She was not violent, perhaps because the old man himself could not think of a woman being violent. He imposed a structure on her, disarming her, leaving her quite helpless in the forest. [p. 57]
This is a novel I return to again and again, each time finding something new. This time around I found the toxic masculinity almost overpowering: but this is, after all, a novel about tensions between father and son and between brothers. It's not an accident that the only female characters are either dead (Stephen and Christian's mother) or mythic (Guiwenneth).
In brief: the setting is the English countryside just after World War II. Ryhope Wood, apparently a small patch of ancient woodland, harbours ancient landscapes and mythic archetypes -- 'mythagos' -- who are created from the wood itself and from the collective unconscious of humans who venture into the wood. Stephen Huxley, returning from war, finds his father dead and his brother Christian mourning the death of his wife, Guiwenneth, who Stephen never met. Christian reveals that Guiwenneth was not truly human ('she had no life, no real life. She’s lived a thousand times, and she’s never lived at all') and that 'she was father's girl'. When Christian disappears into the wood, returning older and angrier to abduct another version of Guiwenneth, the stage is set for a mythic quest-narrative, with Stephen and his new friend Harry Keaton in pursuit of a myth and its origins.
There are some pseudo-scientific elements -- George Huxley experimented with electricity and hallucinogens, and he and his various correspondents eagerly discuss the prehistoric roots of the societies and stories he discovers in the wood -- but the focus is on the formation of myths and mythagos, and the ways in which stories play out again and again.
I reread this after reading Scenes from Prehistoric Life, which reminded me of the strangeness, and the resonance of Holdstock's myth-making. I hadn't revisited Mythago Wood for many years, and was surprised by how much I remembered of it. But quite quickly I realised that this wasn't the book I was craving: I wanted winter, and a female protagonist, and old memory in snow ... Onward to Lavondyss!
No comments:
Post a Comment