The Crane Wife in Into the Forest

Jun 12, 2016 Melanti rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: fairy-tales-folklore-and-mythology, library, audiobook, group-reads, 2016, magical-realism

Ness is trying too hard to appeal to adults and as a result comes across as pretentious.

But in-between the pretentious moments, there's some really juvenile moments - such as saying someone widdled ~~or weed~~ instead of just saying they peed. What adult says "widdled"?

I also wasn't a fan of 65% male George (which is apparently the amount of masculinity being a "nice guy" rates you) and his ventures into more typical masculinity. (view spoiler) ...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Sienna rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle, 2013

I love storytelling more than I can say, especially the old stories: myths, fairy tales, folklore. Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy was so brilliantly crafted and moving that I wanted — expected — to love this reworking of a melancholy Japanese folktale just as much. But it fell flat for me from the clumsy opening line:

What actually woke him was the unearthly sound itself — a mournful shatter of frozen midnight falling to earth to pierce his heart and lodge there forever, never to move, n

I love storytelling more than I can say, especially the old stories: myths, fairy tales, folklore. Patrick Ness's Chaos Walking trilogy was so brilliantly crafted and moving that I wanted — expected — to love this reworking of a melancholy Japanese folktale just as much. But it fell flat for me from the clumsy opening line:

What actually woke him was the unearthly sound itself — a mournful shatter of frozen midnight falling to earth to pierce his heart and lodge there forever, never to move, never to melt — but he, being who he was, assumed it was his bladder.

So close. So very close. It's not the bladder humor, which I kind of adore; no, what bothers me is the way "being who he was" leaps out, begging an attentive editor's finger-wagging nudge. That awkward rhythm echoes again and again over the course of this slight novel, bolstered by too many split infinitives, a personal bugbear that never fails to push me out of the narrative.

Mythology seems to me a particularly delicate form, one that seeks and rewards deft hands, voices free of ornamentation, imaginations so rich they reinvent the old, tired and familiar in the reader's mind. Ness is a capable dreamer, a competent writer. But The Crane Wife is unsubtle in its themes of forgiveness, knowledge and greed, and inconsistent in its characterization; Amanda is beautifully realized, while the more typically archetypal Kumiko, veiled in feathers, lives only in the corner of the reader's eye, mid-blink. The moments that should be transcendent feel more like fortune cookies: prettily pat, mysterious and infinitely interpretable. And yet some of these maladroit truisms charmed me:

'No!' she said, suddenly sharp. 'Not explain. Stories do not explain. They seem to, but all they provide is a starting point. A story never ends at the end. There is always after. And even within itself, even by saying that this version is the right one, it suggests other versions, versions that exist in parallel. No, a story is not an explanation, it is a net, a net through which the truth flows. The net catches some of the truth, but not all, never all, only enough so that we can live with the extraordinary without it killing us.' She sagged a little, as if exhausted by this speech. 'As it surely, surely would.'

After a moment, George asked, 'Has something extraordinary happened to you?'

'To me,' she said, 'and to everyone. To you, too, George, I'm sure.'

'Yes,' he said, feeling the truth of it.

Unfortunately, this feathery storytelling net catches more than truth. I struggled most of all with the elements of folkloric intervention Ness introduced. It is one thing to weave myth and ordinary, extraordinary, everyday life, and quite another to let the otherworldly intervene. Robbing characters of free will and responsibility makes me uncomfortable. It makes them act in ways they don't understand and don't really want to examine; it transforms velleity into validity in a strange dream-language that leaves everyone feeling hollow at the end. Incidentally, this is how listening to the Decemberists makes me feel.

Which is to say that these are all pretty personal complaints. You may not find Colin Meloy and company a gimmicky, soulless band, and you may love this tale. It may move you and resonate with your experiences and grab hold of your heart, offering forgiveness for wrongs you've forgotten. But the only part of me The Crane Wife touched was my head — and not always in a good way. ...more

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Jun 01, 2016 Lacey Louwagie rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2016-aty-reading-challenge, fairy-tales, retelling, literary-fiction, romance, magical-realism

Around the Year Reading Challenge Item #30: A Fairy Tale From a Culture Other Than Your Own

3.5 stars

I had high expectations for this book, as I've really loved Ness's Chaos Walking series and trust him as a writer to convey the authentic human experience. The fact that this is a modern retelling of a Japanese fairy tale made it even more appealing to me, although I probably would have been open to any subject matter. But his voice does not come across as effortlessly or as authentically in this ...more

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May 26, 2016 Katy rated it liked it · review of another edition

A good story, but one in which I am not entirely sure what all happened. The author manages to create a very good folk tale retelling.

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May 20, 2016 Janice (JG) rated it really liked it

Actually, 3.5 stars, because the end felt a little too prolonged and also sentimental. Otherwise, a well-written, contemporary, often witty, often lyrical revisioning and retelling of the Japanese folktale of the same name.

The band The Decemberists has an album titled The Crane Wife, and Ness is a big fan. Tracks entitled The Crane Wife Part 1, 2, & 3 tell the story of the fairy tale.

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