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Mythago Wood #2
Lavondyss
A haunting entry in the World Fantasy Award-winning Mythago Cycle
In Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock gave us an intricate world spun from the stories of Irish and English mythology, a great forest steeped in mystery and legend, whose heart contains secrets that will change all who behold them.
Young Tallis is one such seeker. When she was just an infant, she lost her brother Harry to Ryhope Wood. Her adolescent fancies now cause her to suspect that he is still alive---and in grave danger. Tallis follows Harry into the primal Otherworld armed only with magic, masks, and clues left by her grandfather. Eventually the primitive forest gives way to Lavondyss itself, a fascinating and terrible realm where she is forced to confront the mythagos, physical manifestations of the legends of humanity's collective unconscious.
Join Tallis on her quest into the ultimate unknown, and be invited into one of the finest and most compelling mythologies you will ever encounter.
In Mythago Wood, Robert Holdstock gave us an intricate world spun from the stories of Irish and English mythology, a great forest steeped in mystery and legend, whose heart contains secrets that will change all who behold them.
Young Tallis is one such seeker. When she was just an infant, she lost her brother Harry to Ryhope Wood. Her adolescent fancies now cause her to suspect that he is still alive---and in grave danger. Tallis follows Harry into the primal Otherworld armed only with magic, masks, and clues left by her grandfather. Eventually the primitive forest gives way to Lavondyss itself, a fascinating and terrible realm where she is forced to confront the mythagos, physical manifestations of the legends of humanity's collective unconscious.
Join Tallis on her quest into the ultimate unknown, and be invited into one of the finest and most compelling mythologies you will ever encounter.
414 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1988
108 people are currently reading
2370 people want to read
About the author
Robert Holdstock
99 books400 followersRobert Paul Holdstock was an English novelist and author who is best known for his works of fantasy literature, predominantly in the fantasy subgenre of mythic fiction.
Holdstock's writing was first published in 1968. His science fiction and fantasy works explore philosophical, psychological, anthropological, spiritual, and woodland themes. He has received three BSFA awards and won the World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Novel in 1985.
Pseudonyms are Chris Carlsen, Robert Faulcon,Robert Black, Steven Eisler and Richard Kirk.
Holdstock's writing was first published in 1968. His science fiction and fantasy works explore philosophical, psychological, anthropological, spiritual, and woodland themes. He has received three BSFA awards and won the World Fantasy Award in the category of Best Novel in 1985.
Pseudonyms are Chris Carlsen, Robert Faulcon,Robert Black, Steven Eisler and Richard Kirk.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 212 reviews
June 4, 2011
ANNOUNCEMENT TO FELLOW BOOK PROSPECTORS: Literary GOLD has been discovered....
I am NOT hyperbolizing when I say that Robert Holdstock was a very special writer and his Mythago Wood Cycle is something unique and extraordinary in the world of adult fantasy, specifically mythical fiction. Like the “mythagos” of his stories, I consider Holdstock to be an archetypal figure representing the truly literate fantasy writers who steal our breath away and unleash our imagination with their eloquent, masterly prose. Those writers that we love but at the same time make us feel like children because we know we can never even approach their level of skill.
Lavondyss is Holdstock at the peak of the summit of the top of his considerable game. Before I continue, I do want to caution potential readers of the following: as beautiful as the prose is, this is not an easy read and will take a commitment on the part of the reader….but it is SO WORTH IT!. As soon as I finished this book, I knew that I was going to have to read it again because the central concepts, the story arc and details are so complex, nuanced and subtle that a lot can be (and in my case probably was) missed the first time around. Even if I absorbed only a tenth of what was there…what a singular reading experience!!.
I am probably going to do a poor job describing the framework of the story but here goes. The concept behind the Mythago Wood Cycle is that there is an ancient forest in England that has existed since man first settled there. Mythago Wood (and several other places like it around the world) acts as a sort of “nexus” through which contact with different… call them "places" can occur (i.e. planes of existence, realms of the multiverse or what have you). These places are the physical manifestation of the collective unconscious of mankind (dust off your Carl Jung and you will have the idea). These places are accessible only by certain gifted and sensitive individuals and time and distance are very fluid so you never know what might be just up ahead.
In these "places" dwell or are created "archetypal" figures (called Mythagos) that have been represented throughout history by characters of legend from mankind's collective myths. For example, heroes like King Arthur, Hercules, Odin, etc., are all shadows or aspects of the Mythago representing “the outsider who through his talents grew to become a hunter, then a warrior, then a king and brought new magic or radical change to a people.” Thus, the Mythagos reflect the underlying concepts from which our collective myths originate rather than the well known reflections of those myths that populate our most famous stories.
I know…it is a bit confusing and I am probably doing a crap nasty job of it.
As original and thought-provoking as the central concept is, what really makes the story shine is the superbaliciously, beautiful prose of Holdstock. He is maestro like and reminds me a lot of Guy Gavriel Kay at his best (another author who I really like). If you have never read Holdstock, I strongly recommend that you read Mythago Wood and this book.
As I mentioned above, these are not easy reads. This is especially true for this novel as it raises the bar considerably on the complexity and nuance that is only hinted at in Mythago Wood. I intend to re-read both this and Mythago Wood at some point as I think the enjoyment of the story may actually be better the second time around. For now, all I can say is that this was one of those truly special reading experiences that do not come along very often. 6.0 STARS. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!
Winner: British Science Fiction Award
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
I am NOT hyperbolizing when I say that Robert Holdstock was a very special writer and his Mythago Wood Cycle is something unique and extraordinary in the world of adult fantasy, specifically mythical fiction. Like the “mythagos” of his stories, I consider Holdstock to be an archetypal figure representing the truly literate fantasy writers who steal our breath away and unleash our imagination with their eloquent, masterly prose. Those writers that we love but at the same time make us feel like children because we know we can never even approach their level of skill.
Lavondyss is Holdstock at the peak of the summit of the top of his considerable game. Before I continue, I do want to caution potential readers of the following: as beautiful as the prose is, this is not an easy read and will take a commitment on the part of the reader….but it is SO WORTH IT!. As soon as I finished this book, I knew that I was going to have to read it again because the central concepts, the story arc and details are so complex, nuanced and subtle that a lot can be (and in my case probably was) missed the first time around. Even if I absorbed only a tenth of what was there…what a singular reading experience!!.
I am probably going to do a poor job describing the framework of the story but here goes. The concept behind the Mythago Wood Cycle is that there is an ancient forest in England that has existed since man first settled there. Mythago Wood (and several other places like it around the world) acts as a sort of “nexus” through which contact with different… call them "places" can occur (i.e. planes of existence, realms of the multiverse or what have you). These places are the physical manifestation of the collective unconscious of mankind (dust off your Carl Jung and you will have the idea). These places are accessible only by certain gifted and sensitive individuals and time and distance are very fluid so you never know what might be just up ahead.
In these "places" dwell or are created "archetypal" figures (called Mythagos) that have been represented throughout history by characters of legend from mankind's collective myths. For example, heroes like King Arthur, Hercules, Odin, etc., are all shadows or aspects of the Mythago representing “the outsider who through his talents grew to become a hunter, then a warrior, then a king and brought new magic or radical change to a people.” Thus, the Mythagos reflect the underlying concepts from which our collective myths originate rather than the well known reflections of those myths that populate our most famous stories.
I know…it is a bit confusing and I am probably doing a crap nasty job of it.
As original and thought-provoking as the central concept is, what really makes the story shine is the superbaliciously, beautiful prose of Holdstock. He is maestro like and reminds me a lot of Guy Gavriel Kay at his best (another author who I really like). If you have never read Holdstock, I strongly recommend that you read Mythago Wood and this book.
As I mentioned above, these are not easy reads. This is especially true for this novel as it raises the bar considerably on the complexity and nuance that is only hinted at in Mythago Wood. I intend to re-read both this and Mythago Wood at some point as I think the enjoyment of the story may actually be better the second time around. For now, all I can say is that this was one of those truly special reading experiences that do not come along very often. 6.0 STARS. HIGHEST POSSIBLE RECOMMENDATION!!
Winner: British Science Fiction Award
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel
January 18, 2013
2.5 - 3 stars (downgraded from a previous 5)
I am not quite sure where my previous 5-star rating for this book came from. I love Holdstock’s Mythago Wood, but on this re-read I found the second book of the Mythago cycle to be a sl-o-o-o-w burn which unfortunately never really seemed to ignite. I may simply not have been in the mood for this book at this time, but I think it’s more than that. There are significant pacing issues that drag the book down and Holdstock’s desire to both go deeper into the meaning of Ryhope Wood and also maintain an air of mystery and the unknown for as long as possible seem to work against each other.
Instead of being a direct sequel to Mythago Wood we are told the story of Tallis Keeton, the half-sister of a secondary character from the first book (Harry Keeton), who seems to have been marked in some way by the magical wood that swallowed the Huxley family years before. Eventually we also come to meet Edward Wynne-Jones, the former collaborator of George Huxley who was also tangentially mentioned in the first volume, but no resolution to the stories of Christian and Stephen Huxley is to be found. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but I don’t think Tallis was a strong enough character to support the book (at least not the ponderous first half of it) and ultimately I think that the book Holdstock gives us ends up being all build-up with relatively little pay-off. There doesn’t even seem to be any real action until more than half-way through the book and even then calling it ‘action’ is a bit of a misnomer. Granted Holdstock is writing a more cerebral take on fantasy (literally so since the wood itself, the main magical element of the tales, is all about the manifestation of the myth-images from our collective unconscious), but much of what we are told is not new for any reader coming to the story from volume one and the story of Tallis’ childhood spent under the ever increasing sway of the wood starts to drag as Holdstock dwells on far too much detail with significant repetition. Alas Holdstock seemed to be trying to structure the story as though it was a mystery with a gradual (and I mean *very* gradual) build-up of tension and parsing out of knowledge. Unfortunately a lot of the mystery just wasn’t present for me (perhaps because I was a re-reader, but also I think because if you’ve read the first volume you *know* what the wood is about so a lot of the mysterious elements and slow build seemed highly unnecessary). In the end I think that half the time spent showing us Tallis’ childhood could have been cut/reduced without any reduction in the facts learned.
