Review of Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

I recently listened to a podcast in which Catherynne Valente was a guest speaker.  I agreed with many of her opinions about books we have read, but was not impressed by the attitude on display, and when looking into some of her review work, found it often unbalanced and reactionary rather than considered.  I've since discovered her fiction is likewise dynamic.  But what a difference the medium makes.  Example?  Valente's 2012 novella Silently and Very Fast.

Taxonomically undefinable, Silently and Very Fast is a mytho-biblio-fairy tale of science fiction—and that is only the blurry beginning.  Further details are a kaleidoscope.  Multi-layered, multi-textured, and featuring three sections in dialogue with themselves, the story has meaning and substance that appears and reappears at a variety of depths and levels.  One of the characters in the novella has the following to say, and I think it sums up the orientation and structure of the narrative:

“I will explain it in language, and then I will explain it in symbols, and then you will make a symbol showing me what you think I mean, and we will understand each other better than anyone ever has.”

A huge amount of the substance to Silently and Very Fast is the lyrical prose It enhances and makes the epxerience.  Words and sentences roll off the mind’s tongue, Faberge eggs floating in a wine sea of electrodes at sunset.  It's a truly beautiful read.

“A woman who was with child once sat at her window embroidering in winter. Her stitches tugged fine and even, but as she finished the edge of a spray of threaded delphinium, she pricked her finger with her silver needle. She looked out onto the snow and said: I wish for my child to have a mind as stark and wild as the winter, a spirit as clear and fine as my window, and a heart as red and open as my wounded hand.”

Given this jeweled architeccture, describing Silently and Very Fast is an uphill task.  It's light refracts in many directions.  At the heart of the story is the birth of an AI, unpacked through a variety of themes: life, death, beauty, family, and a variety of other typically non-AI concepts.  Things shift temporally, and the allegorical, symbolic, and expository formats present the coming-to-life of a young girl’s technical creation, and the life it gives her in return.  Developing in the real world, a virtual world, and in a land of myth, how the characters flow and transpose through these scenes is breathtaking, a truly magical ride.

Silently and Very Fast is a superb novella that, due to its prosaic nature, is likley to be appreciated more by connosseurs than mainstream readers.  Despite the science fiction veneer, it is a timeless talee evoked through lush imagery.  Exquisitely written, the story has value and meaning beyond the facade, setting it close to the top of what 21st century fiction can be.  Dynamism, under conscious control, can be amazing.