Status Updates From W ogrodzie nocy (Opowieści ...

Reading this book is a full time job. It is as magical as it is dense. It’s a tropical swamp of prose and imagery. As much as I want to get through it, my work-wrecked, allergy-ransacked body isn’t functioning well enough to read it most of the time. A few pages at a time I guess…

And now she had uttered his mother's name, and those old, forbidden syllables layered her tale, which had nothing at all to do with him, of course, but somehow his mother's memory was a rough lever, and with it the Witch slowly broke him open, inch by bone. He had hardly heard the last sliver of the long tale, so sunk in sorrow, its waters swirled around his chin.

the writing is so vivid
I looked up through a sheet of tears and blood and clay-slick dirt to see my new husband racing after us, screaming like a wounded wolf, and your father with his raven plume riding behind him. The black-feathered rider rammed a colossal blade through his poor chest with as little thought or effort as squeezing a fly from the air with two fingers.

It's definitely not for everyone. It meanders, It has non-sequiturs. It's both an anthology and also a written experiment to see how many framed narratives can be fit into one. Otherwise, it's very beautiful and Valente has a magnificent ability to weave tales and generate original folklore.

This is also a book that benefits from a physical copy. The narratives are often bifurcated with gorgeous illustrations and changes in font that help you understand where you are in the stories within stories within stories. The e-reader edition I have was making this a more challenging read.

If you're into midrash you're going to love this. If you love non-sequiturs you're going to love this. If you love frame narratives you're going to love this. If you like different typology that demarcates the levels of narration you're going to love this.

But if you don't like any of those things, or even have a faint inclination of dislike for them, I think you will hate this.

I know so many people would find this book annoying, but I am in love.