Status
Available
Call number
Collections
Publication
Voyager (1998), Edition: New Ed, Paperback, 320 pages
Description
Deep within the wildwood lies a place of myth and mystery, from which few return, and none remain unchanged. Ryhope Wood may look like a three-mile-square fenced-in wood in rural Herefordshire on the outside, but inside, it is a primeval, intricate labyrinth of trees, impossibly huge, unforgettable . . . and stronger than time itself. Stephen Huxley has already lost his father to the mysteries of Ryhope Wood. On his return from the Second World War, he finds his brother, Christopher, is also in thrall to the mysterious wood, wherein lies a realm where mythic archetypes grow flesh and blood, where love and beauty haunt your dreams, and in promises of freedom lies the sanctuary of insanity . . .
Media reviews
A beautifully written and conceived novel that deals with the delights and dangers of myth-making... Some books are hard to put down. I found ''Mythago Wood'' hard to shake off.
Although it takes its time getting started, and occasionally reminds us that it was expanded from a short story, this is a winning novel with a fine feeling for the interface between airy dreams and sweaty reality.
User reviews
LibraryThing member fiverivers
I think it's me, to be honest. Robert Holdstock is an award-winning author, receiving praise from pretty impressive peers. And I'm a highly critical reader, always reading through the eyes not only of a reader, but writer and editor. Can't help it.
While the concept of Holdstock's sentient forest is
There are credibility problems, for me, with the plot as well. If there is a mystical, magical, haunted wood in real-time, post WWII England, then wouldn't there be local legend of this? Wouldn't the extras in the novel, even the main characters, know about the strangeness of the wood? If people disappear in the woods, wouldn't the locals discuss this? If planes can't fly over the woods, especially in the atmosphere of post WWII Gloucester, England, where there was very sharp, immediate memory of German bombing and raids, wouldn't there be cause for the RAF and other authorities to be involved? Absolutley there would! But no. It's taken as something of a surprise that no one can fly over the woods outside of Gloucester, and moreover a surprise isolated to two men only. This is a major flaw in the realization of this novel, and because of that lack of credibility, the remainder of the novel failed, in my opinion.
Other credibility problems lie with the main protagonist, Steven, whose brother, Christopher, goes missing in the woods, and Steven doesn't seem overly concerned about this, and even after months of Christopher's disappearance, Steven does nothing to notify the authorities, put together a search party. A man recently reuinited with this sibling, after the horrors of WWII, would most certainly set about finding his brother, at least in my world he would.
And while Holdstock's exploration of the genesis of myth, and in particular Arthurian myth, is fascinating, his realization of that concept, for me, is blurred and confusing. There is no clarity in the novel.
Lastly, I feel this novel, the second of the Mythago Cycle, should have come first. The third, Lavondyss should have been second, and the first, The Hollowing, should have been third. But that's just me. Clearly thousands of people have felt otherwise.
While the concept of Holdstock's sentient forest is
Show More
haunting, even compelling at times, his characterization is, in my opinion, so stilted that the characters themselves prevent the story from unfolding in a satisfactory manner. Or rather that is to say, Holdstock's method of writing characters gets in the way. His people lack credibility. They lack reasonable motivation. They appear to me as automatons employed to drive the plot, but are so weak that the plot stalls and stutters.There are credibility problems, for me, with the plot as well. If there is a mystical, magical, haunted wood in real-time, post WWII England, then wouldn't there be local legend of this? Wouldn't the extras in the novel, even the main characters, know about the strangeness of the wood? If people disappear in the woods, wouldn't the locals discuss this? If planes can't fly over the woods, especially in the atmosphere of post WWII Gloucester, England, where there was very sharp, immediate memory of German bombing and raids, wouldn't there be cause for the RAF and other authorities to be involved? Absolutley there would! But no. It's taken as something of a surprise that no one can fly over the woods outside of Gloucester, and moreover a surprise isolated to two men only. This is a major flaw in the realization of this novel, and because of that lack of credibility, the remainder of the novel failed, in my opinion.
