The Habitation of the Blessed (A Dirge for Prester John, #1)

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The Habitation of the Blessed (A Dirge for Prester John #1)

by Catherynne M. Valente (Goodreads Author)

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 459 ratings · 111 reviews

This is the story of a place that never was: the kingdom of Prester John, the utopia described by an anonymous, twelfth-century document which captured the imagination of the medieval world and drove hundreds of lost souls to seek out its secrets, inspiring explorers, missionaries, and kings for centuries. But what if it were all true? What if there was such a place, and a...more

Paperback, 269 pages

Published November 1st 2010 by Night Shade Books (first published March 1st 2010)

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Dec 28, 2010 Kat Hooper rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook

ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

[Note: I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version of The Habitation of the Blessed read by Ralph Lister. It took me a while to adjust since I have recently listened to Lister read three installments of The Gorean Saga and I at first had a hard time hearing the priest Prester John instead of the sadistic misogynist Tarl Cabot. But I got over this soon enough and thought that Mr. Lister did a great job with this one.]

In The Habitation of the Blessed, Catherynn...more ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.

[Note: I listened to Brilliance Audio’s version of The Habitation of the Blessed read by Ralph Lister. It took me a while to adjust since I have recently listened to Lister read three installments of The Gorean Saga and I at first had a hard time hearing the priest Prester John instead of the sadistic misogynist Tarl Cabot. But I got over this soon enough and thought that Mr. Lister did a great job with this one.]

In The Habitation of the Blessed, Catherynne M. Valente lets her extravagant imagination loose on the 12th century legends of Prester John, the Nestorian Christian priest who set out from Constantinople to search for the tomb of Saint Thomas and ends up as the beloved ruler of Pentexore. This is an ancient land of strange, nearly immortal, creatures who’ve never heard of Jesus Christ and who practice the Abir, a lottery which reassigns them to new lives, jobs, and mates every three hundred years. The Abir staves off boredom, keeps them from being forever ruled by a despot, and allows ambitious folks a chance to be ruler, though it often causes feelings of sadness, loss, and envy, too.

When Brother Hiob von Luzern goes looking for Prester John (who left Constantinople a few hundred years ago and sent his famous letter to the Pope) and finds himself in Pentexore, he’s allowed to pluck and read three books that are growing from a tree as if they were fruit. One book is John’s account of his search for Saint Thomas and his experiences in Pentexore:

"I could not think where I had beached myself. It was as though every story I had ever heard had broken itself on the shores of this place like blind brittle whales and I walked among their shards that could never be made whole again."

The other books were written by a blemmye and a panoti who became close to John. Unfortunately, just like fruit, the books begin to rot, so Hiob decides to alternately copy a chapter from each, hoping to acquire as much information as possible before they disintegrate. Thus, similar to the connected story devices used in some of Catherynne Valente’s other novels, The Habitation of the Blessed is told as four separate intertwining narratives in which we learn about Prester John and the Pentexorians he meets, medieval Roman Catholic Christianity, and the fascinating cultural practices of Pentexore.

If you’ve read Catherynne Valente before, you’ll already have recognized that the Prester John Legends are perfect source material and you won’t be surprised to learn that this tale is full of the kinds of wonderful visual imagery and dreamy ideas that inhabit her other work. She brings a whole new life to the Fountain of Youth, the Gates of Alexander, and the Garden of Eden. Her account of the Tower of Babel is chillingly awesome and made me wish I was talented enough to paint it. In The Habitation of the Blessed you’ll meet gryphons, pygmies, troglodytes, lamia, a sea of sand, warmongering Cranes, and trees that grow maps, diagrams, books, beds, sheep heads, and equipment for medieval warfare. Each of these wonders is lovingly described and packed with personality.

Prester John’s interaction with those he meets is often gently humorous as he subjects these lost (but immortal) souls to Sunday School lessons and sermons about the trinity and transubstantiation and has them conjugate Latin verbs, say Hail Marys and Our Fathers, and pray the rosary. So far, John is learning a lot more about his faith than his students are, but his wide-eyed bewilderment and good-hearted intentions make him a lovable figure. Even Brother Hiob, who’s scandalized by John’s congress with these demons, is a likable character.

The writing is luxuriant, as always, and the dialogue is often reminiscent of the delightful repartee found in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. I couldn’t help but laugh at the peacock historian who, after the most recent Abir, was assigned to be a fiction writer. He laments that now he has to make up ridiculous stuff that never happened and must work with motifs, metaphors, and themes (“What rot!”).

Also, as usual for a Valente novel, there are plenty of interesting ideas to chew on. As Hiob the monk reads the three books, he experiences the same crises of faith that John and Thomas suffered previously. Is Pentexore the Garden of Eden? Prester John seems to think so when he says “This is the country God kept for men before we fell,” yet if Pentexore is paradise, there would be no need for the Abir. Do nearly immortal creatures need redemption? Would we really want to be immortal on Earth? What does the land of Pentexore, a rich and sensual place, mean for the faith of medieval Christian monks? Did God intend for His followers to take vows of poverty and chastity and to withdraw from society or does He mean for us to experience and engage with the magnificent things He’s made? If God has given souls to those we consider monsters, how are we to treat these monsters? And, if we were wrong about the monsters, where else may we have misjudged God? (less)

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May 26, 2012 Dorothea rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is made of some of my favorite ingredients:

1. It's a book about books and reading: translating, writing, reading, storytelling, listening, even transcribing.

2. It's got all kinds of wordplay about this, particularly a gorgeous, complicated conceit about composition and decomposition -- the sort of thing that reminds me of the happiest and most fantastical lectures I attended while studying early modern English literature.

