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
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