Tapestries

[bibliogramma]

The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice, Catherynne M. Valente

Valente continues her tour de force of storytelling in this, the second volume of Orphan’s tales. Similar in structure to the first volume, with its nested tales and interwoven strands, the focus of the tales shifts in the second volume, as the threads of the characters' lives become more tightly woven and the quests change slowly from searches for what is past, for origins and beginnings, from “how it happened” stories, to questions of identity, of who the characters are, and what do they need to fulfil their futures.

The division between story-teller and audience is blurred in this volume as well, for the tales that remain to be told are written on the eyelids of the orphan girl in the garden, and so, the more completely she embodies her text, the more deeply the young prince, formerly a passive listener, is drawn into the storytelling as he now must read to them both the tales that are still written on the body, but in places that the teller can not see by herself.

Valente's subtle imaginings speak on so many levels- if the eyes are the windows to the soul, then can the secrets within only be read by another?

As with the first volume, this book is mesmerising to read and almost impossible to describe. What Valente does in this book is nothing short of magic.