Catskin by Kelly Link, 2003
The magic trick:
Using narrative asides to create a standoffishly frank tone that combines interestingly with the wild and weird fantasy plot
This one starts traditional-weird. Then gets weird-weird. And finishes as sexual-weird.
If that sounds like a journey you’d enjoy, by all means, read this one.
Me? Meh.
I predisposed to be annoyed by the world of fairy tales and fantasy – witches and talking cats and the like. So I’m probably not the best judge.
What I do admire here is the way the story’s narration takes on an arch tone. There are several moments where the narrator breaks from the story to talk directly to the reader.
For example: “You should never poison a witch;” and “And whether they made their way home to the Princess Margaret’s parents, or whether they fell into the hands of thieves, or whether they lived in the briar, or whether the Princess Margaret grew up and kept her promise and rid her kingdom of witches and cats, Small never knew, and neither do I, and neither shall you.”
These asides are often funny. Often they create suspense or move the plot along. And overall I think they create an interesting, almost standoffish tone that pairs nicely with the fantasy story. It’s as if the narrator is implying the whole way, “Yeah, you idiot, don’t even think about not believing what I’m telling you. It’s the truth, and that’s just how it is.”
The sentences are often very short, almost clipped too – like it’s just direct journalistic news reporting.
I don’t love the genre, but I like the way this story is written.
And that’s quite a trick on Link’s part.
The selection:
Are you still reading? The witch, up in her bedroom, was dying. She had been poisoned by an enemy, a witch, a man named Lack. The child Finn, who had been her food taster, was dead already and so were three cats who’d licked her dish clean. The witch knew who had killed her and she snatched pieces of time, here and there, from the business of dying, to make her revenge. Once the question of this revenge had been settled to her satisfaction, the shape of it like a black ball of twine in her head, she began to divide up her estate between her three remaining children.
Flecks of vomit stuck to the corners of her mouth, and there was a basin beside the foot of the bed, which was full of black liquid. The room smelled like cats’ piss and wet matches. The witch panted as if she were giving birth to her own death.
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