Robert Holdstock

The Mythago Wood Cycle (Ryhope Wood) — (1984-2009) The Bone Forest is a collection of short stories; Some are related to The Mythago Wood Cycle. Publisher: The mystery of Ryhope Wood, Britain's last fragment of primeval forest, consumed George Huxley's entire long life. Now, after his death, his sons have taken up his work. But what they discover is numinous and perilous beyond all expectation. For the Wood, larger inside than out, is a labyrinth full of myths come to life, "mythagos" that can change you forever. A labyrinth where love and beauty haunt your dreams... and may drive you insane.

Mythago Wood

After his post-WWII convalescence in France, Steven Huxley is returning to his family's home on the edge of Ryhope Wood, a patch of ancient forest, in Britain. For as long as Steven remembers, his father, who recently died, had been so obsessed with the forest that it destroyed their family.

Upon returning home, Steven finds that his brother Christian is quickly following in their father's footsteps — both figuratively and literally — for he has also discovered that this is no ordinary forest! It resists intrusion from Outsiders, time and distance are skewed there (so it is much larger inside than the 6 miles it covers in modern Britain should allow, and time seems to expand), and strange energy fields interact with human minds to create mythagos — the idealized forms of ancient mythical and legendary creatures, heroes, and villains formed from collective subconscious hopes and fears. So, for example, if you strolled through Mythago Wood (if you could get in) you might encounter Robin Hood, King Arthur, Talos, Freya, or perhaps some more generic version of a popular legendary ideal. You might walk down a Roman road or stay in a medieval castle or a Germanic tribe's hut. And when you come out, you may have been gone only half the time you spent inside Mythago Wood.

The destruction of the Huxley family has been caused by the creation, out of father Huxley's mind, of Guiwenneth, the mythago of an idealized red-haired Celtic warrior princess who occasionally comes out of the woods. Mr. Huxley was obsessed with her (and this is what eventually led to both Mrs. and Mr. Huxley's deaths) and, when Steven arrives, Christian, who has become similarly obsessed, has been making forays into the forest in search of Guiwenneth. Before long, Steven gets pulled into the drama and the strange goings on in Mythago Wood.

I was entranced by Mythago Wood from the first page. The writing is clear, lovely, and unpretentious. The story is told from Steven's viewpoint (first person, with diary entries and letters from a couple of other characters), so the reader feels emotionally involved. The pace is quick. The forest setting is beautiful.

The first two thirds of the novel flew by. During this time, Steven is figuring out what's going on in the woods and he meets and falls in love with Guiwenneth (yes, the same girl that his father and brother loved). All of this was fascinating and highly emotional. I loved the premise of the story — the wood that forbade entry to modern humans and was bigger in time and space inside than could be explained by it's physical dimensions. The existence in the wood of archetypal heroes and villains from across the ages, all living together at the same time, each in his own clothes and weapons. Cool stuff. I also thought the recollections of Steven and Christian about their father's work and coldness toward their family was poignant.

But, somehow, when Steven and his companion Harry Keeton actually managed to get beyond the defenses of the forest and were traveling through Mythago Wood, it was not as exciting as when Steven was only learning about the forest from his father's notes and his experiences with the mythagos who came out of the woods. Suddenly, it turned into a quest and struggle for survival that was not quite as fascinating as the learning process was, though there were definitely some fun parts.

I did not understand how mythagos, if they are not real, can kill, be killed, or fall in love. Steven and Harry come up with some revelations (about mythagos) that seemed to come out of nowhere. I am also not sure why these men are falling for Guiwenneth. The explanation is that she's the mythago of the Celtic warrior princess, and thus men can't help but fall in love with her. Steven mentions that she may be his mythago, but his father and brother fall in love with the same woman. She doesn't do much but giggle. Is that ideal? She has red hair, fair skin, she's slender and uses a knife. Maybe that's it?

I never fully understood Harry Keeton's situation, which was wrapped up much too quickly, but I'm thinking that this will be addressed in the sequel, Lavondyss. There were a few elements that seemed thrown in without purpose — myths that didn't seem to fit, characters who Steven was told had to be "left behind" when he didn't even know they were with him. Perhaps we'll see them again.

