Customer Reviews

The Labyrinth

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm not a big reviewer, but that is also because I used to read for a living. You get sick of talking about books. But this one is different from the run of the mill and it deserves a review.

First let me say, (because this is a small press book) I was entirely satisfied and more with the physical copy itself. It is beautiful. You have nothing to worry about there.

now on to the STORY....

If you're interested in this book, you're not seeking a 'typical' read. Don't expect to learn about someone's terrible divorce or quarky family. This is not that kind of book. It is more experimental but I found that invitational, not offputting. I found myself itching to underline certain parts of it and to mark it up in general just so I remembered my thoughts as I read through it. In short: it is rather inspiring. You are guarenteed to have a strong opinion on the work.

The story is of a woman who has swallowed the Compass Rose and has been traveling through a Labyrinth filled with snapping, dangerous doors that threaten to take her off the true pathway. As you follow her, you are treated to glimpses of who she might have been at one time. These tangents are fascinating...the one that stands out in my mind the most is "I came of age during the plague years." Yet despite these tempting offshoots, I didn't feel cheated following the narrator. I was compelled to see her destination.

Valente uses a lot of strong images and sometimes s contrasting images to convey her vision of the Labyrinth and its inhabitants. Her style is distinct and intentional and her voice is very feminine. You will either love it or hate it, but she will never commit the crime of leaving you uncertain.

I checked out her website. This is her first book and she has some others in the pipeline. If you're at all interested in poetry I was quite impressed with her poetry...she has some of it up on her website.

I won't bother you with all my other personal opinions on the work...that's what the gold stars are for. :) But I won't lend out my copy because I have the feeling that I wouldn't get it back from my friends.

'nuff said.

I have finished The Labyrinth by Cathrynne M. Valente. I devoured it, like a Door. It was beautiful, a lyrical epic poem in prose. The language was amazing, it gave me a tingly feeling in my spine, and in my throat. I know some who might have thought it was excessive, but this story could only have been told in language such as that. An ordinary story demands ordinary language, and this is no ordinary story. It's an extraordinary journey through psychologically charged image after image.

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I highly recommend this book, for anyone who loves the English language, and the myriad of ways in which it can be used. I recommend this book for anyone who loves mythology, and I'm going right away to email my mythology professor to tell him he should read it, too. I recommend this book for anyone who loves things that are out of the ordinary, because this book is extraordinary.

I warn you, once you read this book, your perception of reality won't be the same again. Life will seem dull and grey compared to the vibrant visions and characters that Valente describes.

Hoo.

In the world of literature, there's a lot of the same- a lot of mediocrity, a lot of good, and a lot of bad. The fact is, however, that in all that diversity, there's an awful lot of uniformity. Books, no matter their quality, tend to be whatever they are in one of a limited number of ways. While the convenience of categorization and familiarity might be nice, sometimes it's nice to have a little departure. Soon after I recieved an advance copy of The Labyrinth for review, I realized that I was going to go on a little trip.

Enter The Labyrinth. There are some books whose language can evoke images that transcend mere vivid visuals- they can inspire waves of emotion and empathy with its protagonists that wash over you in unexpected, engrossing ways. It sets forth on an unconventional and perhaps daunting literary course, one that demonstrates a powerful command of language, as well as a rapt knowledge of the classics. The style is poetic but not poetry, written in cantos so beautifully yet succinctly constructed that they seem as the lost lyrics of an arcane epic song. Valente does so with such captivating skill that the book quickly becomes difficult to put down, if your first appraisal might tell you that this is not your cup of tea.

It tells the story of the Walker, once a woman, no longer so, on a surreal quest in the underworld-like Maze. There, the Walker encounters a host of the surreal- predatory Doors that consume those who enter, strange talking beasts, and odd helpers reminiscent of the archetype established by myths modern and ancient. The tale is told with refreshing femininity, but it is a savage, wild femininity that often disturbs as much as it enchants.

As you might have determined by now, the book is damned intense, and damned different. It is filled with surreal sights, sounds, and speeches; it distorts reality with every turn and unapologetically disorients the reader. With what becomes a trademark skill, however, Valente provides relief with her decidedly quirky sense of humor, inserting quixotic characters and dialogue that self-effacingly reminds us that the world of The Labyrinth is not entirely deeply meaningful and sweeping. She reminds us that she doesn't take herself too seriously, and in those moments, neither do we. It's appreciated.

Any reader who rigidly prefers conventional styles and plots of their chosen works will likely find The Labyrinth not to their liking, but I won't dissuade anyone who considers themselves a lover of literature from picking up this book. It is fantastic and dark, but in an age where classification is key, perhaps an author as truly different as Valente deserves a classification of her own.

