Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Having just finished the book I find myself in a somewhat bewildered state; I feel like I have witnessed something awesome (in the true sense of the word), but I am not entirely sure what happened.

Which brings me to my question: can a story be brilliantly written without being a good story?

Now, I admit that I am being slightly facetious here; the use of imagery and language in Radiance is spectacular and I would be hard pressed not to admit that each chapter is a work of art. However, it was a *real* struggle to get beyond the first 25% of the book, which felt like being hit over the head with ream of genres. Even beyond that, it still felt like I was witnessing something great rather than being carried along by the story; I had a tangible feeling of relief at the end.

So, have I just read a good story, or is it merely an impressive example of the writer's art?

I think ultimately it comes down to what you're looking for in a novel and how you read it.

In this case I believe we're seeing Valente's considerable technical ability on show. Sentence by sentence her writing is beautiful. Poetic in places even. The structure of the novel is inspired, particularly the artifice of the revisionist scripts talking about Anchises mixed in with the more objectively "real" direct transcripts and interviews.

In fact, the different levels of reality in each of the elements of the story, from almost completely fictitious movie scripts, to the subjective quality of interviews, to actual footage all plays into the ultimate issue of (view spoiler)[the callowhales themselves being arbiters of reality. Or greater than the universe of Raidance's reality anyway. (hide spoiler)]

So as a piece of art I think it's amazing. Brilliant in conception and execution and I can objectively appreciate it as such.

But at a purely subjective level, I didn't really enjoy it. I tend to prefer characters that I can empathize or sympathize with. I'm not particularly interested in self-indulgent spoiled-child drug addicts with ambitions of artistic talent.

I also think the ending is a total cheat: (view spoiler)[it completely wrecks the idea of a self-consistent SF setting like the solar system of Radiance to have the key element be the callowhales as not following the rules of the universe and having Severin just being part of them in some bizarre navel-gazing exercise only underlines that. It certainly fits with the theme of the book in terms of questioning reality, (hide spoiler)] but it just doesn't make for a satisfying plot resolution.

What I typically like is something with a much more straightforward through-plot like her Fairyland books. Or as a better example, another recent epistolary-format book, Illuminae which despite being told in a similar manner to this book, does give a good through-plot and a terrific resolution.

So in short, it's not the book, which is brilliant, it's me. For me this is not a good book, but that's a totally subjective assessment based on what I want out of my reading, not the actual merit of the work.

Which brings me to my question: can a story be brilliantly written without being a good story? "

What an insightful question!

Lindsay wrote: "In this case I believe we're seeing Valente's considerable technical ability on show. ...

So as a piece of art I think it's amazing. Brilliant in conception and execution and I can objectively appreciate it as such.

But at a purely subjective level, I didn't really enjoy it. ."

Well, put, Lindsay! I'm not finished yet, but I'm having more or less the same response. There's prose here that almost moves me to tears, but the only character I really give a care about is Mary Pellam. I want one of those tea-dates. I don't really identify with anyone else.

The book is chock full of Greek myth and Shakespeare references, and my high school English classes would have be believe that that is a mark of Literature.

There are some themes I'm starting to see emerging. What is truth compared and contrasted with what will last. What is truth versus what is the story that will capture the imagination. There's a tiny cosmic horror hint in the idea that maybe we don't know the universe as well as we think. Cultures are totally changed on these planets, but we're still finding ways to be awful to each other. I'm finding these all very thought-inspiring.

But yeah, I'm only so so on the world which I find put together with smoke and mirrors, and I don't like most of the characters. I still think I'll finish it, but I keep expecting to be done by now since every scene has been so detail dense. I'm at 58%.

I'm also not crazy about the frame conceit, although I'm waiting until the end to pass final judgement. Going into a really arty theater with no seats, stripping naked so I can be the screen and having the images projected, upside down to my perspective, on my not-terribly flat skin? Yeah, that doesn't sound like something I would do.

This sounds like one of those books you have to be in the writer's bubble to like. More on the Jeff Vandermeer than Ann Vandermeer side.

