mark monday's Reviews > Valerie and Other Stories

These varied stories drawn from various themed collections and deploying a variety of styles also varied dramatically in quality.

I first became aware of the author via his story "Dancing Boy" in A Book of the Sea, which was the highlight of that collection. And so I thought I knew what I'd be getting into when I started this: it would be a collection of psychologically astute, empathetic tales of misunderstood people who are led astray by folklore, the elements, their own poorly understood motivations, other people, the world itself. The writing would be evocative, the themes subtly introduced, the prose precise.

The themes do remain intact; all artists will bring their personal perspectives to their works, and those perspectives are processed via the themes they choose, or that perhaps appear unconsciously. And so Valerie and Other Stories details the journeys of various outsiders, people misunderstood and who lack understanding of their identities. They are led astray or afar by many things: the moon and the woodlands, their emotions and lusts, their faith in other people, the lack of clarity in their own intentions. Fragile things, one and all.

What I didn't expect was how much of a chameleon Insole turned out to be! The man has a wide range of skills, no doubt. I think most of these stories were tailored to reflect the subjects of the collections where they first appeared. And so there are stories about stars and temples, faerie and films, philosophical ideas. The wide differences in both subject matter and story style can be jarring and a bit off-putting. At times, Insole overreaches, and sometimes overwrites.

The differences between three stories were particularly noticeable to me: "The Binding" and "A Blue Dish of Figs" and the title story are all about mortal incursions into strange otherworlds (and vice versa). I felt that the "The Binding" was the more traditional and unsurprising of the three but also the most resonantly mythic, and the most successful. This story of a changeling and her mother who seek to break a cycle of exploitation is perfectly told. "Blue Dish" is more challenging, more experimental in its style, and overall is an absorbing but flawed, at times frustrating piece; it is about a schoolteacher following her fey student into places unknown. And I often quite disliked the stilted, artificial "Valerie" which concerns itself with a haunting childhood friendship (although for some, other readers consider this to be one of the stronger stories). I also was not a fan of Insole's more explicitly referential stories: "The Slaves of Paradise" uses the marvelous film "Children of Paradise" as a starting point and "Salammbô and the Zaïmph" is obviously indebted to Flaubert; I thought both were beautifully written but strained, overdone, and rather pointless.

My favorites were the first and last pieces, "The Binding" noted above, and "Dance for a Winter Moon". "Dance" is a haunting depiction of the cruelty of fate and the perhaps inevitable destiny of those who become part of a culture but in the end, do not truly understand that culture. "The Abdication of the Serpent" channels the master Clark Ashton Smith in its gorgeous descriptions of a fascinating society, the romanticism of its elderly hero's quest, and its almost overripe, hallucinatory dreaminess. And the brilliant "The Hill of Cinders" - the star of the collection - is a novella both mysterious and mordant, perfectly paced, full of dire irony. It is, essentially, about the evils that men may accomplish if nihilism and self-interest are their guides, the cyclical quality of those evils as they reappear again and again throughout time, the lack of understanding within such men of why they do these things, and the ashes of failure that are the appropriate ending for such lives. Curiously enough, fellow readers saw a certain neutrality in this tale that I did not, as if the author perhaps sympathized with the repugnant protagonist and his battle against systems of power, against his home, country, the family of mankind. I did not see any such thing; to me, the moral stance on display was crystalline.

Insole's spiritual interests are decidedly pre-Christian, so I thought I'd amuse myself by using Biblical verses to synopsize each story:

"The Hill of Cinders" - Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

"The Binding" - You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.

"The Slaves of Paradise" - Good were it for that man if he had not been born.

"Dance for a Winter Moon" - The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes.

"A Blue Dish of Figs" - The mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

"Salammbô and the Zaïmph of Tanit" - For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality...

"Dreams from the Apple Orchards" - Put no trust in a neighbor; have no confidence in a friend; guard the doors...

"Valerie" - Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me.

"The Abdication of the Serpent" - For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

A totally trifling thing I noticed: the author repeatedly uses the image of saliva running from mouth to pillow as a way to denote a debauched or deluded character. C'mon, Colin! Doesn't everybody drool in their sleep? At least a little bit?