3. Some of the characters are from a recognizable history of the...more

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Oct 10, 2011 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, historical, female-author, ebook, religion, fantasy-medieval, mythological

I absolutely loved Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which is a children's book filled with the madcap ideas crammed into every sentence. The Habitation of the Blessed is an adult fantasy novel filled with the madcap ideas crammed into every sentence, but whereas Fairyland is full of allusions to both traditional fantasy and other children's fantasy literature, Habitation is based on the medieval legend of Prester John. The allusions come fa...more I absolutely loved Catherynne Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, which is a children's book filled with the madcap ideas crammed into every sentence. The Habitation of the Blessed is an adult fantasy novel filled with the madcap ideas crammed into every sentence, but whereas Fairyland is full of allusions to both traditional fantasy and other children's fantasy literature, Habitation is based on the medieval legend of Prester John. The allusions come fast and furious and unlike traditional fantasy, which has to make some kind of sense, medieval myth and allegory has no such obligation and frequently doesn't.

Valente is gifted with an imagination that few writers can match. It can be exhausting keeping up with her prose, as it is both wildly inventive and beautiful and densely packed with so many allusions, metaphors, and fantastic images that people who scan her prose too quickly will blink and miss something. In medieval legends, Prester John was a mythical king who ruled over a Christian land in far-off India or Africa or one of those pagan places. Valente writes The Habitation of the Blessed from the viewpoint of a 17th century monk who has discovered that the Prester John legend was true. The poor monk's ability to transcribe John's story is limited, because he has found three books which were the fruit of a Book Tree planted in the land John ruled, and like any fruits, they rot and go bad.

Each of the three books tells how John, the naive monk from Constantinople, arrived half-dead in a land where talking lions and eagles and swans coexist with giants and pygmies and even stranger beasts, and set about trying to convert these magical, immortal beings to Christianity. Needless to say, it doesn't go over as he hoped, and yet he eventually becomes king. How this happens slowly unfolds throughout the course of our 17th century monk's transcription, as he reads the account from John's point of view, from that of his wife, a woman who has no head and whose face is in her torso, and from that of an ancient creature who was once nanny to the children of this land's original queen.

There is an entire bestiary of creatures in this book, all of them with strange names you probably aren't familiar with (except gryphons), but all of which come from actual medieval legends. At first I thought Valente was making things up, but no, Google them; she was just taking advantage of her Classics background. Those medieval storytellers made up stranger things than anything Tolkien ever came up with. Valente manages to spin a plausible (yet fantastically weird) society consisting of immortal monsters and angels all coexisting in a land where anything you plant in the ground will become a tree bearing like fruits (i.e., plant a book and you get book trees; plant a bed and you get bed trees; plant a corpse and you get that person "reincarnated" as a tree). But Valente loves her ornate descriptive prose and dialog, and this book is told from half a dozen different POVs spanning relative centuries. It's not nearly as easy a read as Fairyland (or much of anything else). I'll also add that I'm a big fan of audiobooks, but I think this would be a tough one to absorb as an audiobook unless you're willing to really pay close attention to every word.

If you like Arthurian legends, or closer to the time period, the tales of Chaucer, the legends of Roland, Charlemagne, etc., and especially if you like historical fantasy, then you should love this book. It's got the sweet verisimilitude of an author who has done her homework and knows how to write, and I think it's a great experience for any fantasy fan who wants to sample European-flavored fantasy that isn't elves and trolls and dragons. That said, this really was an exhausting read and sometimes I felt like I was reading more a montage of fantastic ideas and word-bling bombarding my brain than a story. I believe Valente has follow-up novels planned, and I can't honestly say whether I'd prefer to read more Prester John or sample something else by her instead.(less)

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Mar 10, 2012 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, read2011, sci-fi-fantasy, sff-audio

Of all of Valente’s works, this reminds me of The Orphan’s Tales, the way there are multiple stories that are loosely connected in an overarching narrative. But somehow, it is much more intricate, and I was drawn in by this tree of books that is encountered early on by Brother Hiob of Lucerne. The interweaving stories in the book come from this tree, but they may act more like fruit than paper.

“This tree bore neither apples nor plums, but books, where fruit should sprout. The bark of its great...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Saphana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy

I originally posted this review as a guest on Elfy's blog "Travels Through Iest" when the book came out. For more exposure, I'm going to copy/paste my review here. On the same note: Elfy hosts a great variety of book-reviews, so if you are interested ...

----- Review: ----

Let me start with the superficial: this is a very well made book. The cover art actually matches the contents. The book is made of thick, very smooth paper, that feels soft to the touch. The edges are crafted to look as if the p...more I originally posted this review as a guest on Elfy's blog "Travels Through Iest" when the book came out. For more exposure, I'm going to copy/paste my review here. On the same note: Elfy hosts a great variety of book-reviews, so if you are interested ...