Catherynne M. Valente, The Labyrinth (Prime, 2003)

I'm not sure there's anything I can say about Catherynne M. Valente's writing that I haven't already said. Which gives the irony of Valente's first novel being my fifth review of her work a little extra added piquancy. Here's a fresh, new voice in fiction, and I've already told you all about how great that fresh new voice is in my reviews of Yume No Hon: The Book of Dreams (her second novel) and The Grass-Cutting Sword (her third). Yeah, I didn't get round to reading this one till later, more fool me.

This one gives us a nameless narrator (often compared to Alice in Wonderland, though by my estimation it's the Alice of American McGee's videogame or Svankmajer's brilliant film, not the one originally concocted by Carroll) trapped in a labyrinth-- of her own devising? One can never tell-- and the oddments she meets as she traverses it. It's a quest narrative, but a quest narrative turned quite on its head, where the hero doesn't have any inkling of the goal, the collected detritus of the meetings with helpful entities seems to have no value whatsoever, and no good deed goes unpunished. It's a tough life.

The plot, though, is not the reason to read this, as it never is with a Valente novel; you read Valente for the richness of the writing, the startling images that somehow never stretch the bounds of believability no matter how outrageous they get, the tempering and tweaking of old stories and mythic types that have been begging for such for centuries, if only we could hear it. Valente is one of those who can, and should be revered for same. *****

In The Labyrinth, Valente weaves not just a tapestry of words, but a flying carpet taking the reader to previously unknown high-altitude flights of fancy. The ever-changing landscapes provide a backdrop for a modern epic poem of unparalelled beauty.

From lobster-clawed key makers to angelic fishermen each door holds something new. The text reads like a fever dream, pulling the reader out of the banality of the real world and into a twisting dreamscape.

If you love epic fantasy or epic poetry then The Labyrinth is a must have for your collection.

I don't often book review to this extent, but I almost needed to in order to grasp this mercurial curiosity of a novel.

The Labyrinth is Catherynne Valente's first novel. The female Narrator is a self-described Seeker, seeking nothing-in-particular because there is nothing but the Labyrinth - no beginning, end, start, finish or center - this she just accepts. She simply keeps moving, avoiding Doors that hunt like predators to swallow their prey to an unknown fate. But an ice-fishing, pipe-smoking Angel curses her with a Purpose that poisons her self-image and existence, and puts her on a quest-that-is-not-a-quest. The narrator's appearance shifts forcibly, influenced by the variety of landscapes and her experiences.

It is apparent early on that this is not linear story-telling, and you begin to wonder if underlying it is a disturbing madness in the mind of the narrator. How far deep and far gone is she? Is she in fact any more important a character than any she encounters, or the Labyrinth itself? Are they one and the same? Phrases echo and descriptions overlap.

While the Narrator's tone is somber, fragmented and often severe, her interaction with the Carroll-esque creatures in the Labyrinth are quite whimsical. Most amusing being the Crocodile Prophet evangelizing the gospel of the Man and the Bar. ("If you could only understand that there is only one Man, and only one Bar, and they walk into each other, and they are the same.") Most important, perhaps, the Trickster Monkey.

The novel is fantastically word-thick and abstract, poetry parading as prose. The metaphors and descriptions are startling, vibrant, puzzling, sometimes even crude. At first I thought the book ponderous and pretentious, but I got sucked in. I can't help but admire a writer who can allow me to get lost in the richness of one simple paragraph. At some point you fall into the rhythm of her writing and it becomes more and more beautiful. By the end, there is much to ponder and drawn conclusions from, but I'll refrain from sharing my own.

I want to loan this out and share the beauty in this novel, though I'm not sure I know anyone personally who has the taste and inclination to read it. Read if you have a poet's heart and more than an inkling of madness.

In her debut novel, "The Labyrinth," Catherynne M. Valente has set out at once to define her own work, and to redefine the form. "The Labyrinth" reads more like an epic, surrealist poem, or an obscure Eastern religious text than it does a novel. The richness of the imagery, and the depth of thought injected into these words should bear the warning label "concentrated, take only in small doses."

I believe it would be doing this work a disservice to read it in one sitting, though this might be tempting. Rather than being dragged from chapter to chapter, if chapters are what the breaks actually represent, by cliff-hanging real events, the reader is caught by the leading and trailing edges of visions. Endless spiraling roads, decision brought to form as character, aggressive doors that hunt the traveler, rather than waiting passively to be tried, or bypassed.