In a nutshell we witness the birth and first years of Harry Keeton’s half-sister Tallis who grows up on a farm located near the mysterious Ryhope Wood under the shadow of Harry’s strange disappearance when she was only four years old. Having read the first book we know where it is that Harry went, but Tallis only slowly comes to understand this as she is apparently taken under the wing of tutelary mythagos and ‘trained’ by them to become something of an avatar for the forces of the wood (or at least for some of them, the eldritch presences spawned by the wood apparently always being in conflict). This then spins out into a tale of tragic love, divided allegiances, and the quest for the mythical Heart of the Wood, where all of the characters hope that their desires will be granted and questions answered. Of course it’s not as easy as that and the true nature of the wood’s heart, which mirrors the deepest and darkest levels of the human psyche, may be much more perilous than anyone imagines.
One other thing that really bugged me, but that turned out to be more of a nit-pick in the long run, was the characterization of Tallis’ parents. It revolved around their utter powerlessness in the face of Tallis’ growing strangeness and apparent inability to do anything at all resembling a responsible parental action. This is an ever-present danger when using very young characters as your heroes, especially when you are not writing a YA novel. In a YA story I might be more willing to accept that the genre itself demands that the young child-hero Tallis have parents who are little more than feckless spectators whose useless obstructions are easily overcome. In a novel meant for adults, however, I would generally expect a somewhat more responsible, and conceivably effective (or at least proactive), response from her parents. Instead we see them apparently accept the changes and behaviour in her that, seen from the outside and with the lens of any ‘normal’ parent, would seem to be a descent into psychosis and mental illness without interfering in her ‘adventures’ and it rang particularly false. Given the fact that her father had already lost one child to Ryhope is it really likely that he will sit idly by while his daughter also seems to come under the sway of the wood with little more than a feeble complaints and disagreements? Granted that her father’s father was known to have a strange relationship with the wood and perhaps her family is thus more inclined to accept it as something other than mental illness, but I still had my suspension of disbelief strongly strained (perhaps due to the fact that I am now a parent) by the thought that any parent would let their child freely fall into the strange behaviours that the wood prompts in Tallis with little more than a concerned look and occasional ‘disagreements’.
So a fair amount of disappointment for me on this re-read, though I will readily admit that Holdstock still manages to work with his mythic material in an effective and fascinating way. The resolution to the story is as ambiguous and circular as was the one from the first volume…I haven’t yet read further in the Mythago cycle (and must admit to being less inclined to now), but I hope that Holdstock managed to overcome his desire to keep spinning out the mystery and supplied some real answers, or at least resolutions, to the still hanging threads of the story of Ryhope Wood.
I am not quite sure where my previous 5-star rating for this book came from. I love Holdstock’s Mythago Wood, but on this re-read I found the second book of the Mythago cycle to be a sl-o-o-o-w burn which unfortunately never really seemed to ignite. I may simply not have been in the mood for this book at this time, but I think it’s more than that. There are significant pacing issues that drag the book down and Holdstock’s desire to both go deeper into the meaning of Ryhope Wood and also maintain an air of mystery and the unknown for as long as possible seem to work against each other.
Instead of being a direct sequel to Mythago Wood we are told the story of Tallis Keeton, the half-sister of a secondary character from the first book (Harry Keeton), who seems to have been marked in some way by the magical wood that swallowed the Huxley family years before. Eventually we also come to meet Edward Wynne-Jones, the former collaborator of George Huxley who was also tangentially mentioned in the first volume, but no resolution to the stories of Christian and Stephen Huxley is to be found. This isn’t necessarily a problem, but I don’t think Tallis was a strong enough character to support the book (at least not the ponderous first half of it) and ultimately I think that the book Holdstock gives us ends up being all build-up with relatively little pay-off. There doesn’t even seem to be any real action until more than half-way through the book and even then calling it ‘action’ is a bit of a misnomer. Granted Holdstock is writing a more cerebral take on fantasy (literally so since the wood itself, the main magical element of the tales, is all about the manifestation of the myth-images from our collective unconscious), but much of what we are told is not new for any reader coming to the story from volume one and the story of Tallis’ childhood spent under the ever increasing sway of the wood starts to drag as Holdstock dwells on far too much detail with significant repetition. Alas Holdstock seemed to be trying to structure the story as though it was a mystery with a gradual (and I mean *very* gradual) build-up of tension and parsing out of knowledge. Unfortunately a lot of the mystery just wasn’t present for me (perhaps because I was a re-reader, but also I think because if you’ve read the first volume you *know* what the wood is about so a lot of the mysterious elements and slow build seemed highly unnecessary). In the end I think that half the time spent showing us Tallis’ childhood could have been cut/reduced without any reduction in the facts learned.
In a nutshell we witness the birth and first years of Harry Keeton’s half-sister Tallis who grows up on a farm located near the mysterious Ryhope Wood under the shadow of Harry’s strange disappearance when she was only four years old. Having read the first book we know where it is that Harry went, but Tallis only slowly comes to understand this as she is apparently taken under the wing of tutelary mythagos and ‘trained’ by them to become something of an avatar for the forces of the wood (or at least for some of them, the eldritch presences spawned by the wood apparently always being in conflict). This then spins out into a tale of tragic love, divided allegiances, and the quest for the mythical Heart of the Wood, where all of the characters hope that their desires will be granted and questions answered. Of course it’s not as easy as that and the true nature of the wood’s heart, which mirrors the deepest and darkest levels of the human psyche, may be much more perilous than anyone imagines.
One other thing that really bugged me, but that turned out to be more of a nit-pick in the long run, was the characterization of Tallis’ parents. It revolved around their utter powerlessness in the face of Tallis’ growing strangeness and apparent inability to do anything at all resembling a responsible parental action. This is an ever-present danger when using very young characters as your heroes, especially when you are not writing a YA novel. In a YA story I might be more willing to accept that the genre itself demands that the young child-hero Tallis have parents who are little more than feckless spectators whose useless obstructions are easily overcome. In a novel meant for adults, however, I would generally expect a somewhat more responsible, and conceivably effective (or at least proactive), response from her parents. Instead we see them apparently accept the changes and behaviour in her that, seen from the outside and with the lens of any ‘normal’ parent, would seem to be a descent into psychosis and mental illness without interfering in her ‘adventures’ and it rang particularly false. Given the fact that her father had already lost one child to Ryhope is it really likely that he will sit idly by while his daughter also seems to come under the sway of the wood with little more than a feeble complaints and disagreements? Granted that her father’s father was known to have a strange relationship with the wood and perhaps her family is thus more inclined to accept it as something other than mental illness, but I still had my suspension of disbelief strongly strained (perhaps due to the fact that I am now a parent) by the thought that any parent would let their child freely fall into the strange behaviours that the wood prompts in Tallis with little more than a concerned look and occasional ‘disagreements’.
So a fair amount of disappointment for me on this re-read, though I will readily admit that Holdstock still manages to work with his mythic material in an effective and fascinating way. The resolution to the story is as ambiguous and circular as was the one from the first volume…I haven’t yet read further in the Mythago cycle (and must admit to being less inclined to now), but I hope that Holdstock managed to overcome his desire to keep spinning out the mystery and supplied some real answers, or at least resolutions, to the still hanging threads of the story of Ryhope Wood.
May 20, 2012
Rating: 2.5* of five (p79)
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG
As good as Mythago Wood was, that is how good this book wasn't.
I turned for home again after that. Here, we are defining “home” as a gin bottle, a vermouth atomizer, and an icy cold shaker.
For anyone still even slightly awake, Harry's sister Tallis goes into the wood to rescue him. (See last book.) Total snore. Don't care, don't want to read one more word about Ryhope Wood, and that is a crime. It's one of the most fascinating ideas I've read in a long time.
And it just got goobered on. Damn! Blast! Hate that hate it hate it hate it!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG
As good as Mythago Wood was, that is how good this book wasn't.
”I can't replace it,” Tallis called. “If it hasn't grown back then it wasn't meant to grow back. What can I do? I can't stick it back on. It's mine, now. The tine belongs to me, You can't be angry. Please don't be angry.”
Broken Boy roared. The sound carried across the land. It drowned the somber tone of the Shadoxhurst bell. It marked the end of the encounter.
The stag walked out of sight across the hill.
Tallis did not follow. Rather, she stood for a while, and only when darkness made the woods fade to black did she turn for home again.”
I turned for home again after that. Here, we are defining “home” as a gin bottle, a vermouth atomizer, and an icy cold shaker.
For anyone still even slightly awake, Harry's sister Tallis goes into the wood to rescue him. (See last book.) Total snore. Don't care, don't want to read one more word about Ryhope Wood, and that is a crime. It's one of the most fascinating ideas I've read in a long time.
And it just got goobered on. Damn! Blast! Hate that hate it hate it hate it!
Read
April 22, 2019If the very thought of wandering through a world of Carl Gustav Jung's archetypes generated from your imagination in a forest is enough for you to want to skip and click your heels together then this is the book for you. Hugely impressive the first time that I read it - the traditional fantasy quest is here transformed into a quest through the subconscious. A subconscious that teems with archetypes, in fact with an archaeology of archetypes, since as the child-heroine grows to adulthood within the collective mythological unconscious she journeys back in time towards more basic and fundamental archetypes in an attempt to find her long lost brother.
Here there is much to enjoy about how myths shape our thinking and how by accepting or rejecting the patterns laid out in myths we accept their influence over the pattern of our lives.
From the end of the novel looking back over your reading you can see that the author has worked with very familiar literary archetypes such as the quest, the Bildungsroman, the child stumbling into an alternate fantasy world and myths to create something distinctive and different. Although from another point of view this is the same old mineral water, just with a twist of lime.
Here there is much to enjoy about how myths shape our thinking and how by accepting or rejecting the patterns laid out in myths we accept their influence over the pattern of our lives.
From the end of the novel looking back over your reading you can see that the author has worked with very familiar literary archetypes such as the quest, the Bildungsroman, the child stumbling into an alternate fantasy world and myths to create something distinctive and different. Although from another point of view this is the same old mineral water, just with a twist of lime.
February 3, 2016
Ryhope Wood in Hertfordshire, England is where myth comes alive. It draws images from the dreams and the collective unconscious of human beings and produces beings called Mythagos: heroes, shamans, fantastic beasts and beautiful damsels from the primordial depths of the psyche, walking about in flesh and blood. Robert Holdstock, award-winning author of Mythago Wood, follows up the first tale of his fantastic realm with an even more daring one: a journey to The Old Forbidden Place, Lavondyss, where all myth is generated.
Rivetting stuff, right?
Wrong.
Lavondyss is one large snooze-fest. The story opens with a bang, then stays exactly where it is. The background is lovingly created, and we get to know more and more about the inner workings of Ryhope Wood and the location of Lavondyss: but Tallis Keeton's journey in search of her lost brother Harry (lost in Mythago Wood) just does not take off.
