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What Members Thought
Palimpsest is one seriously weird book. Consider the concept: If you have sex with someone with a map tattoo, you will "dream" that you are in the city of Palimpsest. Palimpsest is a really f'd up place, but people are desperate to go back. They are so desperate to go back and visit other parts of the city that they will have sex with anybody who has part of the map tattooed on them, sexual attraction and orientation have nothing to do with anything.
While there are a lot of sexual encounters in ...more
While there are a lot of sexual encounters in ...more
Beautiful, bizarre, dark, surreal, creative as all get out, reminiscent of a bad dream, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Catherynne Valente's prose is gorgeous and strange. I'm not sure I could ever read this book again, but some of the imagery will stick around with me for awhile.
Re-try, August 2011:
Trying this book again, a few years later -- I'm much more patient now, and Catherynne Valente hits just the right notes. Glad to give this book a second chance.
Attempt #1, ...more
Re-try, August 2011:
Trying this book again, a few years later -- I'm much more patient now, and Catherynne Valente hits just the right notes. Glad to give this book a second chance.
Attempt #1, ...more
I loved this book. I thought the wordplay was poetic, the settings exotic and surreal, the characters believable, if delusional, and it was topical to contemporary social issues, specifically the two-edged sword of contemporary sexual issues -- obsessive desire as relief from world-weariness and the dangers of sexually transmitted disease. At one point a character asks “Is Palimpsest a heaven or a hospital?” The city Palimpsest is a marvelous symbol for contemporary life with its obsessions with
...more
Aug 28, 2010
Marty
added it
read 3/4 of it without ever finding anything to like so I am giving it up.
Jun 20, 2009
Shellie (Layers of Thought)
marked it as to-read
Jul 15, 2009
H. R.
marked it as to-read
Feb 27, 2010
Gaijinmama
marked it as to-read
Dec 09, 2010
Sarah
marked it as to-read
Dec 19, 2010
Jen
marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2011
Erin
marked it as to-read
Mar 26, 2011
Bill
marked it as wanted-to-buy
Mar 29, 2012
Deedee
marked it as to-read
May 30, 2012
Michael
added it
Sep 06, 2012
Tipper
marked it as to-read
Feb 08, 2013
christine.
marked it as to-read
Aug 09, 2014
Mosca
marked it as tbr
Oct 26, 2014
Navi
marked it as to-read
Jun 30, 2015
Anatha
marked it as to-read
Mar 01, 2016
Paula S
marked it as to-read
Aug 17, 2016
Kevin
marked it as to-read