Other credibility problems lie with the main protagonist, Steven, whose brother, Christopher, goes missing in the woods, and Steven doesn't seem overly concerned about this, and even after months of Christopher's disappearance, Steven does nothing to notify the authorities, put together a search party. A man recently reuinited with this sibling, after the horrors of WWII, would most certainly set about finding his brother, at least in my world he would.
And while Holdstock's exploration of the genesis of myth, and in particular Arthurian myth, is fascinating, his realization of that concept, for me, is blurred and confusing. There is no clarity in the novel.
Lastly, I feel this novel, the second of the Mythago Cycle, should have come first. The third, Lavondyss should have been second, and the first, The Hollowing, should have been third. But that's just me. Clearly thousands of people have felt otherwise.
Show Less
LibraryThing member dulac3
What a great read! Holdstock managed to come up with something completely new and incredibly old at the same time with his Mythago Wood series. By mining the rich vein of British myth and tying it to both the Jungian subconscious and the magical influence of an acient living forest he managed to
In the first volume, _Mythago Wood_, we follow the story of Stephen Huxley who returns home from the war to his ancient family home in the countryside of Britain to find his brother, Christopher, a changed and haunted man. The family estate borders the enigmatic Ryhope Wood, a forest whose mysteries had obsessed their father, and now threaten to consume Christopher as well.
As the story progresses we begin to discover some of the mysteries uncovered by the elder Huxley and see that the wood is much more than a simple forest...it is somehow a nexus for the mythical imagery of humanity and, when people come into close contact with it, can generate 'mythagos', or living embodiments of their mythic figures. In addition we soon discover, through the journeys of the brothers, that the forest distorts both time and space, becoming larger as you go inside and taking you further back into mankind's prehistory.
The story itself becomes a complex family conflict as first the Oedipal battle between Christopher and his father is acted out and then, inevitably, that of Christopher vs. his brother Stephen. All of these battles are undertaken in the name of Gwyneth, an alluring mythago whose charms manage to enamour all of the Huxley men. In addition the desire to uncover the ultimate meaning behind the forest's mysterious power push the Huxley's to overcome the obstacles and traps that the forest constantly puts in their way.
Show More
create a fantasy work that was both epic in scope and personal in its resonance. It's a work that truly stands the test of time. In the first volume, _Mythago Wood_, we follow the story of Stephen Huxley who returns home from the war to his ancient family home in the countryside of Britain to find his brother, Christopher, a changed and haunted man. The family estate borders the enigmatic Ryhope Wood, a forest whose mysteries had obsessed their father, and now threaten to consume Christopher as well.
As the story progresses we begin to discover some of the mysteries uncovered by the elder Huxley and see that the wood is much more than a simple forest...it is somehow a nexus for the mythical imagery of humanity and, when people come into close contact with it, can generate 'mythagos', or living embodiments of their mythic figures. In addition we soon discover, through the journeys of the brothers, that the forest distorts both time and space, becoming larger as you go inside and taking you further back into mankind's prehistory.
The story itself becomes a complex family conflict as first the Oedipal battle between Christopher and his father is acted out and then, inevitably, that of Christopher vs. his brother Stephen. All of these battles are undertaken in the name of Gwyneth, an alluring mythago whose charms manage to enamour all of the Huxley men. In addition the desire to uncover the ultimate meaning behind the forest's mysterious power push the Huxley's to overcome the obstacles and traps that the forest constantly puts in their way.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Evadare
Really, when it comes down to it, my only real problem with Tolkien is that, as creations, the Old Forest, Old Man Willow, and Fangorn are SO FRAKKIN' AMAZING I wanted a whole series of books just about them.
This'll suit me nicely as the next best thing. :D
This'll suit me nicely as the next best thing. :D
LibraryThing member StaticBlaq
Back to 1984 and the World Fantasy award winner of `985. This is a 3.75 on my own scale.
This is a story that hits the ground running with very little preamble and a hook that immediately submerses you in the story. I wasn't surprised to later learn that the novel originally started as a shorty
The story itself has a dreamlike and spiritual quality, the protagonists entering into a parallel world via a "ghost wood" populated by the folklore characters of ancient man. As the protagonists delve deeper into the wood, they reach further within their own psyche and the Id made manifest.
