Narrative Voice and Voyeurism in Palimpsest

The stalks stand like a portcullis against the desert, and no man may say where they end. Certainly not I. Certainly not you. But we may come here and look out on the waste, for it is a singular pleasure to be warm and safe while one watches horrors unfold, is it not?
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 153).

The more I move through this book, the more the glimpses of the narrator fascinate me. This narrator does not behave in the normal manner. It is not the normal contract between the narrator and audience, even when discussed explicitly (even the "dear reader" I reference found most memorably in Jane Austen's novels but very common in novels at the time, and imitated by silly bloggers who read too much).

This narration, however, has a completely different quality than the more conversational tone that we might be used to:

There are four of them there now. Shall we peer in? Shall we disrupt their private sacraments? Are you and I such unrepentant voyeurs? I think we must be, else why have we come so close to the door of cassia, the windows of cracked glass? Let us peer; let us disrupt. It is our nature.
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 5).

The narrating voice (who, for need of a pronoun, I shall refer to as a "she," when grammar demands it, know that this narrator is a construction of Valente and not Valente herself) has established something essential about both the narrator and the reader in this moment early on, just as we meet our four protagonists. Before we even realize the nature of how those four got to Palimpsest, before we may have a chance to judge and look down on their actions, we ourselves are as labeled as "unrepentant voyeurs," slightly sordid.

And considering how many times I have seen the phrase "It is [x] nature," I'm sensing something something of importance there, though as yet have not come up with anything witty to share with you. By the way, I enjoy the fact that I was able to just throw that out there as an observation rater than having to have a completely constructed argument ready.

It seems, (and I'm still very much grappling with this book so bear with me) that in a book that is invested in taking what may appear to be debasement (the necessity of sleeping with many strangers to get to this desired city of Palimpsest) and turning it not only into a series of understandable decisions, but moments of interpersonal connection as well, that catching the reader up in a label of sexual debasement right from the beginning -- unrepentant voyeur--is a good way to include them in that. Just as, in my last post, the reader is infected and marked (in this case labeled) by her encounter with this book.

And we are voyeurs in this books, as in all books. Are we not? We peep, often uninvited, into the deep, innermost workings of the characters lives, sneak into their bedrooms, watch them cry. What does it matter if we end up crying with them to, that may just make us even more voyeuristic. And in this book, we are not only following the four main characters through their struggles with the entry price of Palimpsest, but we get there for free. There are no street maps scarring our skin.

Unless someone falls in love with the book enough to go out and get a tattoo of the map. If anyone has, please, let me know. I'd love to see a picture.

There is one more thing I want to ponder with you, dear reader, before I bid you adieu for the moment. While this narrator sees deeply into the characters of the novel, and also claims to know our nature as readers (a claim I'm willing to buy into her), at the point to which I've read in the novel, there are hints that the narrator is not just a blank narrator narrating from beyond the scope of the events. Though, even her early revelations about shared nature, her position from outside the events is unlikely given her own nature. She reveals that she is somehow intimately bound up in Palimpsest:

I taught them how to do this, when all of us were young. I do hope you enjoy our little local customs.
-Valente, Catherynne, Palimpsest (p. 240).

I have two possible guesses for the identity of this narrator, if its revealed to us. I won't reveal my first one because it might be spoiler-ish if you happen to be reading along with me, but I'm kind of rooting for a meta revelation of narrator as writer-god within this text. Given the nature of this book, I'm keeping my fingers crossed. But given the nature of the book, I'm likely wrong. I've been kept guessing the entire time.

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Interested, want to see if I'm making all this stuff up or if it really is all in this book? Pick up a copy and read along with me.

Palimpsest via Amazon

My own progress: On page 293, on the corner of Kausia and Ossification.

A Confused Begining

Here begins the book of the nature of beasts, Ludo thinks. All the best bestiaries begin that way. If I were to write of this place, I could make a book longer than Isidore’s, greater than the Etymologiae.*

-Valente, Catherynne M., Palimpsest (p 175). 

I have been drowning in this book, drowning in it so much that, in grappling with it, I have decided to try something brave.  I have decided to return to my academic roots, my journalistic past, and give to you, dear, faceless reader who I have yet to meet, the tortured outpourings of my struggles with meaning.

Since it appears I have already started in media res, let me back track a little and at least tell you a bit about the book I am struggling with, the book that promises to launch a thousand confused thoughts. (Permit me, dear reader, to consider the Greek metaphor for the moment, its fun). I'll be coy and leave myself a mystery for the moment.

I find myself about halfway through with Catherynne M. Valente's gorgeous, confusing, and mesmerizing book, Palimpsest. If you've never encountered her unique prose before, go hunt some down, right now.  I'll wait.  Seriously... Its the kind of prose you cannot encounter without it leaving its mark on your own interior monologue. I was reading some of the other reviews for this book, trying to orient myself within the text (and honestly, just curious to see what others say before I embarked on this crazy adventure), and there Valente's language was, echoed through the language of every writer.  I will be honest, I'm fighting her prose influence right now, and, since you listened to me and tasted of her language, you know full well how much I'm failing.

This infectious language just adds to the meaning of the book though.  The main trope of Palimpsest is a sexually-transmitted city (Yes, its wild. I'll admit, until I saw Annalee Newitz spell it, I thought only the "maps" were transmitted... that will become clear... or at least less murky in a bit).  Valente's language echoes that transmission and infection, so that even the reader, safe behind the quarantine barrier of the page, is not as safe as they may think. They too are becoming infected by Palimpsest.

There is something I have noticed about this novel.  I keep meaning to talk about it in a rational and orderly manner, and it keeps derailing that attempt.  Bear with me, reader, and maybe this whole blog won't be this chaotic.

So, what is Palimpsest? What the heck is going on in this novel? Palimpsest, at least to the point I've read (I'm about 175 pages in, so I share in the characters confusion) is an alternative world arrived at when people have sexual relations with individuals with map fragments on their skin.  These fragments indicate where a tryst with that individual will take the lover for the evening, for once sleep comes they are transported to Palimpsest. There is something about Palimpsest that makes everyone that stumbles once into it long to find it.

But there are symbols here that I am just chewing over again and again, trying to find the perfect interpretive framework for: the skin maps, like angry scars, that transfer from lover to anonymous lover; Palimpsest itself, dream-like, but where calling it a dream is a horrid social taboo; longing for another place to the exclusion of your present.

I hope you will bear with me, dear reader, as I both figure out this book, and find my voice for this blog.

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Intrigued, looking for something to read, pick up a copy and read along with me.  Lets see if we can't figure out this book together.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

My own progress: 175 pages in.  Ludovico's inner monologue finally forced me to write this down and post it.

*If you are interested in looking at Isidore's Etymologiae (because looking up books in books is fun), here is the Wikipedia article for it.  As I will discuss later, this book has a couple of interesting book Easter eggs.