So, while I was quickly pulled in and I absolutely loved the first two-thirds of the book, I experienced moments of confusion in the last section. I'm sure I'd benefit from another reading of Mythago Wood — it's that kind of book. Perhaps some of these things would be cleared up. Or, perhaps not. I believe that the novel was composed of three separate novellas, and that may explain some of the disjointedness.

I'm going to read Lavondyss, the sequel to Mythago Wood. I loved this setting and the characters, and I'm hoping further reading will clear up my confusion. —Kat Hooper

Mythago Wood

Our FanLit Fearless Leader, Kat Hooper, has been urging me for aeons to read Mythago Wood. It took some squeezing to get it into my reading schedule, but I finally did, and I’m glad that I read it. I must admit, though, that I didn’t like it quite as much as Kat did.

As I read, the thought that nagged at my mind was that Mythago Wood reminded me of something. I was sure it was another novel, so I racked my brain to figure out what it was. It was at about the 200-page mark that the light bulb came on. It didn’t remind me of another novel, it reminded me of Jean Markale’s Women of the Celts.

If you haven’t happened across Women of the Celts, it’s a fascinating and sometimes infuriating treatise on women’s roles in ancient Celtic society, in myth and literature, and in the modern world. The first and final sections discuss women’s rights, but the middle chapters, ah, for me those were the interesting parts (and the sometimes infuriating parts). Despite the title of the book, these sections are really more about men and about the concepts men project onto women. Markale uses psychological theories, such as those of Freud and Jung, to examine ancient Celtic myths and medieval romances concerning women, and to draw conclusions about their meaning. In order to do that, he summarizes the stories for the reader in a rushed, dry style. It’s interesting stuff, but at times far too focused on Oedipal-type ideas. One grows weary of countless myths being distilled down to a man’s conflict with his father, and/or and his simultaneous attraction and revulsion toward the mother figure and women in general.

So, Mythago Wood. In this novel, Robert Holdstock tells the story of Steven Huxley, a soldier who returns from WWII to take up residence with his brother, Christian, at the family home. The house lies on the border of Ryhope Wood, the “mythago wood” of the title, where archetypal figures from the collective unconscious can come to life. Fascination with this wood, and with a woman from the wood, led Steven and Christian’s late father to neglect his family for many years. Now Christian is himself obsessed with the wood and the woman, Guiwenneth, and in due time Steven falls under the spell too.

Holdstock’s world-building is great, and his prose is well-crafted. I had trouble, however, when it came to connecting with the story on an emotional level. The parts that would have interested me most (such as the recounting of the myths that piece together Guiwenneth’s story) are treated briefly, drily, almost hurriedly. Instead, the narrative lingers over the beauty (and the B.O.) of the fair Guiwenneth. She has little in the way of personality, and seems to exist primarily as a symbol or a prize in the conflict among the three Huxley men. (She’s also very nearly the only woman in the book. Don’t get your hopes up at the mention of Freya. Holdstock’s Freya is a man.)

I think Holdstock knew exactly what he was doing, but Steven doesn’t have the self-awareness I kept wanting him to have. It never seems to occur to him, “wait, maybe I love this woman in part because, through her, I can one-up Dad and Big Bro.” The novel feels like a journey not through Ryhope Wood, but through Steven’s subconscious mind.

All great fantasies, of course, tap into something in our psyches, or else we wouldn’t be reading them! In this case, though, the psychology is just a little too naked. I found myself slipping out of “enjoying the story” mode and into “analyzing the archetypes” mode throughout much of the book. So, I can’t say precisely that I enjoyed Mythago Wood, but I can say that I enjoyed thinking about Mythago Wood, and that some college-throwback part of me feels the urge to write a term paper about it. I was surprised, then, that the ending really did move me. It’s beautifully written and has just the right touch of ambiguity to it.