----- Review: ----

Let me start with the superficial: this is a very well made book. The cover art actually matches the contents. The book is made of thick, very smooth paper, that feels soft to the touch. The edges are crafted to look as if the pages have been ripped out of another spine (or are they on the verge of decaying? Read on to understand the origin of this question) - and the ink does not smear. Night Shade Books put some effort into the appearance, which is pleasing to the eyes and fingers of the reader from the first touch.

When I started to read, I needed more than 2 hours for the first 30 pages and suddenly became aware, that I was not enjoying this: I kept looking for hidden meanings, foreshadowings, prohecies, intrigue and it then became clear to me, that I have been doing this all wrong. So back to page 1 - reboot - and just relax, let Mrs Valente (yes, she's married now) take the lead and just enjoy the ride she's about to take you on.
And what a ride it was.

The Habitation of the Blessed describes the end of Hiob's journey, sent out by his church to follow the Indus to it's source, bringing back news of riches for the church to exploit, preferably the hidden kingdom of Prester John - and while at it, do some missionary work - in the form of Hiob's written confession, dated 1699.

In a village in the province of Lavapuri, Hiob's dwindling party finds the first word to their goal. A woman takes Hiob to a tree on which grow books. He is allowed to pick three. He spends the following day(s) and night(s) reading them in turn, translating and transcribing them. Soon he learns, that the books are decaying rapidly, like fruit - which leads him into a reading frenzy.

The first book contains the story of John, the last letter of who in 1165 details his 'kingdom`, thusly leading to Hiob's expedition; chronicled by his wife Hagia, a blemmye (a people that have their faces on their chests).

The second book tells Hagia's own story.

The third covers the tale of Imthithal, a Panoti (a people with very large, white ears), nurse to the royal children.

All three interweave in the history of John reaching Pentexore after having crossed a sea of sand, the Rimal in a powerful prose - every word just so - spilling out an overflow of imagination that borders on madness, sweeping you along to the point where you start eating that damn Mango you had lying around for a couple of days, only to realise that the smell that has been disturbing you for a while wasn't from your fruit - it was her's, the written ones, slowly decaying.

The beauty of Mrs Valente's writing defies being put in words. Strand for delicate strand she unravels belief, religion and the benefits of life eternal in slow, moving sentences - almost poetry. Here's an artist, the likes of which we are not going to see anytime soon again.

This volume ends with all three of the books already rotten to mush. It leaves you wanting more, and soon. According to Mrs Valente, her husband checked her into a hotel somewhere in the wilderness of Maine, so she was closeted to wrestle this beast down. He might have to do so again - well, I certainly wish both of them all the best - but if it takes a little isolation for Mrs Valente, so I can lay may hands on the next volume - I'm not going to stop her husband. (less)

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Dec 24, 2011 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, sci-fi-fantasy

Okay, I've just finished reading this one (for the second time, mind you) and since the sequel is crying out for me to start reading THAT, I figure I should at least put something down for the first one.

As usual, Valente has created a gorgeous, intricate, beautiful MESS of a world that's wonderfully easy to fall into. It's also a lot of WORK, this one. You have characters who's ears wrap around their bodies, characters who's hands are HUGE (just their hands, not the rest of their bodies), a cha...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Meghan Tracy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A land where anything that’s planted will grow into a tree from books to beds to people makes for a fantastical place to set a story, but Valente, once again, does it effortlessly. The prose is florid, as usual, but it’s the place and people that make this story so incredible, in the true meaning of the word. There are four stories within this book and each of them is enticing in its own right. The confessions of Hiob Von Luzern were entrancing for me. I’ve long thought that if I lived in the me...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Clay rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-fantasy

Catherynne M. Valente has written some interesting (if nothing else) books, and I’ve stuck with her through some strange digressions, but with “The Habitation of the Blessed” (Night Shade, $14.99, 272 pages), she’s lost me.

“The Habitation of the Blessed” is billed as volume one in A Dirge for Prester John, and it’s a sometimes grotesque, always unsettling novel set in a fantasy land where all the weird variations on humanity that ancient writers could imagine are all too real. For example, one o...more

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May 20, 2011 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

Reading "The Habitation of the Blessed" is like diving into the deepest literary rabbit-hole. My desire to read it fully in one sitting was constantly thwarted, and each time I found myself emerging a little befuddled, as though waking from a deep dream. Valente's prose is so thick and rich that it's almost impenetrable for me at first, but after a brief effort I'm sucked in whole and fighting the urge to read as fast as I can to get to every single spectacular sentence.

What impresses me most in...more

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Dec 16, 2010 Unwisely rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, fantasy, wtf

I thought the premise was fascinating - what if the Prester John letter were real? (I actually picked this up due to her Big Idea post on Scalzi's blog). And it started out pretty promising, with three intertwined stories. It could have done with some sort of glossary, as there were a ton of races of non-existent beasts, and I hadn't heard of some of them before and had trouble keeping them straight.

And then....it got literary, which is to say confusing and nonsensical. The author apparently cou...more

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Nov 12, 2010 Gini rated it 5 of 5 stars

Once again, Catherynne Valente's lyrical prose and masterful comprehension of world mythologies come together to create a book so achingly beautiful that I didn't want to reach the end.