For fantasy fans, this story is more about the internal conflict and fears of man than swashbuckling action so fans of the more traditional fantasy genre may not feel a connection with this story.
Personally, I found that the initial momentum trailed off about halfway through and there was never any real raising of the stakes or great risks that upped the ante. I wasn't totally taken on the protagonists motivation - there seemed grander things available but they were not tapped in to. It was very much a flat plateau of events that lead to a rather unsatisfying conclusion, which was a real shame for what had been a very eerie, intriguing, dark story.
This is a story that hits the ground running with very little preamble and a hook that immediately submerses you in the story. I wasn't surprised to later learn that the novel originally started as a shorty
Show More
story initially as the pacing certainly has that feel; from the opening pages, through the early scenes which tumble together with tension and mystery inciting you to just one more chapter. In this sense it was a real page-turner.The story itself has a dreamlike and spiritual quality, the protagonists entering into a parallel world via a "ghost wood" populated by the folklore characters of ancient man. As the protagonists delve deeper into the wood, they reach further within their own psyche and the Id made manifest.
For fantasy fans, this story is more about the internal conflict and fears of man than swashbuckling action so fans of the more traditional fantasy genre may not feel a connection with this story.
Personally, I found that the initial momentum trailed off about halfway through and there was never any real raising of the stakes or great risks that upped the ante. I wasn't totally taken on the protagonists motivation - there seemed grander things available but they were not tapped in to. It was very much a flat plateau of events that lead to a rather unsatisfying conclusion, which was a real shame for what had been a very eerie, intriguing, dark story.
Show Less
LibraryThing member edgeworth
I’ve been trying to read more non-Tolkien fantasy lately. Not that there’s anything wrong with Tolkien-inspired stuff, it’s just that it dominates the genre so completely. Mythago Wood, winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, fits the bill fairly well. It’s a story about Steven
The general concept is that Ryhope reaches inside the subconscious of its visitors and makes real the myths and fantasies they have tucked away in there, so it becomes a sort of repository for all of England’s legends – Robin Hood, druids, Royalist partisans, Arthurian knights, etc. Holdstock calls these legends made flesh “mythagos.” The crux of the story revolves around all three men – Steven, Christian and their father – becoming obsessed with “Guiwenneth,” a red-haired Celtic mythago, and about the Steven’s journey into the forest to find her after she is kidnapped by Christian, who has given himself over to the forest entirely.
It’s not quite the book I thought it would be – it’s fairly post-modern, analytical, Jungian. That sort of thing. What might have been an interesting idea in theory unravels because of Holdstock’s fascination with his own anthropology lesson. The plot is unfocused, and relies far too heavily on a poorly-written “romance” between the protagonist and Guiwenneth. The final third of the book, revolving around his journey into the forest to find her, comes completely off the rails and just feels like a trudge through Stone Age tribal warfare and shamanistic story-telling. I wanted to like Mythago Wood, but from the halfway point onwards I realised that wasn’t going to happen, and it became one of those unfortunate reading experiences where I was counting the number of pages left.
Show More
Huxley, who returns home at the end of WWII to the country house he once lived in with his brother and father. Huxley senior was obsessed with Ryhope Wood, a patch of primeval forest at the edge of their estate, and Steven’s brother Christian has continued his work. Ryhope Wood, of course, turns out to be something fantastic – a place where dreams and myths come true, a place much bigger on the inside than the outside, a dangerous place of magic, and so forth.The general concept is that Ryhope reaches inside the subconscious of its visitors and makes real the myths and fantasies they have tucked away in there, so it becomes a sort of repository for all of England’s legends – Robin Hood, druids, Royalist partisans, Arthurian knights, etc. Holdstock calls these legends made flesh “mythagos.” The crux of the story revolves around all three men – Steven, Christian and their father – becoming obsessed with “Guiwenneth,” a red-haired Celtic mythago, and about the Steven’s journey into the forest to find her after she is kidnapped by Christian, who has given himself over to the forest entirely.
