Hannah Versus the Tree

by Leland de la Durantaye

Hannah is a fiercely intelligent young women, daughter of a powerful family's black sheep son, and raised to question who has been, is, and will be damaged by business deals meant to protect and maintain the dynasty. A devastating wrong is done to her when she opposes a family scheme and her response is a battle cry of astounding violence and beauty.

As haunting as Shirley Jackson or Thomas Bernhard, as enthralling as Nabokov or Joyce, Leland de la Durantaye's debut novel is a radical departure from contemporary storytelling. At once the story of a terrific act of vengeance and of a lifelong love, Hannah Versus the Tree, presents a new literary genre, the mythopoetic thriller.

Genres: Fiction, Horror, Thriller

176 pages, Hardcover

First published November 20, 2018

Reviews

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read different books at different times of day, in different places. This small, elegant novel was a night book, a just before bed book. I only wanted to read a few pages at a time. It is narrated almost exclusively--and the scenes run into one another in a dreamscape. People have remarked about the mythopoetic of the book, and they are such--especially the Nordic strand--that I was always shocked when the action took place in Michigan. The ending in particular moves into the reality of the present, bitcoin and hacking and hunting on the internet rather than with swords and longbows.

It's a story of an aristocratic family, the Syrls, whose most potent scion proves to be a young girl named Hannah. Hannah is steeped in history, languages, and the world of myth as well as the family legend. She is the great love of the narrator, a cousin of sorts who is telling the story of the family's fall at Hannah's hand to a grandmother who failed to see the girl's destiny and value, who chose her own son, the arch-nobleman Sixten, over her granddaughter when Hannah reports an assault.

Sixten's justification of aristocracy, of injustice, is the highlight of the book--a real Grand Inquisitor moment.

Don't expect a story in the conventional sense, This is a small and entirely narrated book, with basic facts passed over, a tale built of mood and image, a sophisticated and subtle debut.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the kind of book that you'll finish in one go and then sit quietly staring vacantly into the middle distance with that feeling like you accidentally electrocuted yourself, but somehow lived.

It would be so easy to write this story maudlin or filled with saccharine sentimentality, but de la Durantye threads the needle here and pens a near perfect novel. The last twenty pages are exquisite; I find myself returning to them again and again to witness a master storyteller unfolding a narrative with a superb ending.

[AMANDA · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is unlike anything I've read before, and I can respect when a writer wants to experiment with technique and try something totally unique. But I can't say that I really liked the book. It's extremely short in length, but even so, the style, which is cool in the beginning, became exhausting to read. It's hard to follow what is actually taking place - it's vague and cramped with almost academic-like tangents about history and civilization and various fables - and so I found it difficult to appreciate the actual events of the story and the characters (who could sometimes be hard to keep track of regarding their relationships to Hannah as well as the unnamed matriarch whom the unnamed narrator is addressing throughout the book in the second person).

I also disliked that this turned out to be yet another book written by a man in which he uses his female character being raped as a plot device. I wouldn't necessarily say that de la Durantaye handled Hannah's rape offensively, I'm just tired, in general, of male writers who use rape against women to drive their stories.

[Emmeline · Rating 2 out of 5]

"As haunting as Shirley Jackson or Thomas Bernhard, as enthralling as Nabokov or Joyce." Blurbs are blurbs of course, and maybe I was a fool to believe this one (a fool aided and abetted by a bookseller I had heretofore trusted, but no more) but I thought this book would at least be interesting, if flawed.

Instead, it's an impenetrable 170 pages of non-character, non-plot, cliché, poor writing, dodgy morals and blandly beautiful women (the kind who are all freckles and sun-kissed legs). It's biggest problem, though, was a complete and total lack of specificity, not just of time, place and character names, but also of what happened. There is a "scene" describing what happens to Hannah, but it is so vague that I needed clarification some pages later that she had, in fact, been raped.

De la Durantaye has apparently not read Checkov, because the early pages pepper the narrative with pistols that resolutely fail to go off. Nor does he adhere much to "show don't tell." There are other, more minor irritants: a truly tedious description of Hannah's drug dealing venture and a peculiar plug for investing in bitcoin. Occasionally the narrative tries to establish its characters as class warriors, despite the fact that they seem to live the lives of moneyed elites and show no interest in injustice until the midway point.

The cover design sure is beautiful though.

[Antonio Vena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastica, in alcune accezioni, Novella dell'Antropocene.

[Fede La Lettrice · Rating 4 out of 5]

"La sera in cui gli raccontò il suo piano, il Saggio le domandò se fu quando si era stesa sotto all'albero di famiglia che aveva capito come sradicarlo."

Un mito, una leggenda moderna.

[Arianna Rebolini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike anything I've read before — epic poem meets modern vengeance thriller; stunning, lyrical prose that unfortunately sometimes overwhelms the plot. I re-read the first half of the book because I'd missed an important event that I'm still not even clear on, but honestly that confusion is so minimal in comparison to the beauty of this book and the rush of reading it. I *need* someone else to read it, too, and talk to me about it.

[Jay Gabler · Rating 2 out of 5]

A unique achievement, but one that also suggests there's a reason no one's attempted a mythopoetic thriller before. Behind the ambitious style, plot and character are lost.

[Antonio Vena · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una vera novella dell'Antropocene.
Mito, natura, dinastia dello sfruttamento, gabbia della complessità e poi meravigliose evocazioni di dèi e cosmogonie.
Una stella in più per l'esordio.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such a wonderful book! And the cover is just awesome.
It's described as something which immediately triggered me: "a new literary genre, the mythopoetic thriller." I don't know about the thriller bit, but I can sort of guess what was meant by 'mythopoetic' now that I've read it. The language is indeed poetic and philosophical, and the book is filled with references to Greek myths, Scandinavian sagas and native Americans stories. I loved it! I didn't get all of it straight away, but it made me curious, set me thinking and ignited my brain. This is the way books should be I think.