As the story progresses, it begins to sound more and more like a notebook on world-building or a treatise: there is precious little action. And what there is, is disjointed. The story takes a huge leap between part one and two, and it is some time before the reader comes to grip with all that has happened in between. Holdstock's prose is good-one only hopes he had put it to better use.
The two stars are for the world the author has created. I honestly cannot give any stars to the story - whatever there is!
Rivetting stuff, right?
Wrong.
Lavondyss is one large snooze-fest. The story opens with a bang, then stays exactly where it is. The background is lovingly created, and we get to know more and more about the inner workings of Ryhope Wood and the location of Lavondyss: but Tallis Keeton's journey in search of her lost brother Harry (lost in Mythago Wood) just does not take off.
As the story progresses, it begins to sound more and more like a notebook on world-building or a treatise: there is precious little action. And what there is, is disjointed. The story takes a huge leap between part one and two, and it is some time before the reader comes to grip with all that has happened in between. Holdstock's prose is good-one only hopes he had put it to better use.
The two stars are for the world the author has created. I honestly cannot give any stars to the story - whatever there is!
July 23, 2009
ORIGINALLY POSTED AT Fantasy Literature.
Many times I don't like sequels because there's nothing new to learn. Authors tend to give us all of their world-building in the first novel, so I'm often bored by a sequel. But Lavondyss blew my mind. It is, I have no doubt, one of the best fantasy novels ever written.
In Mythago Wood, Harry Keeton entered the forest with Steven and he's been there for years. We got the sense back then that Harry had some secret personal purpose for going in — it wasn't just to help Steven. His sister Tallis remembers him leaving when she was four years old. Her parents are distressed and assume he's dead. When Tallis hears what she believes is a communication from Harry and starts interacting with the wood, her parents think she's gone batty. But Tallis is determined to bring Harry home.
Lavondyss may be the perfect fantasy novel. First of all, it's written in Robert Holdstock's beautiful style. I tend to be picky and demanding about style. A good story will not do it for me if the writing is pedestrian. It doesn't have to be poetic, but it needs to be interesting and creative — not just, as we say, "serviceable." Robert Holdstock's writing style, at least in these novels, is similar to Patricia McKillip's: straightforward, but kind of dreamy, too. To me, it's perfect.
Secondly, Lavondyss made me think. It was complex and convoluted, and I didn't even know how complex it was until I got to the end. At that point I had to go back and re-read several passages so I could try to understand what had happened. It's not that it wasn't related effectively, but rather that Mr. Holdstock does not spoon-feed the reader. He does not divulge everything we want to know when we want to know it. We're given hints and impressions (and maybe even some false information from unreliable characters?) that must be accumulated and assembled. My brain had trouble bringing it all together in the end. What, exactly, is Lavondyss? Why do the mythagos travel there? What drove Harry into the forest? Who is he there? How is he related to the mythagos? How do Mr. Williams and Wynne-Jones fit in? Most importantly: what is the nature of myth, story, and legend, and where do they come from? (There are lots of other questions I could ask, but I'd be giving too much away.) Instead of leaving me frustrated, I am fascinated, and motivated to find the answers.
Lastly, the story made me feel. The characters are endearing and I experienced their joy, pain, hope, and hopelessness. The ending was sad, happy, chilling, shocking, wonderful, and inconclusive. It stayed with me for days.
I am still confused about a lot of stuff that I was hoping would be cleared up, but I'm happily confused. This is a story that requires a re-read in order to appreciate its richness. I've jotted down some notes — stuff I learned in the parts of Lavondyss that I re-read. I will have to go back to Mythago Wood and then read further in the series. I look forward to it and I can't wait to spend more time in, and learn more about, Rhyhope Wood.
See my review for Mythago Wood.
Many times I don't like sequels because there's nothing new to learn. Authors tend to give us all of their world-building in the first novel, so I'm often bored by a sequel. But Lavondyss blew my mind. It is, I have no doubt, one of the best fantasy novels ever written.
In Mythago Wood, Harry Keeton entered the forest with Steven and he's been there for years. We got the sense back then that Harry had some secret personal purpose for going in — it wasn't just to help Steven. His sister Tallis remembers him leaving when she was four years old. Her parents are distressed and assume he's dead. When Tallis hears what she believes is a communication from Harry and starts interacting with the wood, her parents think she's gone batty. But Tallis is determined to bring Harry home.
Lavondyss may be the perfect fantasy novel. First of all, it's written in Robert Holdstock's beautiful style. I tend to be picky and demanding about style. A good story will not do it for me if the writing is pedestrian. It doesn't have to be poetic, but it needs to be interesting and creative — not just, as we say, "serviceable." Robert Holdstock's writing style, at least in these novels, is similar to Patricia McKillip's: straightforward, but kind of dreamy, too. To me, it's perfect.
Secondly, Lavondyss made me think. It was complex and convoluted, and I didn't even know how complex it was until I got to the end. At that point I had to go back and re-read several passages so I could try to understand what had happened. It's not that it wasn't related effectively, but rather that Mr. Holdstock does not spoon-feed the reader. He does not divulge everything we want to know when we want to know it. We're given hints and impressions (and maybe even some false information from unreliable characters?) that must be accumulated and assembled. My brain had trouble bringing it all together in the end. What, exactly, is Lavondyss? Why do the mythagos travel there? What drove Harry into the forest? Who is he there? How is he related to the mythagos? How do Mr. Williams and Wynne-Jones fit in? Most importantly: what is the nature of myth, story, and legend, and where do they come from? (There are lots of other questions I could ask, but I'd be giving too much away.) Instead of leaving me frustrated, I am fascinated, and motivated to find the answers.
Lastly, the story made me feel. The characters are endearing and I experienced their joy, pain, hope, and hopelessness. The ending was sad, happy, chilling, shocking, wonderful, and inconclusive. It stayed with me for days.
I am still confused about a lot of stuff that I was hoping would be cleared up, but I'm happily confused. This is a story that requires a re-read in order to appreciate its richness. I've jotted down some notes — stuff I learned in the parts of Lavondyss that I re-read. I will have to go back to Mythago Wood and then read further in the series. I look forward to it and I can't wait to spend more time in, and learn more about, Rhyhope Wood.
See my review for Mythago Wood.
January 17, 2020
This one is a slow burner, particularly in the mid part, but it is worth reading it because the end manages to tie up all the seemingly loose (and slow) ends.
The first 1/3 of the story made me adjust to the book because it is different from Mythago Wood. The story is set in the same universe, but the characters, structure of the novel, even narration - is different. I love how Holdstock changed the perspective and the protagonist's experience of Ryhope Wood and yet managed to remain in the same story / same universe.
It goes much deeper, it is much darker than Mythago Wood, the somewhat strenuous journey through the book, both for the protagonist and the reader, eventually pays off.
Holdstock deserves to be placed on the list of the best fantasists.
This world he created in the book is unforgettable, so different from others, yet so familiar because, as I said for the first book, it sings the song of imagination to the reader's unconsciousness.
The first 1/3 of the story made me adjust to the book because it is different from Mythago Wood. The story is set in the same universe, but the characters, structure of the novel, even narration - is different. I love how Holdstock changed the perspective and the protagonist's experience of Ryhope Wood and yet managed to remain in the same story / same universe.
It goes much deeper, it is much darker than Mythago Wood, the somewhat strenuous journey through the book, both for the protagonist and the reader, eventually pays off.
Holdstock deserves to be placed on the list of the best fantasists.
This world he created in the book is unforgettable, so different from others, yet so familiar because, as I said for the first book, it sings the song of imagination to the reader's unconsciousness.
February 5, 2017
Tallis Keeton es una niña que vive apegada al extraño Bosque de Ryhope. Es capaz de ver los seres que lo habitan, y da nombre a lugares y encrucijadas. La trama principal de la novela tiene que ver con la búsqueda de la joven Tallis de su hermanastro Harry, perdido en el bosque.
‘Lavondyss’ (Lavondyss, 1988), del británico Robert Holdstock, es la segunda novela del Ciclo Mitago, aunque puede leerse de manera independiente. Si el primer libro me pareció sublime, este segundo se me ha hecho cuesta arriba, sobre todo en su segunda mitad. Está bien escrito, pero el tono es distinto. ‘Bosque Mitago’ es más gótico y lírico, y ‘Lavondyss’ más místico y onírico. Sin lugar a dudas, me quedo con el primer libro.
‘Lavondyss’ (Lavondyss, 1988), del británico Robert Holdstock, es la segunda novela del Ciclo Mitago, aunque puede leerse de manera independiente. Si el primer libro me pareció sublime, este segundo se me ha hecho cuesta arriba, sobre todo en su segunda mitad. Está bien escrito, pero el tono es distinto. ‘Bosque Mitago’ es más gótico y lírico, y ‘Lavondyss’ más místico y onírico. Sin lugar a dudas, me quedo con el primer libro.
September 27, 2018
I adored the first half of this, when Tallis is a child and sees the Wood through a child's eyes. The second half I enjoyed less, as it shifts to an adult perspective and it's harsher and more gruesome. This is great mythic fiction, but wilder, dirtier, more violent, more chaotic than reading Charles de Lint or Terri Windling.
March 26, 2017
Less a sequel to Mythago Wood than a deepening of it, Lavondyss is the story of Tallis Keeton, younger half-sister to Harry Keeton, the scarred airman of that first novel. When, shortly after coming back from the Second World War, Harry disappears into nearby Ryhope Wood, Tallis is determined to one day follow and find him. To do so, she must learn the ways of this strange woodland, and begins her education in its dreamy, savage, folkloristic magic, endeavouring to learn the secret names and stories of the fields, glades, and trees around her home, while making masks in imitation of the three cloaked women who seem to be guiding her in her shamanistic initiation. But the moment when she must leave her parents, and her home, and venture into the woods on this long-planned quest, of course comes far too soon…
When a book begins with a young girl’s burgeoning awareness of a magical world all around her, and her own growing ability to understand and even affect that world, you naturally assume this will be a coming-of-age story. But, after an abrupt transition halfway through the book, Lavondyss becomes what Mythago Wood (beneath its fantasy-adventure story exterior) is — a tale about loss. And, as Lavondyss does everything Mythago Wood did, only deeper, and weirder, and more harrowing, it’s both a far more difficult book, and a far richer book, if also being less easy to read.