It’s not quite the book I thought it would be – it’s fairly post-modern, analytical, Jungian. That sort of thing. What might have been an interesting idea in theory unravels because of Holdstock’s fascination with his own anthropology lesson. The plot is unfocused, and relies far too heavily on a poorly-written “romance” between the protagonist and Guiwenneth. The final third of the book, revolving around his journey into the forest to find her, comes completely off the rails and just feels like a trudge through Stone Age tribal warfare and shamanistic story-telling. I wanted to like Mythago Wood, but from the halfway point onwards I realised that wasn’t going to happen, and it became one of those unfortunate reading experiences where I was counting the number of pages left.
Show Less
LibraryThing member lyrrael
I grew up on the edge of a little wood -- it was mostly ‘young’ growth, to be honest, not anything like the ancient woods in this book -- but I can remembering adventuring through it as a child, and how once you made it past the brush and briars on the edge it receded into this creepy, quiet
Show More
forest floor littered with old leaves and trillium. I remember a giant boulder that I would go read on, and past the boulder was a giant old felled tree, and once you passed the rise on the other side of the valley the floor would change to sticky mud at the lowest points, and there, I can remember thinking that magic had to be real. Mythago Wood maintains that not only is the magic real, but our fairy tales and myths come to flesh and blood life through our collective memory. This was like a much, MUCH darker Bridge to Terabithia in that you cross the threshold, and you're in a different world were magic exists and exerts its influence on your life, and I’m frankly shocked that I hadn’t really run across it before, because it was outstanding. I’m really glad I ran across it, and I know it’s going to leave shockwaves on my memory for quite a while. Show Less
LibraryThing member wallacep
This is an interesting and darkly satisfying book. Anyone who is a fan of Gaiman will really enjoy it. A man searches a primevil wood that produces shades from his own subconcious. Combines Jungian archetypes with traditional fantasy motifes. Very interesting and original.
LibraryThing member Farree
This is an excellent fantasy novel. I would probably not write a review of it except that it includes a description of the 'Nacht Jagd' that is truly hair-raising. In the paleolithic tradition, there were groups of men who went out at night to hunt deer with knives. How does one kill a deer with a
Show More
stone knife in the middle of the night? Think about it. Show Less
LibraryThing member SChant
It took me a long time to finish this book - the first half was dreary and plodding, with that most irritating of tropes the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that I kept putting it aside. Eventually, inside the wood, it livened up a bit, with various ancient figures popping in and out to express approval or
Show More
try to kill the protagonist but by then I didn't care who lived or died so the mythological atmosphere was wasted on me. Show Less
LibraryThing member wandering_star
Mythago Wood is about a swathe of ancient forest, with primeval energies which can work with human (adult, male) consciousness to bring forth incarnations of ancient myths - all created from the fear and hope which occurred when one community is invaded by another. So we have Celtic myth-figures
Um, I realise that this makes it sound like the most cliched kind of sword-and-sorcery (especially the seductive Celtic princess)! It really isn't. I don't think it would convert anyone who hates the genre, but for me it was an interesting idea, cleverly developed, well-written and satisfyingly scary.
Show More
imagined into existence to fight the Romans, Saxons against Normans, Roundheads against Cavaliers (interesting definition of invasion there). One of the myths is a seductive Celtic princess, who comes to obsess the members of a nearby household - first the father, and then the two brothers. One after another they seek to find the secret of the woods. But the woods have ways of keeping them away from the sources of their power.Um, I realise that this makes it sound like the most cliched kind of sword-and-sorcery (especially the seductive Celtic princess)! It really isn't. I don't think it would convert anyone who hates the genre, but for me it was an interesting idea, cleverly developed, well-written and satisfyingly scary.