I definitely would agree that there is some great writing on display in this book, but the lack of real cohesive connections makes it really hard to appreciate the book as a whole. The characters suffer drastic changes in personality as the book jumps around the timeline and we aren't really given a lot of context for those changes or the reasons so the whole world just seemed like collections of madness strung together with bits of narrative that might have just been as fictional as the radio teleplay that I'm still not sure had anything to do with anything.

And the book is frustrating for that reason. It's like it's constantly hiding something that everyone already knows and you are screaming "Just f'ing say it already" but then it touches the side of its nose and launches off to another time period to do the same thing again.

It is a different kind of book. Think of all the writing formats in the book. Narrative, the one we are most familiar with, but also screenplay, and ad copy, to name a couple. I just went with the flow and am finding it interesting and a challenge .

Stephen wrote: "It is a different kind of book. Think of all the writing formats in the book. Narrative, the one we are most familiar with, but also screenplay, and ad copy, to name a couple. I just went with the ..."

But that's exactly what i mean. Taking each piece on it's own I was thoroughly entertained, but this is still an expression of narrative as a whole. I don't think you can get to the end of this book and feel like it accomplished it's story even though it's filled with beautiful work.

I had to learn to enjoy the various formats Valente used for the chapters. More often than not I would end a chapter and just sigh, "This thing reads like stereo instructions.." I was very impressed with the amount of detail in creating these chapters (the details that went into the scene and the details that made it appears as an authentic say Ship's Manifest or Production Meeting Notes etc.)

Still sifting through the details felt more like work than anything else. That's not to say that the author must always spell the story out in clear, concise words but personally it was a chore having to discern the overall narrative from these wonderfully elegant chapter puzzle pieces that, while beautiful on their own, I couldn't quite make connect. They took time away from the plot and took time away from the characters- so much time that I couldn't connect or really bring myself to care at the end.

I think it is a good book and a different kind of book, but not one that I necessarily enjoyed or felt satisfied by once I finished it.

Kris wrote: "I had to learn to enjoy the various formats Valente used for the chapters. More often than not I would end a chapter and just sigh, "This thing reads like stereo instructions.." I was very impresse..."

I kind of skim the Ship's Manifest type chapters. But the production meetings I read, because those might contain Hints, precious.

Joanna wrote: "I kind of skim the Ship's Manifest type chapters. But the production meetings I read, because those might contain Hints, precious."

See, I read those thinking that there might have been clues. I was afraid I'd miss something important or revelatory.. *sighh*

I'm an hour or two into the audiobook and all I can think is, "I wish Jay Lake had read this." I think it's beautifully written. Can't speak to the plot yet.

Kris wrote: "I had to learn to enjoy the various formats Valente used for the chapters. More often than not I would end a chapter and just sigh, "This thing reads like stereo instructions.." I was very impresse..."

I'm still working on it, but this may be the first pick in three years that I don't finish. As with many others, I'm finding its pieces well written, but not engaging me on the whole. I've had some individual chapters that I got into, but then the next chapter comes and loses me again. I figure I'll give it a bit more, since some comments indicates it gets better after the 25% mark (about where I am).

I'm only about half-way through, and I'll say this: I think it's a good story, but I think the actual story is about movies, not people. If you want a good story about Severin Unck, that's a whole different book, and I think if you force yourself to move away from that, you start to enjoy the book.

But w/r/t Steve's broader question, I'm entirely with you dude. I think it's definitely reasonable to look at a piece of writing and go "boy that sure is smart/well done-- but not a good story" or, alternatively, to go "boy I sure do recognize how good that thing is-- but I really don't enjoy it." I think the kind of responses Lindsay and Joanna had are just really admirable approaches to take when looking at a piece of work one didn't enjoy (though I personally have really enjoyed the work so far).

Hm.. I'm an hour into the audio book, and I'm deliberating whether or not to keep going. The language is entrancing, and narrated in an appropriately idiosynchratic style, but... I still can't get any inkling of what it's about. Okay, that's not really true, it obviously is about making movies, but any sense of story or character or character is completely elusive. It's like being lost in a sea of florid phrases. In short; so far I don't get it. At all.