And I think that, up to now, I’ve been put off by that difficulty. Whenever I re-read Mythago Wood, I follow it with Lavondyss, intending to read the whole Ryhope Wood series, but I stall, simply because of how bleak, harsh, and wintry Lavondyss is — something exacerbated by the contrast between its beginning, so full of childhood magic, and its second half. But I think this time I finally managed to see through the bleakness to appreciate the power of this novel. It feels much less redemptive than Mythago Wood, but perhaps it’s closer to the sort of heart-wringing catharsis of tragedy, though it never hits the dramatic high points classic tragedy requires to bring its catharsis to a head. Instead, in its second half, it’s relentless, and unforgiving, and perhaps only truly cathartic in retrospect. (‘I feel violated, consumed; yet I feel loved,’ one of its characters says, and it’s easy to feel the ‘violated’ and ‘consumed’, and hard to feel that ‘loved’.) But it’s a book of undeniable, if troubling, power, and I’ll certainly be pushing on with the rest of the series this time.
When a book begins with a young girl’s burgeoning awareness of a magical world all around her, and her own growing ability to understand and even affect that world, you naturally assume this will be a coming-of-age story. But, after an abrupt transition halfway through the book, Lavondyss becomes what Mythago Wood (beneath its fantasy-adventure story exterior) is — a tale about loss. And, as Lavondyss does everything Mythago Wood did, only deeper, and weirder, and more harrowing, it’s both a far more difficult book, and a far richer book, if also being less easy to read.
And I think that, up to now, I’ve been put off by that difficulty. Whenever I re-read Mythago Wood, I follow it with Lavondyss, intending to read the whole Ryhope Wood series, but I stall, simply because of how bleak, harsh, and wintry Lavondyss is — something exacerbated by the contrast between its beginning, so full of childhood magic, and its second half. But I think this time I finally managed to see through the bleakness to appreciate the power of this novel. It feels much less redemptive than Mythago Wood, but perhaps it’s closer to the sort of heart-wringing catharsis of tragedy, though it never hits the dramatic high points classic tragedy requires to bring its catharsis to a head. Instead, in its second half, it’s relentless, and unforgiving, and perhaps only truly cathartic in retrospect. (‘I feel violated, consumed; yet I feel loved,’ one of its characters says, and it’s easy to feel the ‘violated’ and ‘consumed’, and hard to feel that ‘loved’.) But it’s a book of undeniable, if troubling, power, and I’ll certainly be pushing on with the rest of the series this time.
July 7, 2016
It's nearly six years since I read Mythago Wood, this book's predecessor, and I have to say that I went into this remembering very few details, only the general warm feeling of fondness I had for it at the time. I didn't realise afterwards that it had a sequel and it is only after this books inclusion into the revamped Fantasy Masterworks Series that I spotted it and decided to pick it up. Now having finished this book I can't tell whether it's because my tastes have changed or whether it's just not as good but I didn't like this nearly as much.
We follow the life of Tallis (Sister to Harry from the first book) as she grows up and tries to discover the secrets of the Ryhope wood, the mythagos that are emerging from it and the stories they tell her. After seeing a vision of her brother Harry calling to her for help, she vows to find a way into the wood to rescue him. In another vision she manages to interfere with the "story of the wood" causing her future to change. The rest of the book is basically her pursuit of this aim and exploring the ramifications of the changes she made. At least that's how I interpreted it anyway.
This time, the whole central conceit of the story didn't really make any sense to me and I found my attention wandering on more than one occasion for whole stretches of narrative. I struggled to feel motivated to pick up the book most of the time. Although there were parts that engaged me more, it was never sustained and the conclusion of the story was more of a confusing anti-climax and left me wondering what it was all about. I mean I just don't see what the point of it all was really.
I see this series continues (loosely) on for several more volumes but I doubt I'll be adventuring back into the Mythago Wood again unless perhaps I decide to revisit the first book one day to rediscover what I liked about that and see if it still holds. As for anything else the author has written....I don't know.
We follow the life of Tallis (Sister to Harry from the first book) as she grows up and tries to discover the secrets of the Ryhope wood, the mythagos that are emerging from it and the stories they tell her. After seeing a vision of her brother Harry calling to her for help, she vows to find a way into the wood to rescue him. In another vision she manages to interfere with the "story of the wood" causing her future to change. The rest of the book is basically her pursuit of this aim and exploring the ramifications of the changes she made. At least that's how I interpreted it anyway.
This time, the whole central conceit of the story didn't really make any sense to me and I found my attention wandering on more than one occasion for whole stretches of narrative. I struggled to feel motivated to pick up the book most of the time. Although there were parts that engaged me more, it was never sustained and the conclusion of the story was more of a confusing anti-climax and left me wondering what it was all about. I mean I just don't see what the point of it all was really.
I see this series continues (loosely) on for several more volumes but I doubt I'll be adventuring back into the Mythago Wood again unless perhaps I decide to revisit the first book one day to rediscover what I liked about that and see if it still holds. As for anything else the author has written....I don't know.
November 19, 2024
It's been a while since I've been so baffled and disappointed by a sequel to a book that I loved so much. Book 1, Mythago Wood, was one of those "why have I never heard of this??" type books, an awesome blend of fantasy and mythology that was like a much darker and twisted version of Narnia. It had its weird moments but those always were peppered in at just the right frequency, enough to keep me intrigued and hooked at the right amounts. The characters were rich and I desperately wanted to know what happened to them.
And then there's Lavondyss. Those weird, unknowable parts of book 1 are the ENTIRETY of Lavondyss. Instead of the Wood being the enchanted and other-wordly thing that's just next door, the whole book focuses on the weird rules and non rules and the magic system and all of the bizarre things that happen there. Our main character from the beginning is unrelatable because she's somehow part of the wood from the start and already knows all about it even if she doesn't know why. Everything she does in this book is because of some fate or destiny that's pulling at her and making her do things whether she wants to or not.
In Mythago Wood, I could tell you what drove each character and why they did what they did. I knew what made them tick. In Lavondyss, I can hardly tell you that at all. Not only about the MC but about most of the side characters either. Almost everything the characters do is some sort of fate tnat ties to the Wood or to ancient stories or both. If nobody has any real agency of their own, what is there for me to get invested in?
The ending was the most convoluted part of the book and was beyond baffling. It was almost like a strange fantasy/myth version of 2001. But in that book, I at least understood WHY everything was happening even if the how was up for interpretation. With the end of this, all I understood was that the author created this insanely complex world and instead of giving us the tip of the iceberg, he wanted to give us the whole damn thing. The Wood is no longer a mystery you're anxious to solve. It's a confounding maze you can't wait to get out of.
I was originally going to give this 3 stars but I'm knocking it down to two. I'm saddened by this because I was imagining, based solely on the first book, that this would become a new favorite series, something I may want to collect nice copies of and have on my shelf forever. But now I'm not sure I want to read more of them at all.
Ah well... not like there aren't a million other things to read.
2/5
And then there's Lavondyss. Those weird, unknowable parts of book 1 are the ENTIRETY of Lavondyss. Instead of the Wood being the enchanted and other-wordly thing that's just next door, the whole book focuses on the weird rules and non rules and the magic system and all of the bizarre things that happen there. Our main character from the beginning is unrelatable because she's somehow part of the wood from the start and already knows all about it even if she doesn't know why. Everything she does in this book is because of some fate or destiny that's pulling at her and making her do things whether she wants to or not.
In Mythago Wood, I could tell you what drove each character and why they did what they did. I knew what made them tick. In Lavondyss, I can hardly tell you that at all. Not only about the MC but about most of the side characters either. Almost everything the characters do is some sort of fate tnat ties to the Wood or to ancient stories or both. If nobody has any real agency of their own, what is there for me to get invested in?
The ending was the most convoluted part of the book and was beyond baffling. It was almost like a strange fantasy/myth version of 2001. But in that book, I at least understood WHY everything was happening even if the how was up for interpretation. With the end of this, all I understood was that the author created this insanely complex world and instead of giving us the tip of the iceberg, he wanted to give us the whole damn thing. The Wood is no longer a mystery you're anxious to solve. It's a confounding maze you can't wait to get out of.
I was originally going to give this 3 stars but I'm knocking it down to two. I'm saddened by this because I was imagining, based solely on the first book, that this would become a new favorite series, something I may want to collect nice copies of and have on my shelf forever. But now I'm not sure I want to read more of them at all.
Ah well... not like there aren't a million other things to read.
2/5
April 14, 2019
I enjoy sequels that remain true to the original story but do their own thing and don't try to be a formulaic replay of what came before. This one was different in structure, presentation, characters (although characters from book one are discussed and one makes a brief cameo), and story line but underneath it all you could tell it was part of the whole. There were moments of brilliance and long stretches of boring-ness and for a while I debated as to whether to give it or three or four stars but the author stuck the landing so damned impressively I can now without a doubt give it four. I think I did enjoy the narrative and character interaction from book one more so than this but this one does go further in explaining how the wood works and the late Robert Holdstock gets credit for keeping the complex nature of everything understandable and entertaining, and this one does get complex. So while not as jaw-droppingly fun and original as book one, Lavondyss is still a notch above a lot of the stuff being written today.
September 11, 2017
Šī grāmata ir „Mythago Wood” turpinājums. Darbība norisinās 1950-tajos gados Rhyope wood tuvumā, tas ir ~10 gadus pēc pirmās grāmatas notikumiem tikai šoreiz jau no cita skatu punkta. Galvenā varone Tallis Keeton visu bērnību ir pavadījusi meža tuvumā un viņas jaunais prāts mijiedarbībā ar mežu ir radījis trīs šamanes, kas viņu apmāca atvērt vārtus uz citu pasauli – Lavondyss ar masku palīdzību. Tallis galvenais mērķis, ieejot Mitago mežā, ir atrast un izvest no tā savu brāli Harry Keeton, kurš tajā pazudis.
Šo grāmatu sāku lasīt ar cerību uzzināt, kas tad notika pēc „Mythago Wood” aprakstītajiem notikumiem, domāju, ka secība būs hronoloģiska un grāmata sāksies turpat kur beidzās iepriekšējā. Tomēr gluži tā vis nav. Lai arī daži varoņi grāmatai ir kopīgi, par īstu turpinājumu šo grāmatu es nesauktu. Autors ir mainījis arī rakstīšanas stilu, tagad vēstījums notiek trešajā personā. Daudzās iepriekš lasītajās atsaucēs biju manījis sūdzības par grūto angļu valodu – nezinu, man likās tīri normāla, ja nu vienīgais tāda nedaudz poētiska. Grūtāk ir ar tēlu un masku nosaukumiem, jo vārdus Scathach, Skogen un citus tamlīdzīgus ir grūti paturēt atmiņā, piepūli prasa arī atcerēties, ka tas pats Skogen nozīmē „meža ēna” utml.