Show Less
LibraryThing member prettycurious
A very interesting take on mythology and folklore and a different kind of fantasy novel. I found it very easy to read and it definitely engrosses you in the world, though I found it took a little while to really get going. It wasn't until Steven started to get involved in the Wood that I became
Show More
really interested. I also have to say I was a bit disappointed in the ending, it is obviously set up for the next book and doesn't really give you many answers, but it does ensure you'll read the next one in the series! Show Less
LibraryThing member turtlesleap
Steven Huxley returns to his family home on the edge of Ryhope Wood at the end of World War II and finds that his brother, Christian, seems changed in ways that are hard for him to understand. As part of the story narrative, Steven recalls painful and bewildering experiences from their childhood
This story is a good concept but is never fully realized. It lacks a cohesiveness that would make sense of the fantasy world and simply seems to stagger from incident to incident without an internal logic. The characters are so tepid and lacking in emotion that they are simply not believable. The narrator stands apart and tells the reader how very intensely he, or other characters, are feeling, but there is no evidence of that emotion. It all seems curiously flat and dispassionate.
Show More
together, the death of their mother, and their father's abstracted indifference to both boys. Christian seems more and more drawn to the wood, as his father was before him, and tantalizes his brother with stories of a beautiful young woman, with creatures who take form from the thoughts of people and who reflect the evolving myths of the human race. Eventually, after Christian's final departure into the mysterious wood, Steven comes to know the young woman, Guiwenneth, loses her and with his friend Harry Keeton, goes on a quest into Ryhope Wood in the hope of recovering her. This story is a good concept but is never fully realized. It lacks a cohesiveness that would make sense of the fantasy world and simply seems to stagger from incident to incident without an internal logic. The characters are so tepid and lacking in emotion that they are simply not believable. The narrator stands apart and tells the reader how very intensely he, or other characters, are feeling, but there is no evidence of that emotion. It all seems curiously flat and dispassionate.
Show Less
LibraryThing member grizzly.anderson
I discovered this book as a teenager through the SF Book Club, and was enthralled by it. Since then it has stood up to numerous rereadings. The summary is a story of adventure as a young man back from WW II explores a haunted wood behind his family estate that contains mythic and legendary figures
What holds up so well is Holdstock's ability to paint the scene and draw you in to it, to make you smell and feel as well as hear and see what happens. He also draws heavily on the Jungian idea of archetypes that live in the minds an imaginations of everyone, and in the story empowers the wood to embody the archetypes drawn from the unconscious of the people who enter it. From there Holdstock explores how the different natures of those people can imbue exactly the same mythic figure with individuality while still remaining part of the source story.
Holdstock's books, and this one particularly have inspired me to some very tentative forrays into Jung, as have Tim Powers's Last Call and Earthquake Weather.
Show More
from all of history. In the process he discovers love, strengths he did know he had, who his missing father and brother are and what happened to them, and all the usual elements of a basic adventure fantasy.What holds up so well is Holdstock's ability to paint the scene and draw you in to it, to make you smell and feel as well as hear and see what happens. He also draws heavily on the Jungian idea of archetypes that live in the minds an imaginations of everyone, and in the story empowers the wood to embody the archetypes drawn from the unconscious of the people who enter it. From there Holdstock explores how the different natures of those people can imbue exactly the same mythic figure with individuality while still remaining part of the source story.
Holdstock's books, and this one particularly have inspired me to some very tentative forrays into Jung, as have Tim Powers's Last Call and Earthquake Weather.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Philotera
I picked up Mythago Wood not expecting to like it. I was right. I didn't like it, I loved it. The prose is so smooth, and the story drew me in so that I was truly lost in this Cain and Abel story played out against a mythical wood populated with archetypes created from our own past histories. It
Show More
was brilliant, and deserves as wide an audience as LOTR, in my opinion. Show Less
LibraryThing member Fledgist
Amazing tale of a man who returns home from World War II to discover that the woodland behind his home stretches not for a few miles but almost infinitely, and is populated by "mythagos," beings sprung from the myths created by all the peoples who have lived in Britain. He finds that he is taking
Show More
part in a quest tale that is part of the mythology of the people who live in the wood, and must fulfil the quest. Show Less
LibraryThing member andrejules
Returning from fighting in World War 1, Steven Huxley finds his brother enmashed with mysterious Ryhope Wood near their home in England. Something that had killed their father was after him.