Fredrik wrote: "Hm.. I'm an hour into the audio book, and I'm deliberating whether or not to keep going. The language is entrancing, and narrated in an appropriately idiosynchratic style, but... I still can't get ..."

The opinion that seems to be forming for most people is that A) text seems to be the easiest medium for understanding this book, and B) it takes a little while for the clues to start coming together into a coherent whole.

It doesn't help that one of the themes appears to be that a "reliable narrator" is an impossible ideal.

Probably because another of the themes is that reality is an impossible ideal as well.

Yes, I decided to return it to audible. I'll try to read the text later, even if I don't get on it right away.

Lindsay wrote: "So in short, it's not the book, which is brilliant, it's me. For me this is not a good book, but that's a totally subjective assessment based on what I want out of my reading, not the actual merit of the work."

Interesting. So is your 4-star rating reflecting an appreciation of the skill level rather than your enjoyment of the end result?

Edit: For me, I need to also like a work in order for it to get 4 stars. Technical proficiency isn't enough to get it to "really liked it" territory. I might consider a 3-star rating, but without enjoyment I won't go higher.

Stephen wrote: "It is a different kind of book. Think of all the writing formats in the book. Narrative, the one we are most familiar with, but also screenplay, and ad copy, to name a couple. I just went with the ..."

I'm only partway into the book, but I really get the sense this needs to be a movie, but a movie directed by someone who is a master of the craft. A Kubrick or the Coens or Francis Ford Coppola.

Trike wrote: "For me, I need to also like a work in order for it to get 4 stars. Technical proficiency isn't enough to get it to "really liked it" territory. I might consider a 3-star rating, but without enjoyment I won't go higher. "

That's where I ended up. From my review: "I give 4 stars for the beautiful and technically skilled writing. I give 2 stars for struggling, struggling with the plot. So I've averaged them."

Yeah, this is why I give books like Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice and Ancillary Sword 3 stars. I appreciate what she's done and I can intellectually applaud it but finding it difficult to become immersed in the story keeps me from loving it.

I think perhaps this is the distinction between what I consider an "important" book from a "great" book.

Probably a close analogy for many people would be 2001: A Space Odyssey. That's an important film that I happen to think is also great, but if if someone doesn't like it because it isn't conventionally engaging, they can concede its place of prominence in cinema without actually enjoying it.

The parts do not make the whole. About halfway through the "Look at my brilliant writing style " became like a toddler trying to be cute. It just became annoying after awhile. Again, I heard of so many nice thing about her fairyland books I was fairly happy about the pick,

Trike wrote: "Interesting. So is your 4-star rating reflecting an appreciation of the skill level rather than your enjoyment of the end result?."

Well I try to be objective as I can be in reviews and where I am subjective I try and point that out by using lots of "I" statements.

My actual written review is here and I think I make the distinction in text.

Trike wrote: "Stephen wrote: "this needs to be a movie, but a movie directed by someone who is a master of the craft. A Kubrick or the Coens or Francis Ford Coppola. "

or your personal favourite JJ Abrams ;-)

I also had a similar problem getting into the first 25% of the book, but I feel like the latter three-fourths made up for it, and I'm really glad that I kept reading. I can see how it isn't accessible for some people - for instance, I don't think my sister would like it because of the "barrier to entry" that was the first 1/4 of the book. But once I got past that point, I was enthralled. I adapted and was finally able to appreciate the different styles that were used for each chapter.

Personally, I really enjoyed the plot, although I think that, if presented in a more linear format, it would have been a considerably shorter story... but still good. But it was the brilliance of the writing that really captivated me once I got out of that first quarter of the book. The world-building was enchanting: the ships of Neptune, the divers of Venus, the settler's video for Pluto that contrasted with how Pluto really turned out. I think the gorgeous imagery, mysterious locales, and quality technical aspects of the writing definitely enhanced the book and made the story a much better read.

I realize I haven't answered your question with this babbling, but it's hard to do because I liked the story. With how much I loved the writing, though, my guess is that yes, a story CAN be a brilliant piece of writing without being a good story.