Šoreiz gan grāmatas problēma vairs nav mūsdienu cilvēka sadursme ar mītisko, jo Tallis no pašas bērnības ir labi informēta par mythago un mežu. Šoreiz konflikts rodas starp divām zemapziņām viņas brāļa radītās mītu pasaules sadursme ar pašas Tallis pasauli, kas izmaina mītu un patiesībā ir galvenais iemesls kādēļ Harry nespēj izkļūt no meža.
Tagad noteikti varētu rasties jautājums kādēļ šādu grāmatu vispār lasīt, ar ko tā ir labāka par, teiksim, dzērāja mežsarga stāstiem, par saviem klaiņojumiem pa mežu un apmaldīšanos jaunaudzē? Viena no atbildēm ir, ka standarta mežsarga stāsts nebūs pat uz pusi tik interesants un stāstījuma gaita būs visnotaļ primitīva. Galvenā stāsta priekšrocība ir tā, ka tas risinās oriģinālā un tajā pat laikā pazīstamā pasaulē. Pie tam šī oriģinalitāte ir saglabājusies līdz pat šodienai. Parasti manas lasītās fantasy žanra grāmatas satur ne vairāk kā kādas piecas standarta sižeta līnijas aptuveni tikpat daudz pasaulēs. Šī grāmata ir patīkams pārsteigums lasītājam tieši savas unikālās pasaules ziņā. Es pat nevaru atcerēties kādu citu rakstnieku, kas būtu izmantojis līdzīgu stāstījuma kontekstu. Tuvākais laikam ir Dan Simmons „Ilium”, bet arī tas ir literārās zinātniskās fantastikas darbs, kas balstās uz intertekstualitāti.
Grāmatai lieku 10 no 10 ballēm, lasīt gan iesaku cilvēkiem, kuriem ir apnikusi standarta fantasy un vēlas palasīties kaut ko savādāku. Cilvēkiem, kuriem šāds žanrs pie dūšas neiet, tie var mierīgi izlaist šo grāmatu. Grāmata diemžēl nav izdota latviešu valodā.
Šo grāmatu sāku lasīt ar cerību uzzināt, kas tad notika pēc „Mythago Wood” aprakstītajiem notikumiem, domāju, ka secība būs hronoloģiska un grāmata sāksies turpat kur beidzās iepriekšējā. Tomēr gluži tā vis nav. Lai arī daži varoņi grāmatai ir kopīgi, par īstu turpinājumu šo grāmatu es nesauktu. Autors ir mainījis arī rakstīšanas stilu, tagad vēstījums notiek trešajā personā. Daudzās iepriekš lasītajās atsaucēs biju manījis sūdzības par grūto angļu valodu – nezinu, man likās tīri normāla, ja nu vienīgais tāda nedaudz poētiska. Grūtāk ir ar tēlu un masku nosaukumiem, jo vārdus Scathach, Skogen un citus tamlīdzīgus ir grūti paturēt atmiņā, piepūli prasa arī atcerēties, ka tas pats Skogen nozīmē „meža ēna” utml.
Šoreiz gan grāmatas problēma vairs nav mūsdienu cilvēka sadursme ar mītisko, jo Tallis no pašas bērnības ir labi informēta par mythago un mežu. Šoreiz konflikts rodas starp divām zemapziņām viņas brāļa radītās mītu pasaules sadursme ar pašas Tallis pasauli, kas izmaina mītu un patiesībā ir galvenais iemesls kādēļ Harry nespēj izkļūt no meža.
Tagad noteikti varētu rasties jautājums kādēļ šādu grāmatu vispār lasīt, ar ko tā ir labāka par, teiksim, dzērāja mežsarga stāstiem, par saviem klaiņojumiem pa mežu un apmaldīšanos jaunaudzē? Viena no atbildēm ir, ka standarta mežsarga stāsts nebūs pat uz pusi tik interesants un stāstījuma gaita būs visnotaļ primitīva. Galvenā stāsta priekšrocība ir tā, ka tas risinās oriģinālā un tajā pat laikā pazīstamā pasaulē. Pie tam šī oriģinalitāte ir saglabājusies līdz pat šodienai. Parasti manas lasītās fantasy žanra grāmatas satur ne vairāk kā kādas piecas standarta sižeta līnijas aptuveni tikpat daudz pasaulēs. Šī grāmata ir patīkams pārsteigums lasītājam tieši savas unikālās pasaules ziņā. Es pat nevaru atcerēties kādu citu rakstnieku, kas būtu izmantojis līdzīgu stāstījuma kontekstu. Tuvākais laikam ir Dan Simmons „Ilium”, bet arī tas ir literārās zinātniskās fantastikas darbs, kas balstās uz intertekstualitāti.
Grāmatai lieku 10 no 10 ballēm, lasīt gan iesaku cilvēkiem, kuriem ir apnikusi standarta fantasy un vēlas palasīties kaut ko savādāku. Cilvēkiem, kuriem šāds žanrs pie dūšas neiet, tie var mierīgi izlaist šo grāmatu. Grāmata diemžēl nav izdota latviešu valodā.
September 22, 2010
I have a bad habit of overusing the word “haunting.” Ergo, I worry that when I use it here, it won’t pack the punch it really should. Let me just say, then, that when I say Lavondyss is haunting, I mean it. This book settled into my bones like a hard winter. It will stay in my mind forever. I feel like I’ve lived a whole second life by reading it, and I’ll probably read it again at my earliest convenience just to see if I catch anything I missed the first time.
I had trouble getting into the previous book, Mythago Wood, but I was glad I read it and am now even gladder, as it provides lots of background that helps make sense of Lavondyss. Lavondyss feels more like a “straight” fantasy novel, though; while there is still the idea that people create mythagos with their minds and that many of the book’s mythagos are personally tied to its central character, to me it feels that this time the story and the world stand more on their own and have more of a life outside of the character’s psychology. I feel less like I’m reading a slightly veiled book on Jung and Freud, and more like I’ve been sucked into a seductive, visceral fairy tale. I’m yet again reminded of a work of nonfiction — this time Robert Graves’ The White Goddess — but this time the analytical part of my mind was content to curl up by the fire and let Robert Holdstock spin his tale.
In Mythago Wood, Steven Huxley’s traveling companion was Harry Keeton. Lavondyss centers on Harry’s younger sister, Tallis. Born when Harry was already a grown man, Tallis only knew her brother briefly, but she and her family are haunted by his disappearance. Tallis is an uncanny, precocious girl with an instinctive gift for magic, and it’s simply enchanting to follow along as she learns the ways of the wood and its spirits. Eventually, she journeys into the wood on a quest to find her missing brother. What happens after that, I won’t spoil, since I want you to be able to discover it for yourself. It’s an enthralling story, though, sometimes sad, sometimes beautiful, sometimes scary as hell. There are layers within layers, timelines looping around themselves in ways that don’t become evident until later, and an ambiguous ending.
I love ambiguous endings, and I hate them. I love them and hate them because they stick with me, nagging at my brain, never letting me forget them. I lay awake for hours after finishing Lavondyss, prodding at the ending in my mind, wondering whether the “happier” interpretation of the ending might actually be a sadder one. I simultaneously wished Holdstock had clarified it and was very glad he hadn’t. It’s more memorable this way, and fitting for the MYTHAGO WOOD universe.
Lavondyss has everything I love in a book: compelling characters, vivid prose, mythic elements, art-as-magic, complex character relationships, and just the right amount of ambiguity. It’s a fairy tale, the old kind with blood and revenge and jaw dropping wonder. It’s the kind of book that, when you finish, you feel the urge to flip right back to the first page and start over. (The only reason I didn’t was that it was the middle of the night. Blasted day job...)
Review originally published at Fantasy Literature's Robert Holdstock page.
I had trouble getting into the previous book, Mythago Wood, but I was glad I read it and am now even gladder, as it provides lots of background that helps make sense of Lavondyss. Lavondyss feels more like a “straight” fantasy novel, though; while there is still the idea that people create mythagos with their minds and that many of the book’s mythagos are personally tied to its central character, to me it feels that this time the story and the world stand more on their own and have more of a life outside of the character’s psychology. I feel less like I’m reading a slightly veiled book on Jung and Freud, and more like I’ve been sucked into a seductive, visceral fairy tale. I’m yet again reminded of a work of nonfiction — this time Robert Graves’ The White Goddess — but this time the analytical part of my mind was content to curl up by the fire and let Robert Holdstock spin his tale.
In Mythago Wood, Steven Huxley’s traveling companion was Harry Keeton. Lavondyss centers on Harry’s younger sister, Tallis. Born when Harry was already a grown man, Tallis only knew her brother briefly, but she and her family are haunted by his disappearance. Tallis is an uncanny, precocious girl with an instinctive gift for magic, and it’s simply enchanting to follow along as she learns the ways of the wood and its spirits. Eventually, she journeys into the wood on a quest to find her missing brother. What happens after that, I won’t spoil, since I want you to be able to discover it for yourself. It’s an enthralling story, though, sometimes sad, sometimes beautiful, sometimes scary as hell. There are layers within layers, timelines looping around themselves in ways that don’t become evident until later, and an ambiguous ending.
I love ambiguous endings, and I hate them. I love them and hate them because they stick with me, nagging at my brain, never letting me forget them. I lay awake for hours after finishing Lavondyss, prodding at the ending in my mind, wondering whether the “happier” interpretation of the ending might actually be a sadder one. I simultaneously wished Holdstock had clarified it and was very glad he hadn’t. It’s more memorable this way, and fitting for the MYTHAGO WOOD universe.
Lavondyss has everything I love in a book: compelling characters, vivid prose, mythic elements, art-as-magic, complex character relationships, and just the right amount of ambiguity. It’s a fairy tale, the old kind with blood and revenge and jaw dropping wonder. It’s the kind of book that, when you finish, you feel the urge to flip right back to the first page and start over. (The only reason I didn’t was that it was the middle of the night. Blasted day job...)
Review originally published at Fantasy Literature's Robert Holdstock page.
November 17, 2014
-Desarrollos del concepto original que son similares en la forma pero distintos en el tono.-
Género. Narrativa Fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Tallis Keeton es una niña atraída por el bosque Ryhope, junto al que nació y se ha criado y con el que tiene muchos más lazos en común de lo que ella piensa. Tallis puede ver cosas que otras personas no perciben, y está convencida de que su desparecido hermano Harry se encuentra en el bosque, un lugar que la cambiará. Segundo libro de la serie Bosque Mitago.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
Género. Narrativa Fantástica.
