so many thoughtful ideas so beautifully spoken:

"Love is a practice. It is a yogic stance; it is lying upon nails; it is walking over coals, or water. It comes naturally to no one, though that is a great secret. One who is learned might say: does not a babe in her mother's arms love? From her first breath does she not know how to love as surely as her mouth can find the breast? And I would respond: have you ever met a child? A cub may find the breast but not latch upon it, she may bite her mother, or become sick with her milk. So too, the utter dependence of a tiny and helpless thing upon those who feed and warm her is not love. It is fierce and needful; it has a power all its own and that power is terrible, but it is not love. Love can come only with time and sentience. We learn it as we learn language -- and some never learn it well. Love is like a tool, though it is not a tool; something strange and wonderful to use, difficult to master, and mysterious in its provenance.

If love were not all of this, I would not have devoted my mind, which is large and generous and certainly could have done much else, to it for all these centuries.

If love were not all of this, I would never have known that wretched, radiant little girl, nor let her learn her teeth on my heart, which children can find with more sureness than ever they could clasp the breast, and latch upon it, and bite, and become sick, and make ill, and all the worst of the six ails of loving, which are to lose it, to find it, to break it, to outlive it, to vanish inside it, and to see it through to the end."

The entire book is like this -- beautiful nuggets of wisdom on every page.

I listened to Brilliance Audio's version, which is dynamically read by Ralph Lister who is convincing in all of his human and monster roles. He does a great job and I'll be reading the third volume of PRESTER JOHN in this format.

The Folded World is highly recommended, but it's not what you need when you want to read an action-packed adventure story. Save this for when you're in a pensive and vulnerable mood. It's incredibly gorgeous.

This is a lush and fantastic continuation of the tale presented in Habitation of the Blessed. These complex story-threads could so easily become tangled, but in Ms. Valente's skilled hands, they weave an intriguing and brilliantly-textured tapestry of story.

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