I had trouble with the first chuck (25ish%) of the story as the constantly changing direction and style distracted me from the story. I found that seemed to be the point as if I was watching a film shown silently on my own skin by a showman. By half way I was invested and the writing became the secondary character as the plots of everyone but Severin took on a life of their own. The writing, and quotes, hooked me and the characters made me stay. All the signs of a great read.

I just finished reading it so my thoughts are a jumbled mess, but I loved it. I said in my review that I've been waiting my whole life to read this book, as nonsensical as it sounds. It just hit all the right spots for me, and I think I'll be returning to it many times over because I think there's so much hidden in the layers. It had me from the beginning with the narrator waxing poetic about prologues--I was 100 percent in the entire time.

As for your question--like Amanda said above me, it's hard to answer the question about this book specifically because I adored it. I do think we can appreciate brilliant or important books without thinking the story worth anything ourselves--it's sort of how I feel about a few classics. You can recognize a text's importance or an author's skill without necessarily enjoying it (a bit how I feel about "Mad Max: Fury Road" and quite a few books I had to read as a lit. major)

I don't think she's hitting her mark with her references to Shakespeare and the Greeks which are being thematically heavily relied on, but I think Valente has made a misstep and written these ideas in such a way that you already need to be very familiar with plays such as “The Tempest� to get how it connects. In my case I'm seeing it, but I spent over 15 years as a professional in the theater. It was literally my job to know these plays backwards and forwards and pick apart every thematic detail. I absolutely adore seeing references to these things in pop culture, but in this case I don’t feel like it’s well done.

The line she picked from the Tempest is cropped in a weird place. She gives herself ample opportunity to have Max provide some of the rest of the speech to give the reader a chance at better understanding, but fails to take it. And let's be honest, that quote feels very important. It needs to be better explained. Not just how it became an echo but thematically why it's in the book at all.

I read a couple of responses that say the book made them feel stupid, and I think that its a flaw of the book, not the readers. Let me be clear. I believe you CAN do this kind of thing in a novel, without making the readers feel stupid. What I find frustrating is that Valente is very very close� but not quite drawing all the parts together, and the ragged edges wind up hurting a bit as you reach for meaning and can't quite tease it out.

My other problem is the language itself. It is absolutely beautiful language, and I have highlighted many delightful phrases. But it’s just too consistent. The book seems to be about different points of view, different narratives. In some cases I felt like a strong voice for the character was established (Mary Pellam's Diary entries for example) but in others it all felt too similar. The different points of view as well as the film scripts almost all have the same "Cat Valente" multi-adjective linguistic acrobatics, which over time got in the way of making them feel like they were different things written by different people.

And while the language was often beautiful there were times where the style was florid, but lacking in depth. The fairy tale is the big stand out for me, with its repeating formula of:

“Noun that is not-really-a-noun, but is always an alliterative, aggrandizing, adjectival, noun."

But as often as not the adjectives didn’t actually paint a picture for me or offer more meaning, and were occasionally just odd. They just fulfilled the style choice of having three adjectives all beginning with the same letter in that structure. It was just a wash of pretty words. This is the very definition of style over substance. In the case of the Fairy Tale specifically it might have been fine if those sections of the book had been shorter (as fairy tales often are), but it went on for quite a while and started getting in the way of the larger story.

I realize I sound like I hated the book. I didn't. I'm more frustrated with the book. Because I feel like it is very close to being something much more than a wash of nice language. I in fact suspect that something very beautiful is being overwhelmed by pretty frothy language and would benefit from just a little smattering here and there of simplicity. Just a little. Still being a Cat Valente word-glory book, but letting the theme more clearly through.

''To gild refined gold,
to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet
is just f***ing silly
...Or something like that."

---Tim Minchin (in conjunction with Shakespeare)

The more I use Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ, the more I'm noticing the inconsistencies and discrepancies in my ratings.

I rated Radiance a 'disappointed' three stars. I can tell it's a beautifully written piece of work. Masterful and immersive wordbuilding, a quite compelling alternate take on our solar system, but ultimately very little plot - hence the 'disappointed' tag and a mental 'thumbs down' as I submitted the rating.