LibraryThing member Joycepa
Mythic imagos--mythagos--deeply imbedded in racial consciousness are somehow brought to life in Ryhope Wood by interactions with the forces in the wood. The wood itself, however, resists penetration by outsiders. Somehow, time and space are distorted within the wood; the deeper into the wood, the
George's son Steven returns from World War II to find his brother Christian now equally obsessed with the wood--but because he wants to find Guiwenneth, a female mythago created by his father and taken from Christian--killed--by other mythagos. Christian, who fell in love with Guiwenneth, believes that he can find another genesis of her in the wood--and disappears into it.
Steven waits with increasing restlessness and alarm at Oak Lodge, the family home on the edge of the wood. He finds himself interacting with the wood, creating mythagos. Then, one day, Guiwenneth appears--but this genesis is Steven's. The two fall in love and spend an idyllic several months at Oak Lodge and in the outer fringes of the wood.
Suddenly a warlord and his entourage appear from the wood--an aged, hardened, brutal Christian. He nearly kills Steven and abducts Guiwenneth.
Determined to rescue Guiwenneth, Steven and a companion, Harry Keeton, pursue Christian, finding a way to circumvent the forces that guard the wood and penetrate ever deeper. Together they embark on a strange journey through time and myth, creating their own place in racial myth as they do so.
Mythago Wood is an incredibly creative use of mythology as a basis for fantasy fiction. The writing itself is quite formal in tone, which lends an eeriness to the story and prevents the writign from seeming dated. The "real" characters are fleshed out just enough to carry the story; the ones who are really developed are the mythagos.
Holdstock evidently drew upon Celtic mythology as the basis for his use of myth. But he also makes a very fine use of the classic father-son "myth" to add depth to the story.
Highly recommended.
Show More
more pronounced the effect. George Huxley basically lost his life to his obsessive attempts to penetrate and explore the wood.George's son Steven returns from World War II to find his brother Christian now equally obsessed with the wood--but because he wants to find Guiwenneth, a female mythago created by his father and taken from Christian--killed--by other mythagos. Christian, who fell in love with Guiwenneth, believes that he can find another genesis of her in the wood--and disappears into it.
Steven waits with increasing restlessness and alarm at Oak Lodge, the family home on the edge of the wood. He finds himself interacting with the wood, creating mythagos. Then, one day, Guiwenneth appears--but this genesis is Steven's. The two fall in love and spend an idyllic several months at Oak Lodge and in the outer fringes of the wood.
Suddenly a warlord and his entourage appear from the wood--an aged, hardened, brutal Christian. He nearly kills Steven and abducts Guiwenneth.
Determined to rescue Guiwenneth, Steven and a companion, Harry Keeton, pursue Christian, finding a way to circumvent the forces that guard the wood and penetrate ever deeper. Together they embark on a strange journey through time and myth, creating their own place in racial myth as they do so.
Mythago Wood is an incredibly creative use of mythology as a basis for fantasy fiction. The writing itself is quite formal in tone, which lends an eeriness to the story and prevents the writign from seeming dated. The "real" characters are fleshed out just enough to carry the story; the ones who are really developed are the mythagos.
Holdstock evidently drew upon Celtic mythology as the basis for his use of myth. But he also makes a very fine use of the classic father-son "myth" to add depth to the story.
Highly recommended.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Jarandel
Ensorcelled by Ryhope Wood and the idea of the Mythagos, less thrilled with the protagonists and events.
LibraryThing member Karlstar
A great fantasy novel. It starts out as a typical 'crossover' novel, but it is done in a very plausible way, and the world he creates is fascinating.
