Check this out:

Beautiful? Grotesque? Both? Eye-catching for sure. Would you pick this book off the shelf if it were presented face out? I would, but I’m not sure whether I might also wince slightly. I’m not sure whether I’m coming down on the “beautiful” or “grotesque” side here. This is aside from not being very interested in short stories, generally speaking.

The author of this book says this:

I love words. This is why I wrote Tales of the Wythenwood. Now, saying I love words may seem odd, perhaps more usual would be the maxims we often hear from writers. I love writing, I love being creative, I love fantasy, sci-fi, intergalactic cat literature…take your pick. Now, for me, all of these are more than true (bar the cat thing), but the overriding factor that underpins all that drove me to write this book is a lifelong love affair with words. Words aren’t just functional units of language used to communicate meaning, they are alive, like music they have rhythm, tone, tempo—a living pulse. I find that thinking of words in this way has sadly become a rarity in modern literature.

Is that true? I talk about words that way! Or, more often, sentences. Words have rhythm in a sense, I suppose, as long as you mean words like “onomatopoeia” and not words like “crisp.” Single-syllable words have rhythm in sentences, but can a single beat have rhythm by itself? I would say no. Notice that I’m now talking about words in exactly the way Hawkins says has become rare. Has that actually become rare? Among writers? I don’t know. I do know that Sharon Shinn and I once had a nice chat about where we each learned the word “chatoyant” and we wouldn’t have bothered having a conversation about a boring word like “fall,” a word that is interesting only in phrases or sentences.

However, beats me what Hawkins considers “modern literature.”

Tales of the Wythenwood is a collection of dark, allegorical fantasy stories set in a mysterious fairytale forest—The Wythenwood. It has five short stories and a novella, each visiting different themes that mirror the world in which we live with new characters introduced in each yet interconnected by the lore and worldbuilding of the forest. Great Oak, an omnipotent power, hatches plans to crush dissent. Injured Desideria is helped by a mysterious creature—but what is its real intent? The Taker of Faces stalks the night for her next victim. Will this be the one that sates her need and provides all that she craves? Indoli, a benevolent master of manipulation learns the consequences of teaching his ways too well—and soon the fate of the entire wood is at stake.

Well, I don’t know. “Dark allegorical” are not necessarily words that make me want to pick up the collection.

The first story of this collection is called “Gerald the Mangy Fox,” which for me is something of a turnoff. Here’s how this story begins:

There once was a forest and in that forest creatures innumerate dwelt. There were mice, there were owls, badgers, rats, wolves, and that could imaginably live within a forest. Yet no forest would be worthy of a story unless upon occasion the flash of a bushy tail, bright and orange, could be seen among the undergrowth. The Wythenwood is one such forest.

The forest thrived; its sprawling trees and canopy left the forest floor dark and shadowy and full of the shadowy nooks and crannies that foxes love so dearly. So, amongst the tangle of roots at the feet of the age-old trees lay the mouths of one hundred and one subterranean dens — the homes of the foxes.

Not all that keen, personally. Partly this is because when someone begins by talking about the poetry of words, I’m going to be looking hard at the words. In my opinion, Mark Helprin, for example, infuses poetry into his sentences much more effectively than Hawkins.

How about that, Helprin’s A Soldier of the Great War is $2.99 today — down from $17.99. Fine, Amazon, twist my arm. Here’s how this one begins:

On the ninth of August, 1964, Rome lay asleep in afternoon light as the sun swirled in a blinding pinwheel above its roofs, its low hills, and its gilded domes. The city was quiet and all was still except the crowns of a few slightly swaying pines, one lost and tentative cloud, and an old man who rushed through the Villa Borghese, alone. Limping along paths of crushed stone and tapping his cane as he took each step, he raced across intricacies of sunlight and shadow spread before him on the dark garden floor like golden lace.

That’s the one I’m picking up.

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