In contrast, 'Time and Again' from a few months back I also rated at three stars, but enjoyed the book - whilst acknowledging several of it's faults - and very much gave it a thumbs up in my head.

So, yes, I think you can separate the story from the author's prowess or 'art' and enjoy either for its own sake. Obviously it's best when you enjoy both at the same time - giving that elusive five star experience!

I think, like quite a few people here, I'm torn in my feelings towards this book. I'll try and put it simply:

Beautiful yet boring.

The writer is one of the most skilled I've read in a long while, yet at the end of the day I failed to connect with the characters or plot, and I guess I was looking for a novel as opposed to a book of poetry.

So as an demonstration of the use of English in clever and often beautiful ways: 5 stars

As a novel: 2 stars

Which is a shame because I loved the sound of the setting.

E.J. Xavier wrote: "My other problem is the language itself. It is absolutely beautiful language, and I have highlighted many delightful phrases. But it’s just too consistent. The book seems to be about different points of view, different narratives."

This mirrors my own thoughts exactly. While I can appreciate the prose, I couldn't reconcile that the "noir detective journal" would contain similar phrasing as the "Ingenue's Handbook." Since Valente chose to tell the story via these differing viewpoints, she needed to make each distinct stylistically.

Because many of the viewpoints are supposedly different mediums (an actress' memoir, the film crew's debriefing, and a teleplay of Percival Unck's film), the premise starts to unravel when one digs deep into them. If I didn't misread it, Percival's films are all SILENT films, which means that the journal entries would simply not have been written in this fashion. If this is a "script" for the film, then we should be seeing the text on the cards from the film, which would make it horrifically verbose and unwatchable. Maybe we are to assume that we are reading a novelization or a treatment of the film, but then...we would not have been privy to the tonal shift from noir to gothic.

I'm only roughly 60% of the way through the book. So, maybe this "blurring" of the different viewpoints is Valente's intent, so that the reader cannot distinguish between the fiction of Percival's film and the reality of what happened on Venus. If so, then, kudos. But if not, then I can't help but feel that Valente got so enamored of her own cleverness that the book suffered.

Just finished this book and... I still don't know what to make of it. It's one of those books that feels like hard candy, as in it's really nice if you have a little bit and let it melt slowly, but if you gorge yourself it just makes you feel sick and it's not that fun. Actually I am not sure if this is the ideal book for a book club, it needs a leisurely pace of reading and re-reading, but then I am still not sure if it is worth that time.

I really enjoyed some of the writing style but, as others have pointed out, it seemed to be too homogeneous throughout. We are supposed to have these different narrators, so why do they all sound like they're high on opium?

Plot-wise there wasn't much here, but neither was there supposed to be. This is more of a writing showcase, almost Joycean in its stream-of-thoughtness.

So answering the original question, it is brilliantly written, but even so it should be more varied due to having different narrators. Is it a great book? I don't think so, but it's clearly written by a great writer, am I making sense?

Francisco wrote: "We are supposed to have these different narrators, so why do they all sound like they're high on opium?..."

If I recall, about half of the narrators were high on opium and the other half on cocaine.

I eventually did finish the book (had to read a couple others in the middle) and agree with the sentiment that it was an okay book written by a great writer. The book definitely got easier to read after about the 30% mark, but in the end I just didn't care about the plot.

William wrote: "I think, like quite a few people here, I'm torn in my feelings towards this book. I'll try and put it simply:

Beautiful yet boring.



I'm only a few chapters into the audiobook and it's not a good sign when every time I think about listening to it, I pick something else to listen to instead. It's really dragging.

I did enjoy the short story, but maybe not every short story should be turned into a book.

It seems like what we may be talking about here is prose vs. story. Prose is how the characters, settings and events are described, and story being whether or not we *care* about the characters and events. : )

For a reverse of this situation, I often consider the first Harry Potter novel. When I first read it to find out what the fuss was, I didn't like the prose at all. Yet I found myself turning the page to see what happens next, and ended up enjoying that entire journey. That's the power of story, to me.

