The Forest of Hours

[Nell]

I finished reading last night. It's one of those books one keeps thinking about long after closing. I'm usually pretty critical about fiction, but judgement and criticism simply don't seem appropriate here - the story simply IS - beautifully written, original and of itself - some sort of thing apart. I have questions of course, but will wait till towards the end of January to avoid spoiling it for anyone.

[Aaron, Moderator]

Men? What will they think of next?

[Little]

Aaron wrote: "Men? What will they think of next?"

:D:D

My husband has finally finished it! I'm just finishing off two books myself then I'm starting this one. :)

[Nell]

I'm wondering now what he thought of it :)

[Old-Barbarossa]

Jings, this is fairly dark in parts.
Just about 150 or so pages in so far...there's a lot about lice and fleas, and smells, and hunger. This is no sugar coated version of the past.
I'm enjoying it very much.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Nell wrote: " I have questions of course, but will wait till towards the end of January to avoid spoiling it for anyone..."

Sounds like a plan. Spoiler free until end of Jan then?

[Nell]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "

Sounds like a plan. Spoiler free until end of Jan then?"

Good idea :)

[Bryn]

can I put things under spoilers? (view spoiler)[I like to discuss as I go... (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

(view spoiler)[So is this how you do it? (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

Oh...it is...that was easy...
Thanks Bryn.
If we are doing it this way can we put a wee note before the spoiler saying what chapter it refers to then? So we only read suitable bits.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "If we are doing it this way can we put a wee note before the spoiler saying what chapter it refers to then? So we only read suitable bits."

Habsolutely. I guess I blurt out spontaneous thoughts, but I'll hide them if they spoil plot and indicate where from.

[Little]

Nell wrote: "I'm wondering now what he thought of it :)"

He really enjoyed it, and he is pretty critical when it comes to fiction too. :)

[Bryn]

I'm sorry I doubted 'The Live Gold' part, which turned out... wow. There was even a gleam of light in the story, didn't expect that.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Just Finishing the Live Gold bit.
Some folk noted above that Skord seems to be more in tune with animals and children. I think this may be due to him "maturing" very slowly, taking ages to be fully human (if he ever does). Just because he's old (and he seems to have lived through several human lifetimes so far) doesn't mean he has grown up. (view spoiler)[He only discovers sex in this chapter (OK, there's the abuse by the priest earlier but that's not the same thing). There is the beastiality and the bit where he ponders going into the heifer to get shagged but didn't. It's like he has entered troll adolescence and is experimenting with gender and species sexuality in this part. (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

So far, I have to say, I don't know if this is a book with an overtly pagan theme or message. The protagonist being a troll may be the only thing. I may be missing something though. Skord could be anything, an angel even and so far the story wouldn't be changed too much. There is no Bechdel test for pagan stories but you know what I mean hopefully.
Also, the deliberate mistakes...I seem to be missing them. If anyone has caught any can they pop them in a "view spoiler" message please.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "I think this may be due to him "maturing" very slowly..."

Yes to above, and in the next section he's disconcertingly grown up further. I tried not to miss his old child/animal self.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "So far, I have to say, I don't know if this is a book with an overtly pagan theme or message."

I'd say I've found no religion in this novel.

[Bryn]

Though that's just a troublesome thing to say. There is Skord's shaman-like travel into animals. I've thought of him as belonging to ancient Scandinavian shaman-practice.

[Bryn]

That question has just provoked me into the knowledge that this book may tally fairly closely with my own beliefs, no wonder I like it.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Maybe it's because I'm reading the Pyat books too or maybe it's the structure of the tales, maybe it's their sort of picaresque nature or the outsider as protagonist thing...but this has the same flavour to me as some of Michael Moorcock's stuff.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "......but this has the same flavour to me as some of Michael Moorcock's stuff."

That's interesting. Since he fascinated me of old.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Bryn wrote: "Old-Barbarossa wrote: "......but this has the same flavour to me as some of Michael Moorcock's stuff."

That's interesting. Since he fascinated me of old."