The protagonist morphs before the reader's eyes from goddess to slave and back again in a sometimes erotic, sometimes intensely symbolic, and always intriguing journey through a maze of poetic imagery. Sometimes in charge of her own fate, sometimes the whimsy of greater powers that sometimes turn out to be herself, your guide through surreality has fed upon the Rose Cross and is all direction, contains all direction - and is lost.

While I doubt this work will appeal to a mainstream audience, it is an intensely powerful debut. The work is introspective, and yet, the lens of that introspection turns on the reader in unexpected ways, much as the doors in the Labyrinth itself turn on the protagonist. Lewis Carroll intrudes with rabbits and philosophical statements that blend and melt back into the landscape with an elegance that makes you wonder if Mr. Carroll himself - or the white rabbit of his construction, might not have indeed walked the trails of The Labyrinth, finding guidance and confusion on those dark roads before departing through their own doors, into their own insanities and inanities.

This singularly lyrical novel is highly recommended for dark evenings and reflection, and while its classification as a novel may remain in question, the impact it will have, and the memories it will cause to linger in the corners of your mind, will not. Highly recommended.

I really enjoyed Catherynne Valente's book Palimpsest, as well as the short story she contributed to Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales. So I was eager to read more of her works. I am so glad I did, I absolutely loved this book, it read more like a gothic epic poem than an actually book but was absolute enrapturing. The content is very dreamy and may not be for all readers; those readers who don't enjoy abstract stories and poetry should probably stick with something else.

This book tells the story of a girl stuck in a Labyrinth. She is a Wanderer and wanders through the Labyrinth fighting madness the whole way. She complete various tasks and meets strange creatures all in a quest to escape the Labyrinth. She is constantly trying to outrun Doors, that threaten to devour here.

This book reads like a crazy dream. At some times you get caught up the beautiful and poignant descriptions and loose the storyline for a bit, but Valente always tugs you back to the story at hand. I can't say enough how beautiful, artistic, and wonderfully abstract the language throughout this novel is; I absolutely loved it.

There are times where you can get a bit confused about what is happening, most of these times coincide with the dream-like periods of madness that the main character goes through. The first madness period had me befuddled, but after the second bit of madness I figured out what was going on and then was struck by how cleverly Valente is representing this character's insanity. The story snaps back to a more traditional form as the character meets up with and is forced to converse with various strange creatures in the Labyrinth. These portions of the story are written just as beautifully but less abstractly and take the reader through a more traditional fairy tale like plot.

I was struck by how this story reminded me both of The Jabberwocky (in the somewhat made-up words that were used throughtou) and also of Alice in Wonderland (as the main character struggles through a world that doesn't make sense).

I love different things and beautifully dark stories and this book was both of those things in spades. That is not to say this story will be for everyone. If you don't like poetry or abstractness in your stories I wouldn't read this book. A lot of the story is woven of analogies and words that don't make clear-cut sense. If you are the type of person who likes absolutes and well-defined stories and characters this probably won't be your cup of tea. I can see how this story and the writing style would be just plain too strange for some folks.

Overall a beautiful, creative, and different read that I found to be exquisite. Valente is quickly turning into one of those authors that can do no wrong in my eyes. I feel like everything I read from her is strange, wonderful and absolute golden.

This is not a book for people looking for a quick easy read, or for those that are looking for a sharply defined, concrete plot. It is a book for people who can appreciate complex, beautiful language surrounding a mythological tale. The book tells us about the Seeker in the Labyrinth, who no longer seeks the Center. She has swallowed the Compass Rose which helps her direction. She has been here a long time and has learned to avoid the snapping jaws of doors and other dangers. Along her journey she meets a dark angel who nearly destroys her, a curious lobster who provides her a key, and a monkey guide with his own agenda.We follow her though her changing person and personna as she travels. I enjoyed this book and appreciated the author's gift for poetic language. For those who might want a book with equally wonderful language, but with a plot more easy to follow, I would highly recommend her book, Palimpsest.

OK, I read all the other reviews and thought, this sounds like an interesting book! The author was given lots of kudos for her use of language. Loosely translated, this turnes out to mean that she likes to use words for the sake of words, and not for making her point. For those who like text written to indulge the author, go for it. For those who want to find the story, pass. You could easily remove half the words in this book and it would be better for it.

ANother thing - I'm usually wary of self-published books because publishers and editors actually do play a useful role. Did anyone proof-read this? Missing capitalization at the beginning of sentences and incorrect punctuation were just a few things that made me stumble as I tried to read. Also, the author seems to use the same sentence structures over and over. Sounds great when you pluck a sentence or two out, but it's pedantic when trying to read it.

I confess I couldn't finish the book. I tried, though, I really did. If you're looking for a well-written book, with character development, plot, and beautiful imagery, this one just doesn't deliver.