The fable of Prester John really was the first fake viral meme to infect the world. But unlike today's "Good Times Virus" warnings, Prester John's tale arrived in the form of a letter to the ruler of Constantinople in the 12th Century. No one has ever determined who wrote the letter, in which "John" boasted that h...more

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Jan 09, 2012 Alytha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favourites

I really like her books, she has an incredible talent for description. Her books are extremely sensuous, tastes, feels, sounds, smells and looks are constantly described in a very detailed way which creates a very rich atmosphere, and facilitates immersion into the story. She also has an incredible imagination, it just keep taking turns and going places you'd have never guessed at.

The Habitation of the Blessed is the first novel of the "A Dirge for Prester John" series, which explores the myth o...more I really like her books, she has an incredible talent for description. Her books are extremely sensuous, tastes, feels, sounds, smells and looks are constantly described in a very detailed way which creates a very rich atmosphere, and facilitates immersion into the story. She also has an incredible imagination, it just keep taking turns and going places you'd have never guessed at.

The Habitation of the Blessed is the first novel of the "A Dirge for Prester John" series, which explores the myth of the legendary medieval Prester John, or Johannes Presbyter, a powerful Christian king said to live in the far east. Some time in the 12th century, a letter from him arrived in Europe, in the middle of the Crusades.

The book starts in 1699, when the Swiss monk Hiob of Luzern and a couple of his brothers are sent to find Prester John's legendary kingdom. In a small village somewhere on the banks of the Indus, a woman covered in white down leads him to a tree growing books, and he is allowed to pick 3 of them. However, he discovers that they start to spoil like fruit soon after, and dedicates night and day to transcribe them, alternately per chapter. (packing stories within stories within stories is another speciality of Valente, but not in a way that would leave you wondering where you are at). The books are:

- The Word in the Quince, the autobiography of Prester John, how he came to Pentexore through a sea of sand, and how he first reacted to the weird people he met there. At first, being a Christian priest, he thinks he has to fit and evaluate everything he sees in relation to the Bible. (Fortunately, he mellows a little bit later on)

- The Book of the Fountain, the autobiography of Prester John's wife Hagia, a Blemmye. In this book, we learn about the customs of Pentexore: the Fountain of Youth which every inhabitant drinks from 3 times in their life to gain immortality, and the lottery of the Abir, which shuffles the lives of everybody every 300 years and gives you a new job and partner. Also, everything you bury in Pentexore will grow a tree which will bear fruit in the shape of the buried object or person. People who are planted often grow a tree with heads as fruit, and live on much as before. There's also horsetrees, cannontrees and parchment trees.

-The Scarlet Nursery: told by the royal nanny Imtithal, a Panoti. Through her storie for the children of Queen Abir, she gives more insight into the history of Pentexore. A long time ago, another Christian came, St Thomas, who had similar problems coming to terms with a country populated by creatures straight from a medieval bestiary.

As you may have noticed, I really loved this book :) Valente recently blogged that she finished the second volume, and I can barely wait until it is published. It has all the elements she does so well, combined with a really good story based on an ancient mystery, and full of interesting creatures, and an interesting exploration about how different cultures can come to terms (or not) with eachothers differences. Very recommended :)

If you want to have a look at some Valente books, I'd especially recommend The Orphan's Tales (In the Night Garden & In the Cities of Coin and Spice)(less)

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Jan 26, 2011 Peter added it

“The Habitation of the Blessed” by Catherynne M. Valente is surreal. I do not mean that as complaint, but I do think that if the reader has this infomation going in then they are more likely to appreciate this book. The author does not ease the reader in slowly. From the very beginning the reader enters a world where things most people would expect to be metaphors are interpreted literally.

The story’s dreamlike quality is most prevalent in the presence of human characters. The parts of the stor...more “The Habitation of the Blessed” by Catherynne M. Valente is surreal. I do not mean that as complaint, but I do think that if the reader has this infomation going in then they are more likely to appreciate this book. The author does not ease the reader in slowly. From the very beginning the reader enters a world where things most people would expect to be metaphors are interpreted literally.

The story’s dreamlike quality is most prevalent in the presence of human characters. The parts of the story told from the perspective of non-humans, while still unusual, feel more grounded to me. I am guessing this is a case of, “the alien landscape seen through the eyes of an alien looks more natural.” It may also be a result of the author’s skill at portraying humans from a time and culture far removed from my own, making their foreign worldview unexpectedly stranger than the non-humans. There is a lot of good detail about many mythical non-human races, but there was so much of it I was at times wishing for an appendix.

In structure this book is a tale within a tale (with sometimes additional layers of tales), told by a self proclaimed “bad historian”, who is in turn transcribing the accounts of an unreliable narrator (Prester John), a blemmye scribe, and a panoti royal nanny. Together these journals give a taste of the realm of Pentexore; its beginning, its middle and hints of its possible end. They are read in turn, side by side, chapter by chapter, so that sometimes knowledge of the later times precedes knowledge of the beginning. As the chapters advance the transcription of the journals becomes more challenging, and less complete.

