Tales of The Ink Gypsy...

If you haven't yet discovered these award winning books by Catherynne M. Valente you are missing out - big time! I'm currently re-reading In the Night Garden and am just as awestruck as I was the first time through. This book is one of those few that makes me want to not bother writing a single word more of my own and at the same time inspires me so much that I just have to write! It's rare a book will do both those things at once for me but this is one of them and from the little I've peeked at in the second volume - The Cities of Coin and Spice - so is the 'sequel'.

Here's an excerpt from Chapter One of In the Night Garden:

"On an evening when I was a very small child an old woman came to the great silver gate, and twisting her hands among the rose-roots told me this: I was not born with this mark. A spirit came into my cradle on the seventh day of the seventh month of my life, and while my mother slept in her snow-white bed, the spirit touched my face, and left there many tales and spells, like the tattoos of sailors. The verses and songs were so great in number and so closely written that they appeared as one long, unbroken streak of indigo on my eyelids. But they are the words of the river and the marsh, the lake and the delta. They comprise a great magic, and when the tales are all read out, and heard end to shining end, to the last syllable, the spirit will return and judge me. After she vanished into the blue-faced night, I spent each day hidden in a thicket of jasmine and oleander, trying to read what I could in my bronze mirror. But it is difficult, I must read them backwards, and I can only read one eye at a time." She stopped, and the last was no louder than a spider weaving its opaline threads.

"And there is no one to listen."

Intrigued? Ready to 'listen' to her stories? If you are you're in for a delectable treat...

Initially I had planned to write a post on Stories Inside of Stories, inspired by seeing this on my shelf. Then I picked it up and haven't been able to put it back since. I'm enjoying it so much the second time and appreciating the interwoven myths and fairytales Ms. Valente has wrought (because it really does feel as though these books were magikally worked) that I thought I'd share a little of the world that I'm in right now.

The masterfully 'nested' tales surprise you as you open one to discover another lurking within, but there's more to these wonderful books than even that. The writing is so lush and lyrical yet fully accessible at the same time. It's laced with humor and mystery, magic and wonder, and much much more than I have time to write about here. My suggestion is just to read them. Or, if you prefer, read this interview here at Prime Books' Fantasy Magazine to whet your appetite. If you want more (which I certainly did) then click here for an interview in even greater depth at Fantasy Book Critic. To top it off The Green Man Review has a wonderful page all about her - not only with reviews but also with excerpts of her workk including her Winter Queen Speech. (I've also added other links here and there for you to explore...)

One of the things that draws me to these books is, as I mentioned above, the way the stories are nested one within the other. My own thought process is very similar, leading me along many a garden path until sometimes I'm hopelessly lost. Ms. Valente doesn't leave you stranded though. Her path through the stories, though winding, is sure and the journey worth every step. I have a lot to learn from her as clearly my own writing has a lot of developing to do before it ever approaches her caliber! Interestingly it reminds me of writing for theater; pulling different characters together with their different stories on a theme and seeing how they intertwine to become part of each other's stories, making a whole new one in the process. Perhaps I should put my characters on stage more often to see what they bring to it, rather than chase them through their mazes, though each route is valid. In Ms. Valente's hands these characters play their part for one story then, when prompted, reveal their own equally fascinating tale that begs the telling. Add to that the 'wonder tale' aspect, told with such lyrical writing it makes me slow down to read it and absorb it properly and I'm hooked.

I haven't even mentioned the gorgeous ink illustrations throughout by M.W. Kaluta (his website is here, though I can't find his 'Orphan's Tales' illustrations or references).

I'm not the only one so inspired either. Here you'll find music inspired by the stories and an mp3 of S.J. Tucker reading and singing an excerpt from Volume I. Here you will find jewelry inspired by the same.

I want to write so much more but instead will leave you to explore The Orphan's Tales.