Lo que nos cuenta. Tallis Keeton es una niña atraída por el bosque Ryhope, junto al que nació y se ha criado y con el que tiene muchos más lazos en común de lo que ella piensa. Tallis puede ver cosas que otras personas no perciben, y está convencida de que su desparecido hermano Harry se encuentra en el bosque, un lugar que la cambiará. Segundo libro de la serie Bosque Mitago.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...
October 14, 2017
Hard to know how to rate this one; the writing was excellent, and the concepts interesting, but reading it, I felt like I was slogging my way through a morass of unfocused melancholy. For much of the story I experienced the frustrating feeling of being trapped in a labyrinth. This may well have been intentional, but I can't say that it was always an enjoyable experience.
December 22, 2008
We all make choices everyday that allow the immediate world to unfold in a particular way. This was the message in Holden’s book Lavondyss. We are creating and influencing life on multiple dimensions with every thought and action and these multiple dimensions and universes are all happening simultaneously. Trying to follow a linear trail back to where we or anything started is almost impossible. His writing incorporated concepts of reincarnation, transmigration of the soul, mystical or shamanistic intervention and left me dizzy with possibilities. What I did come away with is that nothing is the way it seems. Everything appears to be connected in one way or one dimension or another. All the players seem to be related on some level. We have an unknown history with almost everyone we encounter and none of it follows a logical or linear path. Time and dimension are internal affairs and all is influenced by thought and attitude.
January 4, 2016
I don't know what made him try again, but I'm glad he did.
"Mythago Wood" was a landmark in modern fantasy, a book that attempted to fuse the dream-like ambiance that suffused the faerie worlds of Lord Dunsany with the long ago world of Irish and English mythology, setting it all in an extremely weird forest and simultaneously trying to remind us that most myths aren't built on super-pleasant foundations and just because something might seem like a dream, let's not forget nightmares are considered dreams too. Rooted in what felt like both the historical and the collective unconscious, it didn't feel like a whole lot that came before it and I feel like a decent number of authors mulled over it for quite some time before attempting their own pale copies of it, not even coming close to capturing Holdstock's vision. Which is okay, because Holdstock didn't really capture his vision either.
For all the many, many things that "Mythago Wood" did right, it still felt like an awesome idea wedded to a so-so execution, with his fascinating concept weighed down by what amount to a rather pedestrian plot that boiled down to two guys fighting over a girl, even if the girl was technically mythological. The scenes just outside the mysterious forest were great, but inside it just felt like a giant forest that went on forever and had tribes of primitive people wandering across it randomly. It's quite possible the disconnect boils down to my imagination of what the book was like not quite living up to what the book was actually like, but reading this book makes me think that maybe Holdstock reread "Mythago Wood", somehow looked ahead to the future to see what I thought of the book and realized that I was right in every way and then proceeded to write the book that he thought would give me a satisfying reading experience, despite the fact that I'm somewhat hard to please.
All I can say is good job, Robert Holdstock of the past (which, sadly, is all he exists in now, having passed away a few years ago), because you've succeeded beyond anything I could have imagined.
What I thought was going to be just another romp through the ancient forest winds up being deeper, stranger, more frustrating but far more complex and personal than anything the first book accomplished. It improves on "Mythago Wood" to such an extent that it makes you wonder if this was what he really wanted to do and that the plot of the first book was just a bone he threw to the fantasy fans thinking that's what they actually wanted to see, or if that was simply a dry run or rough draft for what he was doing here. Beyond the fact that he writes in English and uses sentences and paragraphs, there seems to be no real consideration made to the general fantasy audience who might have been intrigued enough by the first book to try this one. I'm not even sure who this would really be for, as the people who enjoyed "Mythago Wood" for the plot might be turned off by how impenetrable this can be, and the people who thought the mythological stuff was just some pretentious fluff to liven up a walk through the woods are going to quail in horror at how deeply this rolls in that mud, and goes beyond.
The first book needed to exist for this one to happen because I can't imagine how he would have gotten this one published with all the rampant layers of symbolic strangeness going on every page. Still, you need to read "Mythago Wood" to get some idea of the setting and what you're going to be in for, as that book is far more user friendly. This one starts out following Tallis, a young teenage girl living in the 1950s at the edge of the wood. She's fascinated by it because it's dark and weird and mysterious, but also because her brother disappeared into it when she was very young and eventually she becomes convinced that he's inside there somewhere still alive. With the first part of the book taking place nearly entirely outside the forest, Holdstock ups his game with the prose (which wasn't half-bad to begin with) adding on so many layers of atmosphere as Tallis lingers at the very borders, occasionally wanting to venture in but never quite daring to go all the way, that for a long while you may wonder if the book is going to be so busy setting the mood that it's going to forget that the plot eventually needs to start. But he manages to match the eerie danger of our first view of the forest and add onto it the view of a young girl inexperienced in history so that all the various mysterious happenings seem even stranger, infused with a menace that can't quite be quantified.
But he's got more tools in the box this time out and is not afraid to use them. While the first volume relied on old journals and glimpses of unexplained people, this one doubles down by including not only those aspects but the masks that Tallis makes, dredged somewhere from deep memory, and the folk songs that she somehow knows, as if they've always existed forever. The cumulative results winds up being wonderfully effective, so that by the time we first re-encounter the house that we became so familiar with the first time out, now completely absorbed by the wood, it's like seeing an old friend altered almost beyond recognition. And when the mythagos start to cohere, these glimpses seem to be torn less from a cursory reading of some old book he took out from the library and tap into the truths of a different history. And that's right before Tallis might accidentally screw everything up. Still, turning the book into a rescue mission instead of a love story ups the stakes to a more effective degree, with the forest established as a place where you either don't get out, or it doesn't let it out.
But it's not a rescue mission without an actual rescue and in the second part we go into the woods themselves. And everything is different. Gone is the feel of an endless walkabout with the odd sighting of people dressed in furs who say things that don't always make sense (also known as getting lost in New York City) and in its place is a prose that brings us to a place dripping in history, but not the kind of history that you read about in class when your teacher assigns you yet another boring chapters on whoever the heck the Romans were . . . it's the history that exists buried inside all of our stories, the nugget from where all those stories spring, altered over the years like some million year pre-language game of telephone. For the first time the forest feels both primal and primordial, steeped in age and fresh because the myths haven't become myths yet. He brings us to a character that was only mentioned in "Mythago Wood" and even with him being our guide it doesn't help make matters anymore understandable.
And let this be said, he will lose you here. I did my best to follow along with the stream of it, the tracing of the threads of where we've come from and how they all lead back to the idea of the ur-myth but I think in the best tradition of James Joyce that unless you are Robert Holdstock you are not going to fully figure this book out. The second part of the novel is so immersed with wrestling with notions of where stories come from, and how those echoes trickle down to the present day, that it will either make or break the reader, with the latter being convinced that they are reading nothing more than a stream of consciousness costume pageant performed in pantomime, rife with symbols that barely have any meaning to the actors themselves but whose motions are so deeply felt that they can't conceive of even acting any other way. Its both unsparing and harrowing in depicting the kind of life that would lead to people being forced to tell stories to explain a world that makes zero sense to them and showing us a world where telling stories may be the only way to truly cope, when the alternative is killing each other. And frankly, murder is often the easier option, since it's one less mouth to feed (or in some grim cases, an extra meal). Spirits dance and caper and kill and are only fulfilling their own roles, and even those spirits are afraid of other forces that stalk them, a counter-tale to keep them in check or perhaps the future bearing down to make them unnecessary.
It will no doubt be a turn off to a lot of people but if you find yourself at all on the same wavelength of what this story is attempting to tell you then you're going to devour it. You have to accept that it's a story that isn't going to give you a literal meaning but is instead going to track in symbols and masks, in new ways of looking at a world that doesn't like to be stared at, to look and blink and look away and then try to describe what happens in that moment where you can't see anything. It reaches its climax in a lengthy scene that could be gibberish but might also ride a mainline of pure feeling, where Holdstock finally taps in what he had been seeking to do since the very first page of the first book, somehow bring across the desperate wailing euphoric terror of what it feels like to create the very first myth and impose even the smallest iota of understanding onto a world that won't even give you a clue if you're anywhere close to the mark. He goes deep here, and what he dredges up can't be properly explained. It feels utterly personal and becomes bracing in how far its willing to go, to give us a sensation reminiscent of a dream you keep having where its a place you know you've been to before, that you both recognize and can't even remember visiting. The place is the memory we all share.
As I've been saying, this is one of those books that you will either love and make your friends doubt your taste, or vice versa. You either feel this one or you don't. And there's no shame in this not being your thing, but if it touches you may have moments where you wonder about the ultimate source of every story you've ever read, or perhaps more concretely, watch poor Tallis stand on an hilltop and watch the results of a bloody battle so far back in memory that you can't even see a glimpse of it through the mists and perhaps wonder if we've never left the forest at all, and are still struggling to figure a way out.
"Mythago Wood" was a landmark in modern fantasy, a book that attempted to fuse the dream-like ambiance that suffused the faerie worlds of Lord Dunsany with the long ago world of Irish and English mythology, setting it all in an extremely weird forest and simultaneously trying to remind us that most myths aren't built on super-pleasant foundations and just because something might seem like a dream, let's not forget nightmares are considered dreams too. Rooted in what felt like both the historical and the collective unconscious, it didn't feel like a whole lot that came before it and I feel like a decent number of authors mulled over it for quite some time before attempting their own pale copies of it, not even coming close to capturing Holdstock's vision. Which is okay, because Holdstock didn't really capture his vision either.
For all the many, many things that "Mythago Wood" did right, it still felt like an awesome idea wedded to a so-so execution, with his fascinating concept weighed down by what amount to a rather pedestrian plot that boiled down to two guys fighting over a girl, even if the girl was technically mythological. The scenes just outside the mysterious forest were great, but inside it just felt like a giant forest that went on forever and had tribes of primitive people wandering across it randomly. It's quite possible the disconnect boils down to my imagination of what the book was like not quite living up to what the book was actually like, but reading this book makes me think that maybe Holdstock reread "Mythago Wood", somehow looked ahead to the future to see what I thought of the book and realized that I was right in every way and then proceeded to write the book that he thought would give me a satisfying reading experience, despite the fact that I'm somewhat hard to please.
All I can say is good job, Robert Holdstock of the past (which, sadly, is all he exists in now, having passed away a few years ago), because you've succeeded beyond anything I could have imagined.
