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(More customer reviews)"Insect Dreams" by author Rosalind Palermo Stevenson is a wondrous work of fiction, now anthologized in both Poe's Children (Random House), and Trampoline (Small Beers Press), plus standing on its own as an exquisitely designed novella (Rain Mountain Press).
The almost Pre-Raphaelite vividness of the prose details the journey of naturalist Maria Sybilla Merian (a real historical figure, 1647 - 1717). Merian travels from her native Holland to Surinam in South America to study the larvae of moths and butterflies as they transition from one state to the next. Her passionate quest expands, as she aspires to know the many forms of life she encounters in the exotic new world. Below is an example of the work's majestic prose:
"There are creatures that no one has ever seen. Creatures that have not been classified, counted, entered in the journals and the record books of science, whose shapes defy the patterns of logical construction, whose colors are as if from other worlds, self-regenerating, pure, infinite complexity and variety, sketched by God, painted by angels, life miraculously breathed into them, life, alive, free, that no one has ever seen, that she, she must see."
---Patricia Lynne Duffy
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Rosalind Palermo Stevenson's Insect Dreams is a stunning story, half historical fiction, half fever dream in which the noted naturalist Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) travels from Holland to Surinam in South America. What brings her to the New World is a passion for the unknown: There are creatures that no one has seen. Creatures that have not been classified, counted, entered in the journals and the record books of science, whose shapes defy the patterns of logical construction, whose colors are as if from other worlds, self-regenerating, pure, infinite complexity and variety, sketched by God, painted by angels, life miraculously breathed into them, life, alive, free, that no one has seen, that she, she must see. The juxtaposition of memories from Holland, the interjection of the slave trade, Merian s explorations in the New World, possible love, possible impossible beasts, form a vast yet condensed canvas, told in the most sensuous language. Merian is in love with the details of the world, and so is Stevenson.Jeff VanderMeer, Locus OnLine
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