The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two by Catherynne M. Valente
248 pages
Published 2013
Read from November 27 to November 28
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
It
feels like I've been waiting half the year for this book. I put in an
ILL request for it as soon as I heard it was out, sometime in the second
week of October, and even though various libraries in Suffolk County
have had copies available for weeks now, the order never seemed to get
filled. I'd given up expecting any library to act on the request and
settled in to wait for my branch to get its own copy, until, wonder of
wonders, Brentwood finally acted and sent a copy along.
This book
was not the most satisfying entry in Valente's Fairyland series. The
plot was much too straightforward, most of the action taking place in
one subjective day, lacking twists or setbacks. Much of the length was
taken up with fanciful (and allegorical) digressions, which were
delightful but felt less connected to the central story than usual;
random whimsical characters appear long enough to tell their whimsical
stories over several pages, then disappear directly after. Structurally,
this felt like maybe the first act of a novel, incomplete in itself.
I
kept feeling that Valente's Fairyland is beginning to suffer from a
lack of in-universe rules. Valente's imagination is delightful, her
imagery flowery and literate, tipping wink after wink at her readers.
But a story universe without any underlying logic, with no limits on
invention, paradoxically feels limiting. This book reminded me most of
Carroll's Wonderland books; it had the same lack of real stakes or
dramatic tension.
But I suppose, really, that isn't the point of this sort of book. In terms of emotional affect, The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland
might be the strongest in the series so far, heavy with adolescent
confusion and the weary, disappointed longing we adults call "wisdom."
It was manipulative, sure, but I found myself choking up quite a bit.
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