The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Satisfying Conclusion The fifth and last novel in Catherynne M. Valente’s Fairyland series books, The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home (2016), begins right where the fourth left off, with September the girl from Nebraska having been crowned Queen of Fairyland and All Her Kingdoms. The situation is, however, complicated. Also at the end of the fourth novel September used a dodo’s egg to restore everything as it was before, partly to return her own age from forty to fifteen, after having been prematurely aged at the end of the third novel by the Yeti as he midwifed a new moon. An unexpected side effect of the dodo egg restoration is that now at the beginning of the fifth novel, every past ruler of Fairyland (“dead and alive and other”) is back in the capital Pandemonium eagerly wanting to resume their rule! To defuse the chaotic situation, the Stoat of Arms (a sentient seal comprised of a blue unicorn, a little girl in knight’s armor, a brace of golden stoats, three black roosters, three silver stars, and a tiny Fairy) declares that September will rule for three days, after which a race called the Cantankerous Derby will be held to determine the new ruler of Fairyland: “All hopefuls, thoroughbreds, long shots, cheaters, townies, speed demons, and dark horses shall commence a Wondrous Race, beginning in Pandemonium, and ending at Runnymede Square in the ancient city of Mummery! The winner shall receive the Crown. . . . All are eligible! Ravished, Stumbled, Changelings, Fairies, Gnomes, Rocks, and Trees!” The object of the race is to be the first to find by fair means or foul the hidden Heart of Fairyland. Unlike the boring races of our world, for which racers are limited to a circular track or modest course, racers in the Cantankerous Derby may go anywhere they want in the whole world of Fairyland. For the start of the race, each racer is put in a separate bubble of space time so they can all get started without bothering each other. Each racer must finish the race with a steed, and at the start all steeds are swapped randomly. If any two racers meet during the race, they must fight an eccentric duel, with the loser having to leave the race. And halfway through the race everyone’s relative positions will be randomly swapped. Like most of the earlier novels in the series, then, this one is an exciting episodic travel adventure, in which September and her best friends, A-Through-L the Wyverary (who believes he is half library, half wyvern) and Saturday the Marid (who lives backwards and forwards in time) visit various outree Fairyland locales and locals as they race against the past rulers of Fairyland, including Curdleblood, the Dastard of Darkness; Cutty Soames, the Coblynow Captain; the Headmistress; the Emperor of Everything; the Ice Cream Man; the First Stone; Queen Mab; Thrum the Rex Tyrannosaur; and the Marquess, September’s foe in the first Fairyland novel; and against some new pretenders, like Hawthorn the Troll, Tamburlaine the Fetch, and Blunderbuss the scrap yarn Combat Wombat introduced in book four. The prime minister of Fairyland, the scary Madame Tanaquill, who wears a dress made out of iron buckles, horseshoes, and blades, despite (or because of) fairies being allergic to the metal, is the 2-1 favorite to win. September has mixed feelings about the Race. On the one hand she just wants to go home to Omaha where she belongs with her mother and father and dog etc., but on the other hand she’s keen to continue being Queen because then she can stay in Fairyland with her friends, and, after all, one should to the job they’re given to the best of their ability. A minor sub-plot involves September’s aunt Margaret, who from when she was nine has been secretly visiting Fairyland and performing terrible and grand feats there under the name Pearl, escorting the girl’s parents to Fairyland to look for her. The book is full of the rich pleasures of Valente’s fantastic imagination, wit, wisdom, and style: lists (“Fairyland races ladies against chariots, centaurs against cheetahs, carriages against flying carpets, phoenixes against Dodos”), personification (“The heart of Meridian is a hut that wanted to be a library when it grew up”), humor (“I know some of us are very cranky, having only recently come back from the dead, but reanimation is no excuse”), playful narrator, e.g., “From a narrator’s picnic blanket, there’s nothing you can’t see”), wisdom (“No one belongs when they are new to this world. All children are Changelings”), and fantasy (“The carriage-driver was a lady caught halfway between beautiful and terrifying—her face so gaunt, her hair so wild, and her eyes so huge that she looked like an electrified dragonfly who had once asked to be made into a human girl for Christmas and almost, almost gotten her wish. She snapped a whip made of cricket’s bone”). Sometimes Valente’s style and imagination can become too precious and profligate: “Because she was quite a large and opinionated country, and because she was as old as starlight and twice as stubborn, and because she had a mountain range on her left border that simply would not be bossed about, Fairyland decided to do something about it one day in March just after her morning tea.” But it’s better to read a book that’s too full of imagination than one that’s too empty of it. Anna Juan’s illustrations for each new chapter page are dark, grotesque, and beautiful, and the ending of the novel is unexpected and satisfying. Readers who like contemporary fairytale fantasy that revels in language, style, story, and imagination should like the Fairyland series. The first two books and the fourth are splendid, book three exhausting, and this fifth one satisfying. View all my reviews
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