The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A lonely girl with a dark tattoo across her eyelids made up of words spelling out countless tales unfolds a fabulous, recursive Arabian Nights-style narrative of stories within stories in this first of a new fantasy series from Valente (The Grass-Cutting Sword). The fantastic tales involve creation myths, shape-changing creatures, true love sought and thwarted, theorems of princely behavior, patricide, sea monsters, kindness and cruelty. As a sainted priestess explains, stories "are like prayers. It does not matter when you begin, or when you end, only that you bend a knee and say the words," and this volume does not so much arrive at a conclusion but stops abruptly, leaving room for endless sequels. Each descriptive phrase and story blossoms into another, creating a lush, hallucinogenic effect.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The opening volume of the Orphan's Tales begins in a palace garden, where a girl has been abandoned because of the strange, ink-black stain around her eyes and over her eyelids. Because the sultan and his nobles wish to avoid the problem she presents, she is left to wander the gardens, alone until another child, a boy, comes and speaks to her. She reveals the secret of her ink-stained eyes, that they contain many tales. In return for the boy's company, she tells him stories, beginning with the tale of the prince Leander. Each succeeding story grows from the one before it, characters recounting tales they were told and even weaving them back together. There is an entire mythology in this book, in which the themes of familiar fairy tales are picked apart and rearranged into a new and wonderful whole. The narrative is a nested, many-faceted thing, ever circling back to the girl in the palace garden and the prince she is telling the tales to in a wonderful interpretation of what fairy tales ought to be. The illustrations, by Michael Kaluta, constitute an excellent supplement, reminiscent of illustrations of such fairy-tale books as Andrew Lang's, though Kaluta does no toning down for Victorian sensibilities. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553384031
• ISBN-13: 978-0553384031
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (33 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #80,400 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Give it some time to cast its spell., January 12, 2007

By	frumiousb "frumiousb" (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

If I had followed my impulse in the first 50 pages of The Orphan's Tales, then I never would have finished the book. I was actually irritated by the book. The prose struck me as bad Tanith Lee and I just knew that the structure of the book was going to irritate me.

However, I did not stop reading. The book had been recommended strongly by someone I really respect, so I decided that I would give it an honest try. After the irritation, I was interested, and after that I was entranced. By the last few hundred pages of the book, I literally could not put it down. I read it late in 2006, but I would be willing to include it as being among my best reading experiences of the year.

Valente's prose may seem labored and precious at first, but if you give it sufficient time it settles into its own rhythm. Her diction fits beautifully with the structure of her work. Some writers who try the same kind of prose miss any sense of lightness or humor. Valente, by contrast, is as often wickedly funny in her stories as she is full of descriptive symbolism. I liked it every much in the end, and I was left with the strong sense of wanting to read more.

The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden is dark fantasy, structured as a series of interlocking stories. It should appeal to both younger and more adult readers although the themes can be quite adult. Highly recommended, particularly if you are fan of darker fantasy.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Fairy Tales, October 31, 2006

By	Dmitri Zagidulin (Cleveland, OH, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

If you had asked me a couple of years ago what my favorite fiction book was (except that's a very hard question, of course), I would have probably said American Gods or Diamond Age.

I still love those books, but this is my new favorite.

It is hands down the best book of fairy tales that I've ever read, and probably the best fiction book. Just like the Arabian Nights, it is a series of nesting tales with an over-arching narrative to frame it. But every single tale is original here (and yet so archetypally familiar), and the tales and the meta-narrative are much more intertwined and integral, and tell an epic tale of a world almost our own.

It's a tale about a young girl in a palace garden, cursed to exile until she has told all of the stories tattooed around her eyes, and of course the stories themselves, stories of pirates and living ships, the deaths of Stars, of slave wizards and bitter old witches, of princes and beast maidens, heretic papesses and jeweled cities, body thieves and skin peddlers, monsters and saints and mathematician kings. They are stories of strong women, of men ambitious and passionate and despondent, of cruelty and kindness, of making hard choices and facing the consequences, but also of plain silly wonder. They are lucid and lyrical, and a little bit painful, like True things are, and filled with longing and fear and beauty and blood and love and fierce joy.

This book made me cry several times, sometimes because of the story, and sometimes just out of relief and recognition -- this is how tales should be told, wisely and fearlessly. I have been a fan of Valente's writing for a while, but this is her most brilliant and straightforward and accessible book yet.

I cannot recommend it enough.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You want to buy this book., December 4, 2006

By	Virginia M. Judd (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is Cathrynne Valente's sixth novel, and her first one with a major publisher. It is a gorgeous retelling of fairy tales--not the whitewashed, bland and Disneyfied versions that too many people have grown up believing to be the "real" versions of these tales. No, these are dark and mysterious versions where evil is not readily thwarted and salvation does not immediately equate "happily ever after."

This is not to say that the tales are dour, Hans Christian Andersen morality plays. Far from it. There is much joy and passion in the stories, but there are many surprises as well.

The Orphan of the title is a girl of noble descent who was born under an unfortunate curse - she is marked in a way that incites fear in the extensive household of the Sultan, and no one will claim her for their own. Eventually abandoned to the garden, she does not die but instead thrives, living there as a sort of spectre until a young son of the royal family stumbles upon her and she begins telling him the tales that are her destiny to tell. The story of a prince's quest is brought short by the witch he encounters, who tells her story to him, which necessarily includes the story of her teacher, and so on, tales within tales like the layers of an onion.

You will recognize the skeletons of some fairy tales beneath Valente's rich layering of interpretation. Others are obscure (the woman has done her homework) or obscured to the point of being completely fresh. There is a feminist twist to the tales, but not the kind of heavy-handed moralizing that frequently burden such retellings. Instead, the layered tales take you deeper and deeper into an amazing world that you really regret leaving upon turning the last page. The one consolation is realizing that this is but the first of four books and you will be able to find your way back to the Orphan and her tales again when the next book is published.

The writing itself is a confection of imagery, rich and sumptuous. It's a book to luxuriate in.

I can't think of a better Christmas present for someone who loves fantasy, particularly since it is illustrated with gorgeous drawings as well.

Go now. Buy. You'll thank me.