[Paolo Latini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Michael Silverblatt, titolare del podcast Bookwarm, ha avanzato l’intrigante ipotesi che l’Hannah protagonista del libro sia la discendente metaforica di Annibale: come Annibale ha contrastato il potere e la cultura che lo hanno formato, Hannah combatte e contrasta quella cultura dell’imprenditorialità e del potere, del culto del denaro e della strategia nei quali è cresciuta. Unica differenza è che lei contrasta una struttura matriarcale. Hannah versus l’albero È una storia di ribellione, che mostra come possiamo ribellarci solo alla cultura che ci ha cresciuto (l’albero come albero genealogico, la pianta che dal cui seme siamo nati), e è una storia di vendetta, nella miglior tradizione classica. Hannah, brillante ragazzina, con capacità inusuali, ha subito un torto da un membro della sua famiglia e decide di combatterla, e con essa le strutture di potere della società nella quale è cresciuta. Un romanzo breve che si legge come una specie di poema epico contemporaneo.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Si deve superare lo spaesamento dato da una narrazione non lineare, in cui molte cose (fatti, nomi, persone) sono non dette o non spiegate perché nella finzione del racconto chi scrive dà per scontato che la persona a cui si rivolge le conosca necessariamente già. Nella realtà provoca in noi che leggiamo per davvero una sensazione quasi costante di dover “leggere tra le righe” che può essere irritante.
Superata questa difficoltà il libro mi è piaciuto molto: è una bella storia di vendetta, mescolata a miti, fatti storici e a una forte tematica di denuncia dello sfruttamento ambientale.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Continuing to read what I have & this lil book I picked up at the book barn earlier this summer, purely on judge a book by its cover merit & a Shirley Jackson comparison on the back.

Turns out I got an advanced copy - there was a handwritten note from the author inside of it. I love finding little notes out in the wild… if I see a grocery list in a cart I’ll always read it.

Anywho - this book is good, it’s a mystery in a weird long sort of poem-adjacent format. It’s lyrical and dreamy and interesting.

[Dee]

My professor wrote this book and ahh can't wait to read this coming-of-age novel :)

[Blanche · Rating 5 out of 5]

mythopoetic thriller

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love large books, sweeping narratives, etc. But we live in a world of bloated stories, and there’s something so electrifying about 170 pages that can tell you a story—a good one. A story that will make you think, that’s not spelled out for you, and so beautifully written that you could restart it immediately.

De la Durantaye did something awesome here. If you’ve read James Wood you know at least two things: 1) he’s great; 2) he’s extremely well-read. He said it’s unlike anything he’s ever read, and it is. But! Not in a strange way: it feels like Greek and Roman epics and tragedies, mixed with American transcendentalism (not in a syrupy way), postmodernism, and well-constructed modern episodic television shows.

[Conor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another 3.5. This is a very odd one. I was pretty mesmerized by the writing myself but it is another I'd be hesitant to recommend as there is very little plot and I think many people with find it pretentious.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent! The book flows. It flows and passes by too quickly. It is no surprise that the author is a professor of comparative lit and has also written an introductory study of Giorgio Agamben, whom is fresh in my mind, having just finished his short work, State of Exception, about a week ago.

Vengeance. A bracing subject for this bracing novel. Only this short novel is short on details and many of the particulars, so in a sense I think it could be considered to be more concerned with the form of vengeance rather than a simple lurid tale.

[Linsy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lyrically written, I loved it. I will be thinking about this book, and Hannah, for a while.

This is a good interview of Durantaye where he explains the novel better than I ever could: In Interview with Leland de la Durantaye about his novel, Hannah Versus the Tree

[Miles Liebtag · Rating 3 out of 5]

An engaging and well-wrought if strangely lightweight revenge story aspiring to something higher than it seems to in the end achieve. To say that it represents "a new genre: mythopoetic thriller," is to overegg the pudding by at least a few large eggs. Spare and athletic prose, but with few surprises. Interested to see what comes next from the author, regardless.

[Robin Becht · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me call this a 3.5 - but a 3.5 I legitimately enjoyed. Unique, at times enthralling, maintains an air of mystery, dreamlike. I didn’t rate it higher because the pacing often threw me, some aspects were too sparse to resonate, and there were some dangling plot lines I expected (and hoped) to explore more.

[Catherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Am amazing read. I was sucked in and could not stop. Unforgettable characters and sweeping mythology. I was not as taken by the final 20 pages but still a must read. And yes, I made a genealogy chart.

[Matthew Saucier · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such an epic read. Very pithy and to the point but riddled with elegant figurative language. I love the structure of this story. It’s bolstered with Roman and Carthaginian history and is simply put an invigorating experience.

[Patrick Riley · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways a captivating, brilliant writing, compelling plot, so many interesting characters and historical references. At times I found the plot difficult to follow, especially who was being talked about. But a reread would cure that for me.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike anything I’ve ever read. Will definitely leave a book-hangover. A long one.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I get where this was coming from and what it was trying to achieve, but it gave me no joy...aside from looking like a lit nerd on the bus.

[Bianca · Rating 4 out of 5]

The plot fell apart at the end, but the prose was too compelling not to give it 4 stars.

[Kim Han · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had to read and re-read the first couple of chapters and finally gave up. I found it rather confusing and could not get into it.

[Zach · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damn near perfect first and second act(s) and a satisfying ending. I don't have many words for what it is and what it's about and I think that's the highest praise.

[Azucena Beltran-Connolly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful writing. A humming intensity vibrating throughout.