SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine: https://t.co/sJyyRmAYTx
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 30, 2022
Short Review: 9.5 out of 10 - A fascinating grim but hopeful novel featuring a circus traveling across a wartorn future land...a circus of performers who...
1/3
Short Review (cont): are magically fused with mechanical parts, such as a man with wings, or a man who is a trapeeze, or who even is a piano. A fascinatingly told dystopian novel dealing with traumas, solitude, belonging, and more. Really really good.
— Josh (garik16) (@garik16) December 30, 2022
2/3
Mechanique is a novel by Genevieve Valentine, an author more known for her work in comics than in novel-writing. I actually really liked Valentine's more recent (but still a few years back) duology, Persona/Icon, which did some really interesting things with a setting dealing with fame and papparazzi. Valentine hasn't written a novel since that duology (around 2016) but this earlier work came to my attention when NK Jemisin (one of my favorite authors) recommended it in a recent interview as a favorite of hers.
And Mechanique is a really fascinating, and perhaps phenomenal novel, which deserves greater attention. The novel takes place in a dystopian post-apocalyptic (perhaps?) world, in a land where there is constant conflict and upheaval, and follows a circus as it travels across this land trying to avoid conflict and just put on a show. But not just any circus, but a circus made up of people who are impossibly part mechanical, like a man crossed with a piano or a trapeeze, who live only through the work of the circus' magical boss. The story is told through a sort of third person omniscient viewpoint that jumps back and forth in terms of its perspective, and it works really well to tell a story of traumas, solitude, belonging, and more in a time where the only way back to normalcy may be the tragic governing of the monstrous.
TRIGGER WARNING: Suicide, Torture, Suicidal Ideation, and more. All topics are dealt with reasonably and are not gratuitous, but you should be warned this is a serious book dealing with some real tragedies.
-----------------------------------------Plot Summary--------------------------------------------------
The Circus Tresaulti goes from town to town, almost never going to the same town or city twice, going on decades at a time. It tours a war-torn land, where government after government is overthrown brutally, and attempts to spread joy with its various acts: like its piano man the Pananadrome, its tumblers the Grimaldi Brother, its strong man Ayar, its aerialist trapeze-artists, its mechanical man Jonah, its dancing girls, and once its Flying Man Alec. Its a circus unlike any other - for its performers are not quite human and not quite living, but instead are beings whose bodies are combined with mechanical parts who have been breathed into living by its master, the old weary woman known as The Boss.
The Boss only takes in those who are broken to offer them the parts to become part of the show, forming a community that always lives on edge together in a dangerous land. But its a community that belongs to each other as it brings joy to people across the land, one observed by George, the wholly human boy who puts up signs for the Circus in every new City.
Yet things are about to change for the Circus and will test its ability to stay together like never before. For two new performers are vying to be the new bearers of the most special mechanical parts of all, the Wings that once allowed the Flying Man to fly high in the air, and their conflict may throw things into jeopardy. And even more dangerously, the Circus has come to the attention of a new Government Man, one interested in the secrets behind the Boss' creations, and who intends to use them for his own ends even if it means the end of the Circus....
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Mechanique is told in a fascinating way that is very different. The story is told in third person omniscient, in narration that at times seems to know where the story is going despite telling the story in the present, and at other times is telling the story in actual flashbacks. The story does have a central character in some respects - George, the boy/young man who has grown up with the circus and puts signs up in every new city - but jumps perspectives constantly in its telling, because the real central character is the Circus and the community it has formed itself.
And its a community of people who have suffered severe traumas, as the Boss explains she only does what she does to people who are broken and isn't interested in those who might be whole, even to the point of turning away human capable circus performers who want to try out. There's a physical reason for that - the Boss is literally killing each performer before magically restoring them to life in their new forms - which works metaphorically as well, but even with the new bodies the beings that result still suffer from their past histories and traumas. And that's how the entire circus works really, with everyone wearing who they are and what they need literally as well as metaphorically, whether that makes them visibly mechanical, death defyingly being tossed through the air, or most specially...flying through the air on wings, wings that seemingly promise freedom but are literally built on the bones and tragedies of others. Naturally those wings are the most sought after of all, even though that construction led to their prior wielder essentially committing suicide by falling to the ground.
We see this all through George largely, as he is somewhat innocent and the only non-broken part of the Circus (so the Boss refuses to remake him into an act). And the result is a story that is always interesting even as it is dark and tragic, with the whole circus having tremendous life and character even if certain individual members don't get much exploration except as part of a group. And then conflict comes with the Government Man, who has taken over from the last regime and wants to use the Boss' powers for military ends. And even there there's tragedy from it all, because the Government Man really can make a better world if he put his eyes to it, one in which the Circus would not be necessary, but the Government Man can only see the ideas of power and military in it all.
Its a book that's dark in its tone, but despite all the tragic aspects it does end on a potentially more happy note, even as not all of its tragic characters do get to find happiness, and the love found by some is lost by others. I really am doing a poor job at expressing some of the wonder of what goes on here, because really this is a book that is very worthy of your time and this review only scratches the surface. A very deserving recommendation.
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