I plan to read the next book, Lavondyss, and one of the reasons I’m looking forward to it is that its protagonist is a woman. Let me explain. It’s not that I won’t read books with male protagonists, it’s that having a female protagonist almost certainly forced Holdstock to flesh out that character more than he did Guiwenneth. Mythago Wood is a creative, intelligent book that has clearly had a great deal of influence on fantasy literature. I can see some of its echoes in one of my all-time favorites, Ian McDonald’s King of Morning, Queen of Day. I prefer McDonald’s book, though, and one of the major reasons is that McDonald’s women are full characters. Mythago Wood feels to me like a men’s story, in which women have no place except as symbols. —Kelly Lasiter

Lavondyss

The wood sucks at the mind, it sucks out the dreams.

Many times I don't like sequels because there's nothing new to learn. Authors tend to give us all of their world-building in the first novel, so I'm often bored by a sequel. But Lavondyss blew my mind. It is, I have no doubt, one of the best fantasy novels ever written.

In Mythago Wood, Harry Keeton entered the forest with Steven and he's been there for years. We got the sense back then that Harry had some secret personal purpose for going in — it wasn't just to help Steven. His sister Tallis remembers him leaving when she was four years old. Her parents are distressed and assume he's dead. When Tallis hears what she believes is a communication from Harry and starts interacting with the wood, her parents think she's gone batty. But Tallis is determined to bring Harry home.

Lavondyss may be the perfect fantasy novel. First of all, it's written in Robert Holdstock's beautiful style. I tend to be picky and demanding about style. A good story will not do it for me if the writing is pedestrian. It doesn't have to be poetic, but it needs to be interesting and creative — not just, as we say, "serviceable." Robert Holdstock's writing style, at least in these novels, is similar to Patricia McKillip's: straightforward, but kind of dreamy, too. To me, it's perfect.

Secondly, Lavondyss made me think. It was complex and convoluted, and I didn't even know how complex it was until I got to the end. At that point I had to go back and re-read several passages so I could try to understand what had happened. It's not that it wasn't related effectively, but rather that Mr. Holdstock does not spoon-feed the reader. He does not divulge everything we want to know when we want to know it. We're given hints and impressions (and maybe even some false information from unreliable characters?) that must be accumulated and assembled. My brain had trouble bringing it all together in the end. What, exactly, is Lavondyss? Why do the mythagos travel there? What drove Harry into the forest? Who is he there? How is he related to the mythagos? How do Mr. Williams and Wynne-Jones fit in? Most importantly: what is the nature of myth, story, and legend, and where do they come from? (There are lots of other questions I could ask, but I'd be giving too much away.) Instead of leaving me frustrated, I am fascinated, and motivated to find the answers.

Lastly, the story made me feel. The characters are endearing and I experienced their joy, pain, hope, and hopelessness. The ending was sad, happy, chilling, shocking, wonderful, and inconclusive. It stayed with me for days.

I am still confused about a lot of stuff that I was hoping would be cleared up, but I'm happily confused. This is a story that requires a re-read in order to appreciate its richness. I've jotted down some notes — stuff I learned in the parts of Lavondyss that I re-read. I will have to go back to Mythago Wood and then read further in the series. I look forward to it and I can't wait to spend more time in, and learn more about, Rhyhope Wood. —Kat Hooper

Lavondyss

I have a bad habit of overusing the word “haunting.” Ergo, I worry that when I use it here, it won’t pack the punch it really should. Let me just say, then, that when I say Lavondyss is haunting, I mean it. This book settled into my bones like a hard winter. It will stay in my mind forever. I feel like I’ve lived a whole second life by reading it, and I’ll probably read it again at my earliest convenience just to see if I catch anything I missed the first time.

I had trouble getting into the previous book, Mythago Wood, but I was glad I read it and am now even gladder, as it provides lots of background that helps make sense of Lavondyss. Lavondyss feels more like a “straight” fantasy novel, though; while there is still the idea that people create mythagos with their minds and that many of the book’s mythagos are personally tied to its central character, to me it feels that this time the story and the world stand more on their own and have more of a life outside of the character’s psychology. I feel less like I’m reading a slightly veiled book on Jung and Freud, and more like I’ve been sucked into a seductive, visceral fairy tale. I’m yet again reminded of a work of nonfiction — this time Robert Graves’ The White Goddess — but this time the analytical part of my mind was content to curl up by the fire and let Robert Holdstock spin his tale.