What I thought was going to be just another romp through the ancient forest winds up being deeper, stranger, more frustrating but far more complex and personal than anything the first book accomplished. It improves on "Mythago Wood" to such an extent that it makes you wonder if this was what he really wanted to do and that the plot of the first book was just a bone he threw to the fantasy fans thinking that's what they actually wanted to see, or if that was simply a dry run or rough draft for what he was doing here. Beyond the fact that he writes in English and uses sentences and paragraphs, there seems to be no real consideration made to the general fantasy audience who might have been intrigued enough by the first book to try this one. I'm not even sure who this would really be for, as the people who enjoyed "Mythago Wood" for the plot might be turned off by how impenetrable this can be, and the people who thought the mythological stuff was just some pretentious fluff to liven up a walk through the woods are going to quail in horror at how deeply this rolls in that mud, and goes beyond.
The first book needed to exist for this one to happen because I can't imagine how he would have gotten this one published with all the rampant layers of symbolic strangeness going on every page. Still, you need to read "Mythago Wood" to get some idea of the setting and what you're going to be in for, as that book is far more user friendly. This one starts out following Tallis, a young teenage girl living in the 1950s at the edge of the wood. She's fascinated by it because it's dark and weird and mysterious, but also because her brother disappeared into it when she was very young and eventually she becomes convinced that he's inside there somewhere still alive. With the first part of the book taking place nearly entirely outside the forest, Holdstock ups his game with the prose (which wasn't half-bad to begin with) adding on so many layers of atmosphere as Tallis lingers at the very borders, occasionally wanting to venture in but never quite daring to go all the way, that for a long while you may wonder if the book is going to be so busy setting the mood that it's going to forget that the plot eventually needs to start. But he manages to match the eerie danger of our first view of the forest and add onto it the view of a young girl inexperienced in history so that all the various mysterious happenings seem even stranger, infused with a menace that can't quite be quantified.
But he's got more tools in the box this time out and is not afraid to use them. While the first volume relied on old journals and glimpses of unexplained people, this one doubles down by including not only those aspects but the masks that Tallis makes, dredged somewhere from deep memory, and the folk songs that she somehow knows, as if they've always existed forever. The cumulative results winds up being wonderfully effective, so that by the time we first re-encounter the house that we became so familiar with the first time out, now completely absorbed by the wood, it's like seeing an old friend altered almost beyond recognition. And when the mythagos start to cohere, these glimpses seem to be torn less from a cursory reading of some old book he took out from the library and tap into the truths of a different history. And that's right before Tallis might accidentally screw everything up. Still, turning the book into a rescue mission instead of a love story ups the stakes to a more effective degree, with the forest established as a place where you either don't get out, or it doesn't let it out.
But it's not a rescue mission without an actual rescue and in the second part we go into the woods themselves. And everything is different. Gone is the feel of an endless walkabout with the odd sighting of people dressed in furs who say things that don't always make sense (also known as getting lost in New York City) and in its place is a prose that brings us to a place dripping in history, but not the kind of history that you read about in class when your teacher assigns you yet another boring chapters on whoever the heck the Romans were . . . it's the history that exists buried inside all of our stories, the nugget from where all those stories spring, altered over the years like some million year pre-language game of telephone. For the first time the forest feels both primal and primordial, steeped in age and fresh because the myths haven't become myths yet. He brings us to a character that was only mentioned in "Mythago Wood" and even with him being our guide it doesn't help make matters anymore understandable.
And let this be said, he will lose you here. I did my best to follow along with the stream of it, the tracing of the threads of where we've come from and how they all lead back to the idea of the ur-myth but I think in the best tradition of James Joyce that unless you are Robert Holdstock you are not going to fully figure this book out. The second part of the novel is so immersed with wrestling with notions of where stories come from, and how those echoes trickle down to the present day, that it will either make or break the reader, with the latter being convinced that they are reading nothing more than a stream of consciousness costume pageant performed in pantomime, rife with symbols that barely have any meaning to the actors themselves but whose motions are so deeply felt that they can't conceive of even acting any other way. Its both unsparing and harrowing in depicting the kind of life that would lead to people being forced to tell stories to explain a world that makes zero sense to them and showing us a world where telling stories may be the only way to truly cope, when the alternative is killing each other. And frankly, murder is often the easier option, since it's one less mouth to feed (or in some grim cases, an extra meal). Spirits dance and caper and kill and are only fulfilling their own roles, and even those spirits are afraid of other forces that stalk them, a counter-tale to keep them in check or perhaps the future bearing down to make them unnecessary.
It will no doubt be a turn off to a lot of people but if you find yourself at all on the same wavelength of what this story is attempting to tell you then you're going to devour it. You have to accept that it's a story that isn't going to give you a literal meaning but is instead going to track in symbols and masks, in new ways of looking at a world that doesn't like to be stared at, to look and blink and look away and then try to describe what happens in that moment where you can't see anything. It reaches its climax in a lengthy scene that could be gibberish but might also ride a mainline of pure feeling, where Holdstock finally taps in what he had been seeking to do since the very first page of the first book, somehow bring across the desperate wailing euphoric terror of what it feels like to create the very first myth and impose even the smallest iota of understanding onto a world that won't even give you a clue if you're anywhere close to the mark. He goes deep here, and what he dredges up can't be properly explained. It feels utterly personal and becomes bracing in how far its willing to go, to give us a sensation reminiscent of a dream you keep having where its a place you know you've been to before, that you both recognize and can't even remember visiting. The place is the memory we all share.
As I've been saying, this is one of those books that you will either love and make your friends doubt your taste, or vice versa. You either feel this one or you don't. And there's no shame in this not being your thing, but if it touches you may have moments where you wonder about the ultimate source of every story you've ever read, or perhaps more concretely, watch poor Tallis stand on an hilltop and watch the results of a bloody battle so far back in memory that you can't even see a glimpse of it through the mists and perhaps wonder if we've never left the forest at all, and are still struggling to figure a way out.
April 29, 2020
Starting up my review (which truly is more of way to wrap up my thoughts around this read rather than a proper review) I must confess that I may have done some disservice to the book and myself in overhyping it… Since Mythago Wood (book one) ended up being such a favorite of mine, certain expectations were set and that usually doesn’t turn out so well…
That being said… what the fudge did I just read? Honestly, towards the end of the book it felt like a shaman/wise man from the Ice Age traveled through time and space, found himself in my house, forcefully made me smoke, chew, inhale-you name it- something highly suspicious, then whacked me on the head and sent me into a really weird trip… Sooo, that may sound intriguing (and in a way true to the story…) but it was not what I signed up for…
Did I enjoy reading it? Ehhh, in a peculiar way yes, mainly because I still find the writing to be captivating and the themes very intriguing and to my personal taste. However, did I like the actual story? Ehhhh, not quite… which is a shame because the premise sounded so promising and I was so very excited to find out more about the deep lore of Mythago Wood and of Harry Keeton’s (a character from book one) fate.
The first part I liked a lot (although a bit slow) but as was the story progressing it gradually got too complicated, brimming with too many ideas and strangeness...(?) Now, I don’t mind weird, part of the first book’s charm was the otherworldly atmosphere and all the eerie stuff going on, but in Lavondyss it felt like it went completely overboard with all these concepts.
I do get it in part due to the nature of the journey the heroine undertakes but in the end the whole narrative felt more about being weird and inexplicable for the sake of being so rather than telling a story. It’s sort of like the actual story got lost in the way.
There was a quest but many things and development that felt important happened ‘off-screen’… There were some things that were described to as if they were going to be a great asset to the heroine in said quest but never did play an essential role (which felt rather underwhelming)…. There were some backs and forths at times and certain things left unanswered…There was also lots and lots of exposition and explaining involved, which although interesting at parts was still too much.
I had a few other issues as well but ultimately what I feel Lavondyss lacked was probably the more streamlined/linear narration that made book one engaging. In Mythago Wood the story never really sidetracked despite all the mystical things happening -yes, there were some additional narratives thrown in for good measure but never lost its focus. It remained pretty straightforward and thus I got the chance as a reader to follow closely the journey the characters went through; while in Lavondyss it felt more like I was being described –amongst lots of other things- of a journey about to happen but never got to really experience it along with the character. I did like some twists but these too fell a bit short what with the main story being somewhat all over the place and many of the great revelations would have been more impactful if only the plot were more tight/coherent.
So, yeah….(siiiigh), overall I was disappointed and it was a difficult book for me to rate (2.5 stars) because Holdstock’s themes resonate so much with me and I love Mythago Wood’s world, but this one unfortunately kinda missed the mark.
I’m not discouraged though, I will be continuing with the series at some point!
That being said… what the fudge did I just read? Honestly, towards the end of the book it felt like a shaman/wise man from the Ice Age traveled through time and space, found himself in my house, forcefully made me smoke, chew, inhale-you name it- something highly suspicious, then whacked me on the head and sent me into a really weird trip… Sooo, that may sound intriguing (and in a way true to the story…) but it was not what I signed up for…
Did I enjoy reading it? Ehhh, in a peculiar way yes, mainly because I still find the writing to be captivating and the themes very intriguing and to my personal taste. However, did I like the actual story? Ehhhh, not quite… which is a shame because the premise sounded so promising and I was so very excited to find out more about the deep lore of Mythago Wood and of Harry Keeton’s (a character from book one) fate.
The first part I liked a lot (although a bit slow) but as was the story progressing it gradually got too complicated, brimming with too many ideas and strangeness...(?) Now, I don’t mind weird, part of the first book’s charm was the otherworldly atmosphere and all the eerie stuff going on, but in Lavondyss it felt like it went completely overboard with all these concepts.
I do get it in part due to the nature of the journey the heroine undertakes but in the end the whole narrative felt more about being weird and inexplicable for the sake of being so rather than telling a story. It’s sort of like the actual story got lost in the way.
There was a quest but many things and development that felt important happened ‘off-screen’… There were some things that were described to as if they were going to be a great asset to the heroine in said quest but never did play an essential role (which felt rather underwhelming)…. There were some backs and forths at times and certain things left unanswered…There was also lots and lots of exposition and explaining involved, which although interesting at parts was still too much.
I had a few other issues as well but ultimately what I feel Lavondyss lacked was probably the more streamlined/linear narration that made book one engaging. In Mythago Wood the story never really sidetracked despite all the mystical things happening -yes, there were some additional narratives thrown in for good measure but never lost its focus. It remained pretty straightforward and thus I got the chance as a reader to follow closely the journey the characters went through; while in Lavondyss it felt more like I was being described –amongst lots of other things- of a journey about to happen but never got to really experience it along with the character. I did like some twists but these too fell a bit short what with the main story being somewhat all over the place and many of the great revelations would have been more impactful if only the plot were more tight/coherent.