I like this book. I find that I am becoming attached to the characters. Many of their actions and motivations speak to me; Imtithal’s willingness to make sacrifices, Hagia’s devotion which is both a virtue and a fault, Hiob’s desperate attempts to preserve knowledge in spite of judgment. Of all the characters in the book my least favorite is Prester John. Some might think it strange to like a book but not like the central character, but I do not consider Prester John the central character. I feel that the land of Pentexore is the, “central character,” and Pentexore is what I am most interested in learning more about in the next book.(less)

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Mar 08, 2011 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: alternate-earth, past-earth, fantasy

This book hits a few loves with me. First off, the narration structure. The book is based around the legend of Prester John, a medieval European legend of a priest-king who ruled over a land of legend off somewhere in the east. In 1699, a group, lead by a Brother Hiob, sets out to find traces of his kingdom, and come across a hamlet with a strange woman, who tells them that Prester John is gone, and shows them to a tree with books for fruit, and tells the head of the expedition he can pick three...more This book hits a few loves with me. First off, the narration structure. The book is based around the legend of Prester John, a medieval European legend of a priest-king who ruled over a land of legend off somewhere in the east. In 1699, a group, lead by a Brother Hiob, sets out to find traces of his kingdom, and come across a hamlet with a strange woman, who tells them that Prester John is gone, and shows them to a tree with books for fruit, and tells the head of the expedition he can pick three. The narrative is interwoven from those three books and Hiob's comments as he fights the decay of the books -- which, being fruit, don't last long once picked -- to record them and send them back to Europe.

The three interwoven narratives are John's own accounts of his travels, a memoir of Hagia, one of the locals who eventually ends up as John's queen, and a book of stories, which do a lot to explain how the country of Pentexore came into being and fill in the history that Hagia knows and John never asks about. It's a really cool device for a story like this, which is based on medieval legends rather than modern fantasy, even if the peoples of Pentexore are just as fantastic as elves and dwarves and vampires and werewolves.

Which is another point in its favor. A friend of mine is a fan of reading ancient Greek and Roman accounts of the wider world (and completely made-up ones, such as Lucian of Samosata's True History) and telling me what happens, and a lot of the legends have similar qualities. It's a welcome change from the current staple of fantasy, and Valente draws some damn good stuff from legends (not just of Prester John, but Thomas the Apostle, Alexander the Great and Herodotus), but gives a modern fantasy author's worldbuilding spin on it.

Valente, in a guest column for John Scalzi's blog, described it as writing a first contact novel, in that John is taken from a world where he fundamentally knows that everyone believes the same basic thing and looks, roughly, like him, and thrown into a place -- alone -- without other humans and without the shared cultural references that everyone takes for granted. Which can be frustrating for the reader, since, from Hagia's point of view, we are already invested in her people and that really makes John seem like kind of an asshole for taking so long to fit this into his worldview. Then again, John is a medieval priest, who doesn't even have the reference a Western reader would have for things like aliens or elves -- in his world, there are men, beasts, angels and demons, and he's not sure what is what or how this fits in with God's plan.

I did really enjoy the book. Valente can turn a phrase like nothing else -- at least, based on reading Palimpsest and parts of The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making -- and this is the kind of story that calls for it. Plus, I did really like a lot of the characters, and the old-school legends made the book feel young again. I'd like to see the sequels -- from the bridging story and Hagia's own reflections as she writes, we know Shit Went Down, but there is always a story in telling how. (less)

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Feb 14, 2011 Maureen E rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, historical, simply-superb

by Catherynne M . Valente

Though there are several important excerpts at the beginning of the book, I decided to use the opening line from the first chunk of narrative: "I am a very bad historian. But I am a very good miserable old man."

I've been a fan of Valente's short fiction for a year or two now, and loved The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland. And actually, I was searching the library catalog to see if they had Deathless listed at all, because Russian fairytales are love, when I saw this o...more

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Apr 21, 2011 Ryandake rated it 3 of 5 stars

well now here's a toughie.

this book is about a priest's search for Prester John, whom Wikipedia tells me is a figure of legend. in legend, he was king of an eden-like country reputed to be in asia, somewhere in the himalaya. the story of Prester John is wrapped up in the Crusades and in all sorts of Christian theology.

this book is about finding Prester John, sort of. and the book is amazingly well-written, a really lovely tale full of great imagination and beauty. it's not a fast read--even i (w...more

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Feb 21, 2012 Karissa rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have read a number of Valente's books and absolutely adored them. Like her previous books this book was beautifully written with excellent imagery. The book is told from four viewpoints and was a bit harder for me to read than previous books. As such, it was probably my least favorite book of hers to date, that being said it was still incredibly creative and beautifully written.

Brother Hiob of Luzerne stumbles upon a tree that sprouts books instead of fruit while working at a missionary in the...more I have read a number of Valente's books and absolutely adored them. Like her previous books this book was beautifully written with excellent imagery. The book is told from four viewpoints and was a bit harder for me to read than previous books. As such, it was probably my least favorite book of hers to date, that being said it was still incredibly creative and beautifully written.

Brother Hiob of Luzerne stumbles upon a tree that sprouts books instead of fruit while working at a missionary in the Himalayans. He is allowed to pluck three books from the tree. The first is written by Prester John himself and tells of Prester's journey into magical lands. The second is written by Prester's wife Hagia; an immortal who carries her face on her chest and has no head. The third is a collection of nursery tales by a being named Imtithal who was a nanny.

This book has a lot of what I have come to love from Valente; crazily creative creatures and descriptions that come alive to the reader, beautiful writing that is incredibly rich and weaves wonderfully magical pictures, and tons of mythological references. The story alternates between Brother Hiob, Prester John, Hagia, and Imtithal. As such it progresses slowly and has more of a plodding mythological and somewhat religious tone to it than previous works.