Don't get me wrong here, they are very different tales, but the Pyat quartet spans the 20th cent and is all viewed through one skewed character's eyes...the century shown warts and all just a Skord's tale show's late medieval Northern Europe.
It's a thing that happens to me often when reading...I get the same vibe or flavour from books that may not (at 1st glance) have overly much in common. Probably due to personal resonances and possibly where I am situated while reading...maybe the coffee I'm drinking is the same...I don't know.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Don't read this spoiler until you've finished the Live Gold section: (view spoiler)[So...Illuster...what or who is he? Another troll? The wandering Jew or similar medieval mythic figure? Was their love when Skord was in drag that of kindred spirits? Did Illuster recognise Skord for what he was way back in the tale? Damn this is interesting stuff and the writing hints at so much without giving anything away...frustrating but very well done. Hope it continues this way. (hide spoiler)]

[Nell]

Don't read this spoiler until you've finished page 243. (view spoiler)[After reading the memorial to Ignatius Tugendreich on page 241 I wondered if he was a historical character. I googled, but couldn't find anything, but the translation of one part of the memorial states: ...the illustrious and celebrated doctor/also advisor and Chancelore to/His Royal Majesty of Sweden/as no one remembers now except for me/... - I guess then that he's not a historical figure. (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

Nell wrote: "Don't read this spoiler until you've finished page 243. [spoilers removed]"

(view spoiler)[I assumed he'd faked that death as well...maybe not. (hide spoiler)]

[Nell]

(view spoiler)[I assumed he'd faked that death as well.

Mmmm, so did I. I hadn't considered that he might also be a troll, although I'm wondering about a later character. (hide spoiler)]

As for mistakes in the text, I remember noticing one odd grammatical glitch and one of what seemed to be a typo, although neither seemed in any way meaningful. The word 'dwelms' is used a few times - I took it to mean 'dreams', but it's Afrikaans for 'drugs' - a deliberate connection?

[Old-Barbarossa]

The translator uses Scots at times to reflect certain Swedish dialect words. Dwalm is certainly still in current usage.

"Dwam, with the alternative spellings dwalm and dwaum, when it first came into being, was used to refer to a physical condition. Germanic in origin, it has associations with Old English dwolma, a state of confusion. As a verb it meant to faint or swoon or to become suddenly ill. It also meant to decline in health. As a noun it meant a fainting fit or a sudden attack of illness. In this older sense the notion of stupor was more relevant."

From: http://caledonianmercury.com/2010/04/...

[Nell]

Perhaps it was dwalm rather than dwelm (as I wrote above) - I had a look but couldn't find it again in the book to check. I guess that Afrikaans would be pushing things a bit, in spite of the European connection to Dutch.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Probably a similar root: "Germanic in origin, it has associations with Old English dwolma..."

Edit: My edition has a glossary of Scots words at the back and it has "dwalm" in it, but maybe not all English translations have this.

[Nell]

I looked, and mine has too - I was so into the notes that I missed it. Duh...

Quite a few of those words are familiar from childhood when I'd visit my mother's family in Ireland - I didn't realize that all their surnames were Scots until I did a bit of ancestry research a year or so ago.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "...but maybe not all English translations have this..."

I'd say there's only the one translation -- I hope so, it's beyond outstanding. I have another novel of hers, Blackwater, sorry to see it's a different translator. Different kind of book, too, and not my type at first sight but I've got to trust the author.

Finished this. I'm a bit dazed but I think it's going on my lifetime favourites list. Perhaps I didn't want to hear a couple of things she said towards the end, but the book spoke closely to me.

On Skord's trajectory, do others who have finished see more or less as I did/do at this moment: (view spoiler)[his corruption by the human world -- and what a wordly human he was as the mesmeric doctor -- until saved by Xenia. The crisis was the mink furs, in his old style. Whereupon he remembered what he is. And then she gave them a few gentle years together. (hide spoiler)].

[Old-Barbarossa]

Nell wrote: "Quite a few of those words are familiar from childhood when I'd visit my mother's family in Ireland - I didn't realize that all their surnames were Scots until I did a bit of ancestry research a year or so ago..."

Aye there's a complex Venn diagram of Scots/Irish Hx with folks going back and forth...
Had to stop myself there, nearly went down the ranty Hx road...and before coffee too.

Anyway, only 100 pages to go for me. Enjoying this book very much. Not sure where it's going though.

[Nell]

Xenia to end of book.

(view spoiler)[I think you're right, butI have to admit to being shocked by his naked ambition at the beginning of Xenia. I asked myself if it was possible that he'd change that much - from a lazy natural little troll with next to nothing in his head to the horribly worldly doctor, committed to studying hard to achieve fame and fortune and pursuing the girl at the cost of his fairly comfortable life and relationship with Anna Lena. But heck - 500 years is a long time.

It was as if he found a kind of kin in Xenia - that image of two elderly children walking in the garden with their heads together illustrated it very well. I spent some time wondering what they were talking about, and the author does give us a few lines, which seem to make less than perfect sense. I wondered (I do a lot of that :)) if Xenia could be a troll - perhaps a changeling - it seems possible.

It's the sort of book one could read again and again, finding different insights each time.

