skygiants | (no subject)

I had a vague impression that Emily Tesh's Silver in the Wood was about the relationship between a young man and a forest spirit or Green Man or something. This is correct, as it happens, but also gave me a somewhat mistaken idea of the kind of book that it is -- I had a vague notion of something along the lines of The Shape of Water, but, you know, a tree instead of a fish.

But in fact the forest spirit here is a quiet, solid fellow named Tobias who would probably be thoroughly ordinary if he weren't tied to the woods because of [past mistakes and circumstances redacted] and I loved him immediately. The deuteragonist is Henry Silver, Tobias' new amateur-folklorist landlord and occasional guest; the novella is somewhat a love story, but it's more about [past mistakes and circumstances redacted], and how those things are woven into the pattern of woods, in a way that's a bit reminiscent of the numinous bits of Peter Beagle's Tamsin, or the parts of Susan Cooper that have ghosts (ironically, Greenwitch much more than Silver on the Tree.)

There's a sequel coming out this year, I believe, which I'm looking forward to and also intensely curious about because the novella felt like such a satisfying single story in and of itself - but the novella had enough craft to it that I more or less trust a sequel to tug on an end without unraveling it, by which I mean I've preordered it.

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From:

kore

I loved that so much I preordered the sequel as soon as I could! Her fic on AO3 was great, too. (She wrote that amazing Bacchae Yuletide fic.) I adored Henry's mum.

From:

skygiants

HENRY'S MOM, what a delight!

From:

kore

At first I was :-/ when she appeared, because I thought she would be a Dominating Older Woman cliche. But she wasn't really like that at all!

From:

sovay

or the parts of Susan Cooper that have ghosts (ironically, Greenwitch much more than Silver on the Tree.)

Sold.

From:

skygiants

I very much think you would enjoy it!

From:

sovay

I very much think you would enjoy it!

I enjoyed it very much! It has the problem I am finding with a lot of published novellas lately, i.e., I would enjoy them even more as novels, but it contained elements reminding me by turns of Robert Holdstock, Peter S. Beagle, and Greer Gilman (and I can't see a quartered circle in a context of British old weirdness without thinking of Susan Cooper, either) and still felt like itself. Did you ever read the original version on AO3? I am fascinated by the jump from fic to Tor, but the author seems to have nuked her account as part of the process and I can't find much information.

I really appreciate Henry's mother.

From:

kore

Seconded, it's REALLY good.

From:

sovay

Seconded, it's REALLY good.

See above! I had ordered a copy from my local independent bookstore immediately following this conversation and then of course my local independent bookstore along with just about everything in the Boston area closed. They finally mailed it to me. I plan to repay them by preordering the sequel.

From:

genarti

I definitely thought of both Uprooted and some of the more supernatural bits of Mary Stewart, as well, comparison-wise. Plus a little Ursula Vernon, around the edges, without her merry wackiness.

I really enjoyed it too, as you know! And did not at all expect Tobias to be the kind of character he was from the back cover copy -- it wasn't misleading, just vague, and I expected something much more mysterious and standardly tropey -- and I loved him a whole lot. I was very fond of Henry too! But Tobias and his cat and his trees and his resigned "welp, here we are" attitude to many (but not all) things!!! I am very excited to see what the sequel decides to do, because I was pleased with the ending of the book but also would happily have read a lot more continuing adventures.

From:

skygiants

Huh, Mary Stewart isn't a comparison I would have thought of on my own, but I think I see where you get there!

Tobias was SUCH a good character and I was so glad the book was from his perspective, and that we got to see him from the inside, as he sees himself, and indeed his resigned attitude as you say which is so endearing and I think would be much harder to capture externally.

From:

genarti

And Tamsin wasn't one I would've thought of (though, admittedly, I've read Tamsin all of once and my memories of much of it have gotten vague), but ditto! It's interesting in that there are a lot of ready points of comparison, but it's not the kind of book where I'm going "ah, I see, you are definitely a response to X" or "ah, I see, the author definitely imprinted on Y, then."

From:

skygiants

I suspect (as is predictable for the both of us) that you're thinking more about nature, and I'm thinking more about haunted history and ghosts. :P

From:

genarti

...the idea of NOT putting nature at the heart of one's associations for this book did not in fact occur to me as possible until you said that, so yes, we are both being extremely predictable and I am cracking up

From:

sovay

but it's not the kind of book where I'm going "ah, I see, you are definitely a response to X" or "ah, I see, the author definitely imprinted on Y, then."

I would be genuinely surprised if the author hadn't encountered at least the premise of Holdstock's Mythago Wood (1984) because of the handling of time and space both within and of the wood, specifically the deep time and extent of the primeval forest which can be accessed through the memory of the wood in the present day ("Walk in time . . . The Green Man walks the wood. But the wood remembers"). I was also reminded of Tamsin, though there almost strictly because of the parallels with the use of the Wild Hunt.

From:

sovay

I was very fond of Henry too!

I was profoundly entertained by Henry being exactly the sort of character toward whom I generally gravitate and then he spent most of the book offstage, demonstrating that I was perfectly capable of being attached to Tobias. (I am obviously capable of being attached to Henry's mother because who isn't?)

From:

minutia_r

I thought you would like it!

From:

skygiants

You were correct! :D

From:

vass

a bit reminiscent of the numinous bits of Peter Beagle's Tamsin, or the parts of Susan Cooper that have ghosts

Thanks for the warning. I love her fanfic, but there are parts that are Not For Me, and generally the closer she gets to the style and moral universe of a late 19th to mid-20th century English Catholic or Anglo-Catholic fantasist or children's writer, the more uncomfortable I get. It sounds like this book (which I bought when it came out but haven't gotten around to yet) might be closer to the Not For Me end of the scale.

From:

sovay

generally the closer she gets to the style and moral universe of a late 19th to mid-20th century English Catholic or Anglo-Catholic fantasist or children's writer, the more uncomfortable I get.

What goes wrong? (Or is it the Anglo-Catholic fantasy that is itself the problem?)

From:

skygiants

You're welcome! I wouldn't call this work or its moral universe particularly Catholic in any way (if I'm guessing correctly what you mean by that, which I might not be), but stylistically there certainly are some callbacks.

From:

merit

I looooved it. It really hit my love of folklore + magic + clash between nature and civilisation. The covers are gorgeous too.

From:

skygiants

The book itself is so beautiful! I'm excited to see the cover for the next one.

From:

tamsin

This sounds intriguing. I loved Tamsin (it's where my username comes from) so I'll put this on my to read list.

Thanks for the review!

From:

kore

Tamsin was so good! Jenny is a marvelous character.

From:

tamsin

It was! I also really liked Mr. Cat and found the pooka very compelling.

From:

skygiants

You're welcome! Tamsin is one of my all-time favorite books, too -- I remember finding it when I was approximately Jenny's age and being astonished at how well Peter Beagle wrote like a teen girl, and honestly that's still true.