I enjoyed hearing from Brother Hiob who had to alternate his reading because each of the books he pulled off of the tree started rotting as soon as he plucked them off. As such he becomes obsessed with reading these stories before they rot. I also enjoyed Prester John's viewpoint as he stumbles into a magical and wonderful land after crossing a sea of sand. Although Prester John's very catholic religious viewpoints are a bit tiresome at times, it is interesting to see how this new land reacts to his very orthodox viewpoint.

I also enjoyed Hagia's viewpoint. She is immortal and is a blemmye (has no head, but her face is on her torso). She falls in love with Prester John. Although most of her accounts are about her various lives and loves and it is isn't until later in the book she meets with Prester John.

I did not enjoy the sections by Imtithal as much. Imtithal has three children she takes care of and is a being with huge ears that can enfold her whole body. You don't really know how she is related to Prester John until much later in the story. Imtithal tells a number of creation myths to her young charges. I had trouble connecting these with the other parts of the story and constantly had to work on focusing on the stories because my mind would start to wander. I just couldn't relate to the stories or relate them to the overall book.

This book is a slow read. The writing is incredibly beautiful and well done, but you need to take time to read it and really pay attention to understand what is going on. There is a lot of ambiguity here. The constantly switching viewpoints makes the story progress slowly and presents more of a puzzle that the reader needs to piece together than a cohesive story. It is masterfully done, but slow to read.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and continue to enjoy Valente's beautiful writing and the absolutely crazy and wacky creatures and worlds that she weaves. This book was a slow read and one you really need to pay attention to and think about while you read. I wasn't crazy about the changing viewpoints and the way you had to piece the story together. I also had some trouble relating Imtithal's sections to the rest of the story. If you are a fan of mythology and beautiful writing and don't mind some ambiguity I can definitely recommend this to you. I didn't find it to be quite as magical and wonderful as previous books I have read by Valente, but it was still very well done.(less)

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May 27, 2011 Nancy O'Toole rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audiobook, fantasy, library

In the 12th century, the letter of Prester John arrived in Europe. It promised a land of wonder and immortality, ruled by John himself, to all that seek it. The arrival of this letter prompted explorers to travel around the world in search of John's kingdom. Of course, it was all a hoax, but what if it had been true? The Habitation of the Blessed tells the story of a priest named Hiob Von Luzern, who in his travels comes across the accounts of Prester John, Hagia (Prester John's wife), and a col...more In the 12th century, the letter of Prester John arrived in Europe. It promised a land of wonder and immortality, ruled by John himself, to all that seek it. The arrival of this letter prompted explorers to travel around the world in search of John's kingdom. Of course, it was all a hoax, but what if it had been true? The Habitation of the Blessed tells the story of a priest named Hiob Von Luzern, who in his travels comes across the accounts of Prester John, Hagia (Prester John's wife), and a collection of stories called The Scarlet Nursery, growing from a tree like fruit. Hiob struggles to translate the text as quickly as possible, for also like fruit, the books are beginning to rot over time.

The Habitation of the Blessed is the fourth novel I have read by Catherynne M. Valente, and I have grown to appreciate what a dependable writer she is. There are certain elements that you can always expect out of her work. The writing has always be lovely, the worldbuilding, impressively lush and detailed, and the characters complex. I also like the fact that each book is different from the rest. Yes, she often draw upon real world myths, and legends to craft her stories, but she's not the type of writer to tell the same story over and over again, until the books begin to blend together.

Similar to Palimpsest, The Habitation of the Blessed features four protagonists. I found Hiob to be the easiest to connect to. Like the reader, he is experiencing the story of John for the first time, and desires to know the truth behind the legend. John is an interesting protagonists, as he is also the villain of the piece. Fortunately, he is not a typical villain. In fact, I often found myself feeling sorry for him, as he struggles to find his place in this new country of unfamiliar customs and creatures. Hagia is perhaps the most important of the narrators, as she provides us necessary information on the Pentexore (the country in question), and a unique perspective on the character of John himself. The Scarlet Nursery, narrated by Imtithal, may seem unconnected at first, but as the story develops, it becomes obvious that this is not the case.

Personally, I did not fall as wholly in love with The Habitation of the Blessed as I did with In the Night Garden (the first Orphan Tales novel). There were times where I felt it dragged a little, and other times where I found myself wishing that we had gotten to learn more about the real story (that the letter was a hoax), than what we learn in the novel. Still, there is plenty to love about The Habitation of the Blessed. I admire Valente's ability to take what may seem strange or even grotesque to us, and make it beautiful. The Habitation of the Blessed is a rich story that feels larger than it's 269 pages. I am planning on finishing the trilogy when future volumes are released.
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May 02, 2011 Eric rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: ebooks, fantasy, historical

The Habitation of the Blessed is a complex work full of rich language and many themes.

The book consists of four interwoven storylines. In one, a Byzantine monk confesses his "sins" of thought and deed during the transcribing of the other three. The three books he plucks from a miraculous tree are an autobiography of Prester John, another of his wife, and a collection of stories told to the children of an ancient queen of Prester John's country.

