The Habitation of the Blessed

Title:  The Habitation of the Blessed
Series/ standalone?: first book in A Dirge for Preter John series
Author: Catherynne M. Valente

WARNING: This review is heavily-ridden with spoilers. Beware!

I just finished reading A Dirge for Prester John: The Habitation of the Blessed. This is the first book in the (plotted) trilogy of A Dirge for Prester John.

Who is Prester John? His detailed enough description can be read in the Wikipedia entry about him.

My expectation before reading this book had been high, because the authoress is none other than Catherynne M. Valente herself. I’ve been enchanted by her adaptation of Russian folk tales, Deathless. So I expected to be captivated by The Habitation of the Blessed. Moreover, I am intrigued by the blurb which said, among other things ...’Hagia, the blemmye wife of Prester John...’ and ‘... the mythical land of Pentexore with its strange creatures...” I Googled blemmye immediately, found its description, and thought that maybe Valente doesn’t stick with that description. How wrong am I. 

But. My reading experience has been terrible. Oh, oh my. I feel very disturbed and repulsed and disgusted upon reading this book, from shortly after the beginning until its very end. By the part that makes me feel very queasy, I read it with skimming method. Well, I guess this book is not for everyone. 

Catherynne M. Valente as usual tells the story with beautiful prose that constructed by carefully chosen beautiful words. The narrative style is books within a book; storyteller that tells stories that have been read and hurriedly transcribed by another storyteller and has been told and written by at least three different storytellers.  

When did I start to feel queasy? At the beginning, when John was tried in his sailing on a vast sea of sand and forced to eat fish. Raw. With its internal organs - while their shape and constructing substance are different from those of the fish in our world - removed hurriedly and shabbily. Well, that can be expected from a man that had been threatened with death from famine and reduced to eat his robe. But still. Yuck.

When did I start to feel very queasy? When John had an intercourse.
With a crane. Crane, as in one specific specie of the Aves class, Grus antigone antigone. This makes me nauseous and disturbed. Why? Well, John was a priest who had taken a vow of celibacy. His breaking of the vow disgusted me. That feeling was exacerbated by the fact that he had broken it with a bird. With a frigging freaking bird. Please! The scene when the pygmies rutted with the cranes also disgusts me. 

Also I am repulsed by the fact that he, Prester John, married a blemmye, Hagia. And impregnated her. Eugh. Interspecies sex, as in between human and vampire or werewolf whatsoever doesn’t disturb me as long those who involved assumes same shapes. A man/ woman have sex with some entity that assumes the appearance of a beast - or a decapitated human, in blemmye case - doesn’t stand well with me. That’s why I felt disturbed when reading the stories in Greek mythology when Zeus seduced Leda in form of swan, or wooed Io in form of a beautiful white bull, and when Pasiphae attracted to a bull, their liaisons resulted in birth of monstrous half-man, half-bull of the Crete labyrinth, Minotaur. Maybe the interspecies sex in this book is an allegory to interracial marriage - which I don't mind nor oppose - but it just failed to depict that.

I am also unable to symphatise with the protagonist, Prester John. Well, maybe his character is typical of the missionaries in that age. He was thankless to those who had helped him, he was a man with holier-than-thou attitude, yet he was easily trapped in sin of adultery. I found it easier to symphatise with Hagia. 

The thing that horrifies me is although John saw his act of bringing Christianity as a good one - similar to one bringing a brightly burning candle to a dark land - it is actually a destructive action. It is more similar to the act of the Serpent tempted Eve to eat the forbidden fruit of knowledge and give it to Adam. Pentexore and its creatures had established a working system long before John, and Didymus Thomas (yes, he was there too, and also Alexander the Great), came. Each of them worshipped different gods and had different beliefs, yet it didn’t cause any friction amongst them. They didn’t have concept of sin, they lived harmoniously. With Christianity that John brought and tried to spread, they now knew the concept of sin. In Pentexore before Christianity, there was only a lamia with her natural instincts and urges. After Christianity, there was a whore lamia. That’s what Christianity did to Pentexore. It erased its carefree life, its innocence. 

And the thing that just makes me hate him even more? His cheating in Abir. The reason, said by the cheater himself, was to be the perfect entity, a king-priest, just like Christ. But, if that is the real intention, why did he pray so his queen will be Hagia? Heh. I believe that his motivation for cheating is not purely the king-priest perfection, but just a lesser, worldlier one – he wanted to rule, with a female he desired so, the blemmye Hagia.

One more thing that disappoints me is the way Valente describes Pentexore. She gave a map to give us a picture of Pentexore location, and that’s good and appreciated. But, I also want the map of the internal parts of Pentexore. I want the map that show where the Sea of Sand starts in the world we've known and ends in Pentexore, I want to see where we can reach it and its border with our world. Her description of the creatures is too general. She even doesn’t explain some creatures appearances, such as meta-collinara. I know that in the ‘original’ letter of Prester John those creatures’ names are mentioned, but when you read this book, you tend to forget what cametenna, tensevetes, etc. look like because there are so many strange creatures with names no less exotic than themselves. She also made some allusions and cameos (Alexander the Great with his gate and Apostle Thomas a.k.a. Didymus Thomas), but they are not deeply explored and felt like decoration only.

I can’t give it a high rate. Ten is the perfect score, and I will deduce some for each aspect that I loathe. Eating raw fish with its internal organs glistening? Eeuw. Minus one. A protagonist with attitude so bad I barely can stand him? Deduce one. A type of sex that repulsed me? Minus one again. The insufficient description of the creatures and Pentexore landscape (they should be more detailed, I think), minus one. So the end score is six.

I recommend this book for Valente’s hardcore fans. The Goodreads reviewers rated it 5 stars, and most of them are fans of Valente’s. One reviewer compared this book with In the Night Garden by the same authoress, so if you’re the fan of In the Night Garden, maybe this book will suit you. 

And finally, the picture.

A blemmye

Sources:

• amazon.fr
• en.wikipedia.org