SciFi Novella Review: The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

 


The Past is Red by Catherynne M. Valente


The Past is Red is a Hugo nominated novella from Hugo Winner Catherynne M. Valente, and really an expansion of a prior novelette by Valente (The Future is Blue).  Valente's work is very hit or miss for me - it's often marked by really clever wordplay and outrageous dialogue/happenings for comedy, but also often includes fairy tail subversions alongside such things.  In longer form, like her Hugo Nominated Novel Space Opera, I've found it too much for me.  In shorter form, like in a few anthologies, I've found these works really good.  

The Past is novella length and managed to work really well for me, with its ridiculous story feeling like a modern ecological sci-fi version of Candide.  The story features a girl named Tetley who lives in our ruined Earth, in Garbagetown, who takes for granted how ridiculously fucked up the world is after the "fuckwits" ruined it all and forced everyone to live on basically garbage and ridiculousness - a girl who refused to believe in false hope and was shunned for it, even as she tried to maintain a happy face.  The first half of the story is the original novelette, with the new addition finishing out the novella, and it all works really well, even with how ridiculous it is, to parody with happy ridiculousness how human selfishness is destroying our world....and how the privileged will never recognize that fact while those without privilege will be left only to hope for something better that will never come....

Quick Plot Summary:  In the future, the world is covered with two things: Water and Garbage and other Objects left behind by the Fuckwits who ruined the planet.  Land is a myth, hoped for by the survivors, but never seen.  But for Tetley, a girl who grows up in the place known as Garbagetown, this world and what remains is everything she needs to be happy, a wonderful place where every small thing is something to discover and love.  Tetley wasn't loved by her parents, and her brother abandoned her, but that doesn't matter, because Garbagetown and what she has is wonderful.  Even if, for one mistake of reality, Tetley is now the most hated person in Garbagetown, just because she did something for the sake of the one she dared to love.....

Thoughts:  The Past is Red is essentially a modern ecological Sci-Fi version of Candide, as Tetley is an eternally (at least outwardly) optimistic and looking-on-the-bright-side type character despite the world she lives in being objectively horrible, with words like "fuckwits" thrown out as common parlance to describe those who ruined the world, and profanities and ridiculous language and ideas being thrown around all over the place....but always in Tetley's cheery voice.  It could be grating, but the contrast between Tetley's outward happiness and her own inward sadness works really well, and really illustrates how terrifying this future we are heading towards could actually be.  

And that's helped by Tetley's experiences - here is a girl who looks for the positive in everything but whom is also a realist about things that aren't there, as she refuses to hope for things that aren't there instead of enjoying the present...something that nearly everyone else can't do.  And so in the second half of the story, where she discovers people who have come up with a way to try and ignore the parts of the world that cause them pain instead of enjoying those parts is kind of heartbreaking (especially one such thing...and to be fair, Valente plays a little of this for laughs).  Even more so with the story's twist finale, which just shoves the knife in as to how awful the fuckwits were in ruining this world, and just makes Tetley's outward happiness even more sad.  

So yeah, a dark vulgar satire dealing with the ecological disaster we're causing this very moment - The Past is Red is very worth your time and worthy of its Hugo Nomination.