It's difficult to decide what to mention without ru...more

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Mar 17, 2011 lamesalmon rated it 4 of 5 stars

If "spoiler" = any description of the settings, characters, or themes, this review contains spoilers. No discussion of major plot points, though:

(view spoiler)...more

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Nov 24, 2010 April Steenburgh rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, historical-fiction

There is something beautiful and utterly enthralling about this book. It is in the words, deftly woven together to paint such pictures as you have never imagined. It is in the characters, flawed in perfect ways and you cannot help but love them for it. Being interrupted while reading was like surfacing from a deep swim or a deep nap, and took time to reorient back into the world.

It is in the telling- there are is a fascinating mix of point of view characters, and the whole book reads like a dia...more

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Feb 27, 2011 Ian rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, medieval, myth

Yet another wonderful read from Catherynne Valente, this time the first volume of a trilogy dedicated to the mythical Prester John, fabled king of the three Indies. Once more Valente recounts the story through the words of many characters: John, the befuddled but not so innocent priest; Hagia, the blemmye and his future wife; Imtithal, the panoti, who told tales to three children in a distant past; and brother Hiob who, centuries later, will transcribe these stories from books borne from a tree....more

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Jan 29, 2011 John rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, sf-fantasy

According to New Testament apocrypha, Saint Thomas, the Christian apostle who famously refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead (hence, doubting Thomas), is believed to have sailed to India in the middle of the first century AD to spread the Good Word among the ancient Jewish communities of the Malabar Coast. There he established the first Christian church in Asia, the Church of the East, also known as the Nestorian Church, which survived nearly 1,500 years until a schism in the 16t...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Karky rated it 5 of 5 stars

While it may not be very commonly heard today, the legend of Prester John has long since held many a man enthralled in wonder of a mysterious land just beyond the known world. This is a tale of how that legend came to be. It's got a number of the typical features of a kingmaker tale; a man--perhaps not an extraordinary one--seeks out a greater destiny, he befalls harsh trials, comes across a strange land just when all had seemed to be lost, befriends the locals, completes his holy pilgrimage, an...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Meggan rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, myths-legends, favorites

So we know that Habitation of the Blessed is about the legend of Prester John. But it could also be a radical re-interpretation of Wonders of the East, the book of marvels written around 1000 AD detailing a race of disfigured humans that Alexander was thought to have encountered in his travels to India. Here's an excerpt from it, featuring some of the "grotesques" (panotii, blemmye, and amyctrya) that are humanized so poignantly by Valente in her novel:

See how static and placid they are? How th...more So we know that Habitation of the Blessed is about the legend of Prester John. But it could also be a radical re-interpretation of Wonders of the East, the book of marvels written around 1000 AD detailing a race of disfigured humans that Alexander was thought to have encountered in his travels to India. Here's an excerpt from it, featuring some of the "grotesques" (panotii, blemmye, and amyctrya) that are humanized so poignantly by Valente in her novel:

See how static and placid they are? How they're framed as if on a shelf in some collector's menagerie? That's the way that Empire constructs and handles monstrosity: by attempting to contain it. Call it propaganda published by the true "monsters."

Valente inverts the Orientalism of Wonders of the East in many ways (thank god), one of which is by preventing the monks in search of John's legends from succeeding in transcribing the full story. Because even if they did read it, they'll never fully know it. And some of the characters Valente creates (Hagia, for one) just don't deserve to be in some pope's boutique.

Another way she inverts Orientalism is by making the Christian hero, John, a grotesquerie himself. The inhabitants view John's zeal as childlike and deranged. And he views them like a typical missionary--conversion material to redeem his own sins. However, my inept description paints John in a very broad brush. In fact I really enjoyed his characterization because he's just as flawed, sympathetic, and surly as the rest of the wondrous creatures he encounters. That some described John as the "villain" of the novel made me re-think my feelings of abject pity toward him. I have a hunch he'll send his kingdom to fight in the Holy Wars in the next book. If that happens, his villainy is well deserved.

The fact that a century-long hoax is the impetus for this novel is neat. That the hoax became legend conveys the desire for a Christian Empire that could never quite penetrate the East like the pagan conquerors of old. Essayist Nate Barksdale brings up an interesting point about how this envy invented John's kingdom: "What better way to argue that one could be as powerful as Alexander and still be Christian than simply to manufacture a Christian Alexander—and one so humble, incidentally, that he let no man call him King, but only priest or Presbyter?" The hilarious thing about Valente's interpretation of the hoax is that she imagines John "the person" as real but John "the great Apostle of the East" as a fraud. So was it all a hoax anyway?

Finally, there is a theme here that I can't quite temper into clarity, but I'm going to think on it as I read Book II. It's about the way that "the inconceivable" in fantasy flummoxes reality, imagination, and faith. Seeing, imagining, or believing means boxing the impossible into the possible. I now realize why Borges' Imaginary Beings wasn't an interesting read: it could have been much more radical if these encyclopedia entries had been allowed to tell their own stories like they do in Valente's book. She made me think about how miracles, monsters, resurrection, eternal life, gryphons, phoenixes, and talking trees don't need to be thrown together in a butterfly collection to show us the strangeness of things. Books like this are not about what we can imagine, see, or believe, but about what we can't.

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Feb 02, 2011 Shauna rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: fantasy readers

The prose style was beautiful, and the structure was interesting in that four semi-independent stories are going on at once. The frame story is about a monk looking for Prester John. When he finds the mysterious land where Prester John ruled, he is allowed three books--and no more--to transcribe before the books (which grew on a tree and so start to rot once removed) disintegrate.