In Mythago Wood, Steven Huxley’s traveling companion was Harry Keeton. Lavondyss centers on Harry’s younger sister, Tallis. Born when Harry was already a grown man, Tallis only knew her brother briefly, but she and her family are haunted by his disappearance. Tallis is an uncanny, precocious girl with an instinctive gift for magic, and it’s simply enchanting to follow along as she learns the ways of the wood and its spirits. Eventually, she journeys into the wood on a quest to find her missing brother. What happens after that, I won’t spoil, since I want you to be able to discover it for yourself. It’s an enthralling story, though, sometimes sad, sometimes beautiful, sometimes scary as hell. There are layers within layers, timelines looping around themselves in ways that don’t become evident until later, and an ambiguous ending.

I love ambiguous endings, and I hate them. I love them and hate them because they stick with me, nagging at my brain, never letting me forget them. I lay awake for hours after finishing Lavondyss, prodding at the ending in my mind, wondering whether the “happier” interpretation of the ending might actually be a sadder one. I simultaneously wished Holdstock had clarified it and was very glad he hadn’t. It’s more memorable this way, and fitting for the Mythago Wood universe.

Lavondyss has everything I love in a book: compelling characters, vivid prose, mythic elements, art-as-magic, complex character relationships, and just the right amount of ambiguity. It’s a fairy tale, the old kind with blood and revenge and jaw dropping wonder. It’s the kind of book that, when you finish, you feel the urge to flip right back to the first page and start over. (The only reason I didn’t was that it was the middle of the night. Blasted day job...) —Kelly Lasiter

Avilion

At the end of Mythago Wood, we left Steven Huxley waiting for Guiwenneth to return from Lavondyss. Avilion is a direct sequel — the story of what happened when Guiwenneth came back. She and Steven have lived happily together for years and have two children, Yssobel and Jack.

Unfortunately, though, she’s not exactly the same woman she was before. Her ordeal with Christian has changed her and she and Christian (now leader of the time-travelling army called Legion) still haunt each other. Yssobel dreams of Christian and is intrigued by him, causing strain in the mother-daughter relationship, and perhaps danger to herself and the family. So Guiwenneth sets out to find and destroy Christian, Yssobel leaves home to find her mother, and Jack goes to Oak Lodge (where the Huxleys used to live) to try to find out how to track down Yssobel.

That sounds simple enough, but nothing is simple when it involves the strangely changing Ryhope Wood, recognizable characters who are mythical or legendary archetypes and not necessarily real historical figures (e.g., the Morrigan, Peredur, Odysseus, King Arthur), and Robert Holdstock’s out-of-sequence storytelling and dreamy style.

The result is, as usual, an enchanting story with lots to think about, but lots of confusion, too. Avilion brings in some of the seemingly disparate elements found in other Mythago Wood books, but inexplicably neglects to mention people or events that have previously been important. The entire Mythago Wood series, but Avilion especially, is patchy and vague, like a dream sequence. In this novel there’s not much plot and it’s written in several shifting points of view, so though I enjoyed the ideas, the inventive use of familiar mythology, and the overall effect of the style, I was not as engaged with Avilion as I had been with Mythago Wood and Lavondyss.

Jack is an agreeable new character and I enjoyed the chapters written from his POV, but Guiwenneth is now completely unlikable, Yssobel is hard to relate to, and Steven, who was an admirably bold and energetic man in Mythago Wood, is now weak and fretful. The story, unlike its predecessors, is filled with more depression than wonder.

It’s hard to fault Mr. Holdstock for doing again what he does so well, but most of the charm of Mythago Wood was its inventiveness. Avilion will be incomprehensible to someone who hasn’t read Mythago Wood, but those of us who have read it have “been there before.”  Without engaging characters or much plot to hold it up, Avilion just doesn’t work as well. Those who want to know how the story ends (does the story ever end in Ryhope wood?) will want to read Avilion, and will enjoy being immersed in Holdstock’s dreamy world, but they shouldn’t expect to have their minds blown again. —Kat Hooper

Francoise Jeury — (1978,1991) Unknown Regions was also published as The Fetch. These books are about a psychic investigator.