LibraryThing member vladmihaisima
Fantasy story about a mysterious forest in which myths from the collective consciousnesses become real. The story of two brothers that own a cabin by a forest, which their father arduously studies but they do not understand much while young. Some strange events happen, and years later when the
Show More
brothers grow they enter the forest and discover a range of mythical creatures (shamans, knights and the like) that protect and inhabit the forest. One brother (Christian) falls in love with a mythical women, but then she seems to die. He goes to search for her, and then the second brother (Steven) finds another incarnation of the same women and falls in love with her. Then Christian returns and kidnaps the women, a thing which makes Steven go and chase him through the forest. Many unrelated characters appear (and disappear as fast) and guide Steven through the forest. . The main characters seem not to be at all in control of their fate and seem to always "go with the flow", even if it does not make much sense. The whole story seems patched and not very all connected. It tries to give an impression of multiple myths intertwined but putting many unrelated stories and characters together needs in my opinion a bit stronger binding than the two brothers chasing something nebulous and always changing. Nicely written but the story seems to waste the potential of the setting. Show Less
LibraryThing member Skywolf
I loved this book. Deeply atmospheric, raw fantasy with a creepy mingling with reality that completely dragged me in. Unlike anything else I've ever read... one of those books that'll forever stay with me. Highly recommended to anyone who's after something unusual amongst their fantasy reading. You
Show More
can almost taste the forest. Show Less
LibraryThing member stuart10er
Post WWII in rural England on the Welsh border, a young man returns from the war to his father's home to find his father gone and his brother slightly deranged. The wood has some kind of special power and a young woman has come out of the wood and captured first the father's heart and then the
Show More
elder son's. The young son returns to find the father and the woman gone. Shortly thereafter the brother vanishes into the wood for weeks and months at a time. The woman comes out of the wood again and has a relationship with the younger brother. The elder returns and kidnaps the woman and takes her into the wood. Thus setting up the rest of the book as a resolution of the conflict between the brother in the quest through the wood for vengence and the woman. Pretty classic stuff told with full knowledge of the underlying Celtic and Saxon myths along with a smattering of Christian ones. You'll find many things in the wood. The story of Cain and Abel, Siegfried and Brunhilde, the Green man, etc. It almost becomes tiring to track all of the symbols. Show Less
LibraryThing member albertgoldfain
A five star campaign setting, complete with bestiary, magic, relics and atmospheric intensity...but a two star story without a hook of any sort.
LibraryThing member raschneid
Mixed feelings about this one. The first section is one of the most atmospheric dark fantasies I've had the pleasure of reading. The slow progression of horror, of being simultaneously engulfed by a malevolent wood and by the legacy of a parent, is genuinely haunting.
The rest of the novel was
Nevertheless, Ryhope Wood was quite a setting. I don't think I've read another work that fully captured the experience of stumbling upon a ruin in the woods and feeling as if you've been transported into the past, or into a dream. The Celtic and pre-Celtic elements are robust, although the fixation with "folklore as historical record" felt dated, and the whole "racial memory" thing is cringeworthy, if on brand for a 1940s setting.
On the whole an imperfect novel, but certainly succeeds as a work of imagination.
The rest of the novel was
Show More
inventive, but exchanges much of the psychological horror for a more linear adventure narrative. There's an interesting character study embedded here - Stephen is Guiwenneth; she is his anima. Likewise, the monsters that populate Ryhope Wood are aspects of a man whose childhood and war experience have left him deeply scarred. But Stephen never fully acknowledges the parallels between the wood's landscape and his internal landscape; till the end he views the mythagos as creatures to conquer or possess rather than externalized aspects of his psyche. If his lack of self-awareness was meant to be an indictment of the character, it was too subtle to register with this reader.Nevertheless, Ryhope Wood was quite a setting. I don't think I've read another work that fully captured the experience of stumbling upon a ruin in the woods and feeling as if you've been transported into the past, or into a dream. The Celtic and pre-Celtic elements are robust, although the fixation with "folklore as historical record" felt dated, and the whole "racial memory" thing is cringeworthy, if on brand for a 1940s setting.
On the whole an imperfect novel, but certainly succeeds as a work of imagination.
Show Less
LibraryThing member grahzny
This started off as a dated clunker with some interesting bits. But by the end I was mesmerized.
Awards
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Novel — 1985)
British Science Fiction Association Award (Shortlist — Novel — 1984)
Locus All-Time Best (Fantasy Novel — 25 — 1998)
Original publication date
1984
Physical description
320 p.; 6.93 inches
ISBN
0586065857 / 9780586065853
Local notes
Duplicate.