The Past Is Red
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Average rating4.2
“The Candide of our #@$\*%?! age.”— Ken Liu, award-winning author Catherynne M. Valente, the bestselling and award-winning creator of Space Opera and The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland returns with The Past Is Red, the enchanting, dark, funny, angry story of a girl who made two terrible mistakes: she told the truth and she dared to love the world. The future is blue. Endless blue...except for a few small places that float across the hot, drowned world left behind by long-gone fossil fuel-guzzlers. One of those patches is a magical place called Garbagetown. Tetley Abednego is the most beloved girl in Garbagetown, but she’s the only one who knows it. She’s the only one who knows a lot of things: that Garbagetown is the most wonderful place in the world, that it’s full of hope, that you can love someone and 66% hate them all at the same time. But Earth is a terrible mess, hope is a fragile thing, and a lot of people are very angry with her. Then Tetley discovers a new friend, a terrible secret, and more to her world than she ever expected. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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I love how Valente writes, her style and premises. This was an audible treat as listened and lounged, recovering. It reminded me a little of Discworld, fantastic world building and characterization of the people and their regions.
I really loved getting to know Tetley (the voice of the narrator), and learning to understand the way she sees her world. And it really is her world in a way. In a world made out of cleverly arranged floating garbage on an unending ocean, a small town of sorts has been built up, and she loves this world. But it does not love her back.
Despite being the town's outlet for their rage, she maintains that she is the happiest person in the world. Everyone else is so busy wanting what they can never have, and dreaming that the world will go back to what it once was. She likes her little garbage world though, and wouldn't want the world any other way. That is, until she makes a new friend, and her cheery resolve becomes challenged.
I found this a very emotionally calming book in a weird way. It could be heartbreaking at times, but Tetley's resolve to see the whole world as it is and love it kept the story from feeling sad. The writing is poetic and fun (and peppered with profanity that no longer counts as profanity). It's post-apocalyptic insofar as there clearly has been an apocalypse, but really it celebrates life and perspective and the hunt for a shared humanity. One might even say this book is inspiring. Maybe.