I've never been particularly interested in Prester John and read this book only because the author has been recommen...more

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May 27, 2012 Tara rated it 4 of 5 stars

As usual Valente does a good job of creating a bizarre and yet very real universe. This book continued in her trend of beautiful but visceral phrasing and she makes it come alive. The twisting of the story and the empty spaces were compelling and I finished feeling unsatisfied but in an okay way? I felt like some of the religious connections in this were a little stretched, unfortunately, but not impossible to follow. That could also be my religious background subconsciously being repelled, as w...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: e-book, fantasy

A few years ago, reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition, I was surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson believed the Corps of Discovery would find, among other things in the then-unknown western reaches of America, a race of headless people with faces on their chests. I now know, thanks to Catherynne Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed, that this (along with the Fountain of Youth and other marvels) was part of the Prester John myth, transplanted whole from 13th century Europe to 18th c...more A few years ago, reading about the Lewis and Clark expedition, I was surprised to learn that Thomas Jefferson believed the Corps of Discovery would find, among other things in the then-unknown western reaches of America, a race of headless people with faces on their chests. I now know, thanks to Catherynne Valente's The Habitation of the Blessed, that this (along with the Fountain of Youth and other marvels) was part of the Prester John myth, transplanted whole from 13th century Europe to 18th century America.

The Habitation of the Blessed is a fantasy based on the Prester John myth. Told by a 17th century monk in a series of letters sent back to his monastery in Switzerland, quoting extensively from texts found growing on a magical tree, it is the tale of the kingdom of Prester John, as inaccessible or lost as Atlantis. Populated by people with faces on their chests, people with giant hands or ears, pygmies who mate with human-sized cranes, people with the heads of swans (descendents of Leda), and talking tigers and lions, is it a remarkable place -- I would say a fabulous place, but I don't think most people use the word fabulous in its old sense, a place where fables are true. In this land, people drink from the literal Fountain of Youth and stay 30 years old forever. In this land, sand and rock flow like water. In this land, people switch roles, husbands, wives, and children every three centuries, just to stir things up.

And so on. Pure fantasy rather leaves me cold, so I was not terribly interested in sticking around to see what happened ... by the book's halfway point I didn't sense any sort of human crisis in the making, or even much of a story, nothing to really hold my interest beyond the retelling of essentially meaningless fables. But the real problem for me was Catherynne Valente's characters, who all think and talk the same. Valente's fantasy fable reminds me of a medieval bestiary, where elephants, lions, and griffons look like horses or dogs because those were the only animals the artist had actually ever seen. Same thing here: the monk, Prester John, his wife, the long-eared sprite who raises a queen's giant-handed children ... they all sound alike.

Catherynne Valente has a great idea, and I loved learning more about the Prester John legend and the strength of its hold the human mind from the times of the Crusades right up to modern times, but the story needs a teller who can make it live.(less)

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Feb 17, 2013 DavidO rated it 2 of 5 stars

I really liked the Orphan Tales by the same author, but this wasn't as catchy. I suppose I enjoy fast paced books, which the Orphan Tales were. This gets bogged down, and for some reason the characters I didn't find all that enthralling. I'm not sure who this book is aimed at. Prestor John goes to some mythical land and learns a lot there that upsets his Christian/Catholic belief system. I suppose it would be an interesting discussion if I were Christian, but then again it might not since it cha...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Craig Laurance rated it 4 of 5 stars

This mosaic novel, created out of four (and maybe more) narrative strands is saturated in fabulist imagery. It's all told in rich prose poetry that sometimes floats close to purple--let's call it lilac. It's little confusing to get into, but once you succumb to the rhythms of prose and the stories it has a unique narrative pace that gets under your skin. The first person narratives are different enough that you begin to hear the individual character's voices. The author manages to get the right...more

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About Catherynne M. Valente

Catherynne M. Valente was born on Cinco de Mayo, 1979 in Seattle, WA, but grew up in in the wheatgrass paradise of Northern California. She graduated from high school at age 15, going on to UC San Diego and Edinburgh University, receiving her B.A. in Classics with an emphasis in Ancient Greek Linguistics. She then drifted away from her M.A. program and into a long residence in the concrete and cam...more

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Books by Catherynne M. Valente

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (Fairyland, #1)

In the Night Garden (The Orphan's Tales, #1)

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (Fairyland, #2)

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“I reminded myself: when a book lies unopened it might contain anything in the world, anything imaginable. It therefore, in that pregnant moment before opening, contains everything. Every possibility, both perfect and putrid. Surely such mysteries are the most enticing things You grant us in this mortal mere -- the fruit in the garden, too, was like this. Unknown, and therefore infinite. Eve and her mate swallowed eternity, every possible thing, and made the world between them.” — 22 people liked it

“Children, you must understand, are monsters. They are ravenous, ravening, they lope over the countryside with slavering mouths, seeking love to devour. Even when they find it, even if they roll about in it and gorge themselves, still it will never be enough. Their hunger for it is greater than any heart to satisfy. You mustn't think poorly of them - we are all monsters that way, it is only that when we are grown, we learn more subtle ways to snatch it up, and secretly slurp our fingers clean in dark corners, relishing even the last dregs. All children know is a sort of clumsy pouncing after love. They often miss, but that is how they learn.” — 11 people liked it

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The Habitation of the Blessed (A Dirge for Prester John #1)

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