Whoa do I ever feel like the odd duck here.

I unabashedly LOVE this novel. Right from the prologue I was hooked with the lush language and that sustained me through the first third of the book which felt REALLY disjointed.

I can see a lot of people not being into this book because it is so fragmented, indirect, and abstruse. Radiance pretzels the brain a bit and some people aren't into that or worry that there won't be a payoff for all that work. For me it paid off big time.

I think Valente has made something truly remarkable for us. Then she made us look at it through a lovely antique mirror. Then she smashed the mirror to pieces. There are pieces missing and some bits are showing at strange angles. You can hate her for it but I think it's mad and brilliant and beautiful.

I think the problem a lot of people are having is finding their home in the novel. Where's point zero? Where are we grounded? And those are difficult questions because Radiance is a novel about perspective. It's about "seeing and being seen". But I think there is an emotional core to the book that saves it from being a case of style over substance or a lot of pretty writing about nothing.

We basically have three primary threads to follow. We have Severin who went to Venus in search of truth. We have Anchises who went to Pluto in search for answers. We have Percy who's spent the last years of his life in search of a story.

All three of these characters and their journeys are obscured and refracted. We see Severin's quest almost only through her own movies and the anecdotes others tell. Anchises we see almost exclusively through Percy's constantly rewritten screenplay. Percy we see through his meetings with Mako wherein he torments himself over how to tell his daughter's story. Then around and between and through these threads we get all sorts of snapshots and fragments that flesh out the characters and their journeys from different angles and viewpoints.

So it's easy to get frustrated with the individual threads. Or to be unsure how they fit together. Or to just get lost staring at Callowhales and the Mad King of Pluto. Totally justifiable.

But I think there is a larger picture and an axis around which everything else revolves. For me that's Percy and his quest to make sense of his daughter's disapperance and to come to terms with his loss.

A large portion of the book finds us experiencing the actual movie that Percy put together along with recordings of his meetings ABOUT the movie.(view spoiler)[ In fact, by the end I think that the bulk of what we are reading is actually Percy's final cut of his movie, the same one we see projected on "ourselves" in the prologue (hide spoiler)] I think that the fractured narrative of the book reflects the fractured nature of Percy's movie. He is Percival searching for the grail (his daughter or maybe just acceptance of his loss) and we see the process of his trying to make sense of it, to create some sort of grand narrative.(view spoiler)[ But of course he fails because there is no end. Can be no end. Just a new beginning as Severin chooses to move forward again (hide spoiler)]

That's my interpretation anyway. Just wanted to throw it out there as one of many ways you can bring it all together.

TL;DR Radiance is a mad/brilliant Tralfamadorian collage about loss, grief and the search for truth painted in planetary romance and silent era film. There IS a good story but not all of the dots are connected and that's kinda part of the story. Or at least that's my story.

I love that you put a TL;DR in there ;-)

All long posts should have one :-)

Tassie Dave wrote: "I love that you put a TL;DR in there ;-)

All long posts should have one :-)"

Yeah, I try not to. It's kind of like admitting that I fanboy'd way too hard and wrote something too long and convoluted for anyone to actually read. My preference is to condense to sane proportions but it's late where I am. Getting into the rambling hours.

Matthew wrote: "That's my interpretation anyway. Just wanted to throw it out there as one of many ways you can bring it all together."

That was a really nice synopsis. Well done. As for me, it never really clicked together until the end, and then I felt like I had worked extra hard and cut myself just a smidge trying to put together the mirror.

I'm glad you loved it. I didn't love it, but I appreciated it.

I read the tl;dr! And I'd forgotten about the Tralfamadorians and had to look them up.

Tralfamadorian collage! Brilliant.

Matthew wrote: "[A super long thing]."

Good analysis Matthew, I agree with you on the book's themes. This book resonated a lot more with me than other Valente novels I've read. I think the few concepts I remembered from that Film Studies 101 class I took a long time ago were useful with this novel.

I loved it too for all the reasons you give.

It doesn't present easy answers (or any), and the narration, as viewed through film, is often unreliable or missing information. As a film nerd, I fell hard for this one.