So, yeah….(siiiigh), overall I was disappointed and it was a difficult book for me to rate (2.5 stars) because Holdstock’s themes resonate so much with me and I love Mythago Wood’s world, but this one unfortunately kinda missed the mark.
I’m not discouraged though, I will be continuing with the series at some point!
March 27, 2014
I would compare this story to really nice, slow cooked ribs. It's so good when you pick it up, but you can't help but notice that as you eat, a larger portion of it is falling off the bone. You are trying to eat fast enough, but it's all falling on the floor now and now your dog is horking it down without any appreciation for how long it took to make and ugh sauce is all over your hands and you're just holding the bone and that wasn't NEARLY enough food and it started out so yummy but dinner is now ruined. RUINED, I say.
So to those who've read, my spoiler-y questions/thoughts:
So to those who've read, my spoiler-y questions/thoughts:
August 17, 2023
Na Holdstocka jsem poprvé narazil už v roce 1992 (?) ve skvělém časopise Ikarie, budiž mu země lehká. Vyšla tam povídka "Za domem je les, a ten je plný kostí" a já jsem začal ve větru cítit něco velmi zajímavýho. A když vyšel Les mytág, byl jsem naprosto nadšený. A i dál jsem hltal všechny Holdstockovy knížky, jak jen stihly vycházet.
Lavondyss je jedna z těch nejlepších, četl jsem ji už několikrát a je to zážitek. Putování Tallis Keatonové do země mrazu a zpátky, přes všechny ty tisíce let lidských mýtů a životů, to vás prostě dostane. Člověk se úplně ponoří do těch příběhů, mýtů, ztratí se v tom tajemném lese, pro mě je to návyková záležitost.
Takže teď samozřejmě zase znova přečtu všechno, co Holdstock napsal a vyšlo česky.
Co se dá dělat.
Z mých kostí se kouří. Musím tam jít.
Lavondyss je jedna z těch nejlepších, četl jsem ji už několikrát a je to zážitek. Putování Tallis Keatonové do země mrazu a zpátky, přes všechny ty tisíce let lidských mýtů a životů, to vás prostě dostane. Člověk se úplně ponoří do těch příběhů, mýtů, ztratí se v tom tajemném lese, pro mě je to návyková záležitost.
Takže teď samozřejmě zase znova přečtu všechno, co Holdstock napsal a vyšlo česky.
Co se dá dělat.
Z mých kostí se kouří. Musím tam jít.
January 6, 2016
Už první díl ze série Le Mytág mně uchvátil. U Lavondyss se mi nejvíce líbil začátek (cca do dvou pětin), pak střed jsem četl s menším nadšením a finále mne opět bavilo o něco více. Kdybych to měl nějak shrnout do jedné, dvou vět, tak napíši: "fantasy pro dospělé" pohybující se už na samé hranici opravdového velkého románu.
Prostě draci, upíři a podobné propriety youth fantasy not included. xD
Prostě draci, upíři a podobné propriety youth fantasy not included. xD
October 4, 2016
Back to weird!
Started off very good with an engaging tale between a young granddaughter & her doting grandfather which promised much within the lands of the Mythago’s, as they’re called, however we’re very soon left with a teenage girl & it’s very much a story for the YA out there....... sorry but I couldn’t go on & finish.
Many will like it as its not bad at all jus wrong genre (YA) for me
Started off very good with an engaging tale between a young granddaughter & her doting grandfather which promised much within the lands of the Mythago’s, as they’re called, however we’re very soon left with a teenage girl & it’s very much a story for the YA out there....... sorry but I couldn’t go on & finish.
Many will like it as its not bad at all jus wrong genre (YA) for me
July 20, 2024
Druhé, tentokrát intuitivnější setkání s Robertem Holdstockem se už vydařilo mimořádně! I'm in. Možná správný čas, možná už prostě postavena před natolik uchvacující a pohlcující příběhy, představy, obrazy, vjemy a jazyk nedokážu odolávat déle. Konečně chápu, proč Les mytág pro tolik lidí tolik znamená.
September 26, 2020
Lavondyss za mě normálně lepší než Les mytág.
Totálně žeru popisy tajemného lesa. Cítíte hlínu, trouchnivějící dřevo, smůlu, tajemství i ty bubáky v každém stínu. Hlavní hrdinka tentokrát je ve velké části příběhu dítě, je tam hezky vidět konflikt dospělého a dětského vidění, nádech motivu šplouchání na maják. Tohle mě opravdu bavilo.
Totálně žeru popisy tajemného lesa. Cítíte hlínu, trouchnivějící dřevo, smůlu, tajemství i ty bubáky v každém stínu. Hlavní hrdinka tentokrát je ve velké části příběhu dítě, je tam hezky vidět konflikt dospělého a dětského vidění, nádech motivu šplouchání na maják. Tohle mě opravdu bavilo.
August 5, 2023
Strange, boring at times, but I did finish.
September 1, 2013
4.5 stars, really, but I'm rounding up on account of Robert Holdstock's very heady signature cocktail of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. Only it's not a cocktail at all, but a visionary paste made of viscous golden sap mashed up with wildwood and heartwood, berries and blossoms, vivid algae and foul fungal decay, marsh stems and leaves sharpened like arrows, a hallucinatory mixture to be daubed on the temples and third eye. Set aside your mortar and pestle and find a comfortable position as you join Holdstock in seeking Lavondyss.
It's been a couple years since I visited Mythago Wood , and that gap made my experience of the sequel (of sorts) more intense and pleasurable, less familiar, even as I welcomed a return to the push-me-pull-you atmosphere of Ryhope Wood, England's last primeval forest. Holdstock created a landscape that is at once ephemeral and timeless, real and imagined, terrible and enchanting, easily encircled by footpaths and impossible to cross.
Ryhope is impossibly vast with possibilities, and these are delineated only by the minds of those who interact with the place and its inhabitants, the strange, familiar creatures who once existed not in fact but in truth, because they are the heroes and villains of the stories we have told ourselves since the beginning to make sense of the life that has been thrust upon us. These mythagos live out their legends time and again; we glimpse them through the eyes of the seemingly ordinary English folk lucky or unlucky enough to live near the forest.
In Lavondyss, those eyes belong to Tallis Keeton, who knows that a promise made is a debt to be paid. ("And a promise broke is a life choked.") She gives her word carefully, deliberately, just as she interacts with the forest with which she has had a special connection — through family, through proximity, through love and loss — since she was very young.
The rules that bind the cautious, obsessive youngster feel logical, dangerous: she must know a place's name before it will guarantee her safe return. She carves masks into different types of wood and names them, too, with shamanistic certainty. She glimpses a long-gone world bedeviled by winter and a young man at its mercy. She falls in love. She prophesies the results of her own actions. She renders her parents entirely useless, which would be a narrative flaw if this series of books weren't so reliant on atmosphere. This is a book in which a boy's skin is described as "a confusion of leaves," in which birds take on sinister significance with their "endless fluttering of wings, intense and urgent pecking of beaks," in which a castle made of stones that aren't stone is "as fine to look at as the fine lines on a mother's face." Who needs parents when you've got a forest?
Several reviewers have complained about the slow pace, the relative absence of plot, the ensuing boredom. I felt none of this, only a deep-rooted desire to visit Ryhope Wood, somehow, and an equally unshakeable fear of what I'd find in my own head. Look: if the atmosphere doesn't do it for you within the first fifty pages, move on. Life is short. Better to find the book that makes your brain fizz and your heart race. Further to that advice, I don't know if this is the sort of book one re-reads. Other reviews with downgraded ratings suggest not. But to read it for the first time was harrowing and delightful.
In summary: Magic.
It's been a couple years since I visited Mythago Wood , and that gap made my experience of the sequel (of sorts) more intense and pleasurable, less familiar, even as I welcomed a return to the push-me-pull-you atmosphere of Ryhope Wood, England's last primeval forest. Holdstock created a landscape that is at once ephemeral and timeless, real and imagined, terrible and enchanting, easily encircled by footpaths and impossible to cross.
Ryhope is impossibly vast with possibilities, and these are delineated only by the minds of those who interact with the place and its inhabitants, the strange, familiar creatures who once existed not in fact but in truth, because they are the heroes and villains of the stories we have told ourselves since the beginning to make sense of the life that has been thrust upon us. These mythagos live out their legends time and again; we glimpse them through the eyes of the seemingly ordinary English folk lucky or unlucky enough to live near the forest.
"Do you think woods can be aware of people, and keep them at a distance?"
In Lavondyss, those eyes belong to Tallis Keeton, who knows that a promise made is a debt to be paid. ("And a promise broke is a life choked.") She gives her word carefully, deliberately, just as she interacts with the forest with which she has had a special connection — through family, through proximity, through love and loss — since she was very young.
The rules that bind the cautious, obsessive youngster feel logical, dangerous: she must know a place's name before it will guarantee her safe return. She carves masks into different types of wood and names them, too, with shamanistic certainty. She glimpses a long-gone world bedeviled by winter and a young man at its mercy. She falls in love. She prophesies the results of her own actions. She renders her parents entirely useless, which would be a narrative flaw if this series of books weren't so reliant on atmosphere. This is a book in which a boy's skin is described as "a confusion of leaves," in which birds take on sinister significance with their "endless fluttering of wings, intense and urgent pecking of beaks," in which a castle made of stones that aren't stone is "as fine to look at as the fine lines on a mother's face." Who needs parents when you've got a forest?
What is a mother's kiss?
The kiss of acceptance. The kiss of knowing. The kiss of grief. The kiss of love. There was no such thing as a mother's kiss. It was a kiss for all things. A son's kiss, too. It signalled the rightness of a deed. It signalled acceptance. It signalled love that goes beyond the love of a kiss. Yes. She knew it now.
Several reviewers have complained about the slow pace, the relative absence of plot, the ensuing boredom. I felt none of this, only a deep-rooted desire to visit Ryhope Wood, somehow, and an equally unshakeable fear of what I'd find in my own head. Look: if the atmosphere doesn't do it for you within the first fifty pages, move on. Life is short. Better to find the book that makes your brain fizz and your heart race. Further to that advice, I don't know if this is the sort of book one re-reads. Other reviews with downgraded ratings suggest not. But to read it for the first time was harrowing and delightful.
In summary: Magic.
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