The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente. – BlackRaven Book Review

I did not think I would like the short novel; The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente. I felt I would never understand it and was going to stop reading as things felt disjointed, the narrator was bouncing all over, and there was stuff that was very off. The book felt like a translation that was not smoothly translated at that. However, once I understood the flow (there was one), the bounces between “really then, then, and now,” plus how reliable the narrative is (or not), it started to work better. Still, it is not my favorite novel, but has a powerful look at the not so far future and what we did to make it. Do read the afterward by the author. It is not directly part of the story but helps tie things together.

The book is set in the future. But sadly, the not too far future. Valente shows us how we have royally screwed up the world to the point everything has been drowned by the ocean. Vermont is even under it. (And if you know your geography, it is a basically landlocked state, even Lake Champlain is a puddle compared to what is going on in the world). Anyway, due to this, the people who survived (and their descendants mostly) live on floating garbage heaps. They have made the best of things (you have your electric city, your pill city, your city with all the candles, and the areas nobody goes). Sometimes another giant floating heap comes your way (the mention of a pier from the UK recalled Dr. Dolittle with the floating turtle city and the naming of the leader), but everyone is really on their own and there is no “outside” contact. Cities on these floating worlds (this one is the size of Texas) do not mingle well, people do not always have the best intentions, nor do they show their best possible selves). There are things that do not make sense (what is this old rule Tetley mentions often? How did the bottles and packages of pills (some less “okay” than others) survive? Why did batteries not lose their charges? And how did “our” pop culture get turned into what becomes their religion?) but sometimes just suspending belief and enjoying the ride is best. We find Tetley (our narrator, and the subject of the story) and learn how she has one big thing in her arsenal of tricks: Hope. And Hope plays a wonderful and dangerous part to everything around her.

Overall, the book is good, but I debated between a two and four rating however, due to that sometimes things feel a bit pretentious and sometimes feel pushy. Okay, we get it. We f’d up. But it is not nice to call “us” names. There is language that occasional feels like “oh look I’m swearing” and sometimes some sex that feels gratuitous. But also, one major sex scene was almost pathetic. There are a couple things you have to wonder if they are real. And the how things unfold seem, at first, to be a pain in the garbage heap, but then again, it just might be genius.

I have read their Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1) and should have realized they were the same author. The style of writing is not “centered” to what one is used to, they like to challenge you and do not stay on one path. You will come away with a love or dislike of the work(s). There is around 150-160 pages of nothing, everything, and something in-between.

For at least older teen to adult.