The section entitled 'Lost Ranks' was pretty bloody, but then that's war. (hide spoiler)]

[Bryn]

Nell's spoiler: (view spoiler)[It was shocking, what I called his corruption. But the human world corrupts? Not absolutely, for he is rescued.

With Xenia, I thought: ah, a human too can... become a creature like Skord. That was a comfort to me, to think she is human but can discover in herself what he has as a troll. If he can grow human, she can grow troll. Or so I liked to interpret it.

Lost Ranks was like a big step down into that corruption -- did you notice he swore like a soldier, suddenly? And put me in mind of the most real & hideous of war fiction. (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

Damn I want to view the spoilers!
But I'll wait...for now.

[Bryn]

Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Damn I want to view the spoilers!
But I'll wait...for now."

You've only got 100 pages. By happenstance, your Troll Hunter is on the teev tonight. It might be just the thing to drop me down to earth, after finishing this.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Bryn wrote: "Old-Barbarossa wrote: "Damn I want to view the spoilers!
But I'll wait...for now."

You've only got 100 pages. By happenstance, your Troll Hunter is on the teev tonight. It might be just the thing ..."

Based on the Live Gold section I will be watching A Field In England tonight.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2375574/?...

[Old-Barbarossa]

Well having watched A Field In England and read up to the start of Xenia (so far), I can't help feel that there are similarities and a similar flavour to the film and the section of the book called Drakenstierna's Treasure.
Not exact but similar enough for me to think the writer of the film may have read the book.
Mind you...possibly just co-inckydink due to me reading and watching both this week.

[Nell]

Xenia PS: (view spoiler)[Meant to say too that the twelve years Xenia spent in the forest changed her - she became more creature-like, and the time Skord spent out of the forest changed him too - he became - I want to say corrupted - but perhaps that's not quite right. So they both changed and found themselves kindred spirits, able to connect and understand one another.

I wasn't sure when reading whether Bear Ear had kidnapped her as Skord said, but I think that must be true as the outlaw women were awed by what they saw as his second sight. (hide spoiler)]

[Old-Barbarossa]

Best not read unless finished: (view spoiler)[ OK, just finished it, initial thoughts...I liked the way the tale was salted with just enough sidhe/troll/giant like beings to remind you Skord wasn't alone in his strangeness. Not too many and some only hinted at...Illuster maybe, the talking beasts, Drakenstierna's strange daughter? The strange sexual awakenings and beastialty highlighting the shamanic "between the words" nature of Skord? As to the idea that being human corrupts...I don't know. He starts with basic animal needs and once self awareness sinks in he looks for a goal or purpose...then it gets messy admittedly. His continual debasement at the hands of outlaws or prisoners he seems to stoiclly absorb, no revenge. As to the "deliberate errors", well, I must have missed them...if they were in the alchemical bits I wouldn't have noticed them anyway as I don't have the ref points on that. (hide spoiler)]

[Michael]

I'm only at the beginning but like the author's soft spoken style. as well, this is another book which shows how the ancients incorporated nature into everyday life. do you like it so far? I give it a 5, 1 to 7.

[Bryn]

Just saw this Finnish novel that treats trolls as real (and not big and scary -- small and vulnerable: it reminded me of Skord: Troll: A Love Story. I saw it because it won the James Tiptree Jr. Award, so can't be terribly bad. Described as melancholy and about humans' relationship to the wilderness, also reminded me of Forest of Hours.

[Old-Barbarossa]

Anyone still on this? Been a bit quiet recently.

[Ancestral]

Bryn wrote: "Just saw this Finnish novel that treats trolls as real (and not big and scary -- small and vulnerable: it reminded me of Skord: Troll: A Love Story. I saw it because it won the James Tiptree Jr. Award, so can't be terribly bad..."

I've read, and reviewed Troll: A Love Story, but have yet to read The Forest Of Hours as I am tied up in college work so cannot compare the two.

[Little]

Getting there....

[Bryn]

Ancestral wrote: "I've read, and reviewed Troll: A Love Story..."

I'm failing to find your review, Ancestral. Did you like it? I'm thinking of chasing it up.

[Little]

Bryn wrote: "Ancestral wrote: "I've read, and reviewed Troll: A Love Story..."

I'm failing to find your review, Ancestral. Did you like it? I'm thinking of chasing it up."

It's here Bryn: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Best to you. :):)

[Bryn]

Ah, cheers.
Contemporary setting for a start, which I avoid books for. I don't suppose it has much in common with FoH.

[Nell]

I always thought that trolls were small. They couldn't live under bridges (as in the Billy Goats Gruff) if they were huge...

[Bryn]

Oh. Good thought, Nell. The Three Billy Goats Gruff is my only previous experience with trolls in literature.