2013 read #125: The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente.

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente

258 pages
Published 2012
Read from September 26 to September 28
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5

One interesting thing about the Harry Potter series is how J. K. Rowling aged the material in parallel with her protagonists. Never having read much juvenile fiction aside from Harry Potter before this year, I don't know whether this is unusual or not, but nevertheless it's kind of neat how The Sorcerer's Stone is all whimsy and scrumptious puns and wish fulfillment, with minimal menace, whereas from the end of The Goblet of Fire, when Edward Cullen snuffs it, on through the final three volumes, all that whimsy gets mushed into an increasingly awkward fit with Grimmer and Darker and More Menacing wizardry.

I'm only two books deep into The Girl Who [Verbed into] Fairyland [and Did Whatever] series (the third volume is available but hasn't hit my library yet), but it's already evident that Valente is not taking the Harry Potter approach with her narration. I suppose she already hit her intended admixture of Grim and Whimsy in the first book, so the subject matter won't necessarily get bleaker, but it's a tiny bit jarring for the narrative voice to be, if anything, even more Aunty Cathy Spins a Spooky Yarn for Bedtime than before, when our heroine is now supposed to be a teenager. One chapter begins, "I find it reasonable to suppose that some of you, dear readers, have been to a party or two in your young lives." You could argue that the meta-narrative conscious narrator is indispensable to the outlook and atmosphere of the series, and usually Valente's slyly mysterious, universally omniscient narration is charming enough. But in this book I felt it was laid on a bit thick.

Speaking of meta-narrative, the just-past-midway chapter "Questing Physicks" is possibly my favorite example to date of genre awareness in a fantasy novel. On further reflection, it is my favorite, bar none. (Admittedly, I've read very little Pratchett.) I would recommend you read this series solely to get to this chapter. Also because it's a cute and colorful and mostly engaging fantasy series so far. Whichever rationale motivates you.