The Forest

by Edward Rutherford | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: Global Overview for this book
Registered by perditaxknit of Sheffield, South Yorkshire United Kingdom on 4/4/2005
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2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by perditaxknit from Sheffield, South Yorkshire United Kingdom on Monday, April 4, 2005
This atmospheric tale of the New Forest is just as accomplished as Rutherford's earlier books.

Other writers have tackled the area before but this is surely the definitive chronicle, with all the stories and legends of the place woven into a narrative that has all the power and drama of Thomas Hardy filtered through a very modern sensibility. The elements that Rutherford comprehensively includes in his tale range from the savage forest laws of the Normans and their hunting pursuits to the founding of Beaulieu Abbey by the mercurial King John.

Rutherford inextricably involves us with his massive cast of adroitly realised characters, and we are taken along with them as they fear the threat of the Spanish Armada into the heart of this ancient domain, with its flocks of wild deer and horses. As before, Rutherford has the grandest ambitions for his arm-straining volume (coming in at 600 pages): from the novel's opening with a plane flying high above a cathedral in April 2000 to the 15th year of the reign of Queen Victoria, the reader is swept through a whole clutch of narratives involving the life and death struggles of the denizens of the New Forest. Certain characters stand out as particularly well drawn: the canny Brother Adam is a rare example of a virtuous man in literature who doesn't end up being simply bland and anodyne. But Rutherford is equally skilful at dealing with the violence of the Monmouth rebellion and his grasp of the shifting patterns of history has, if possible, deepened from his previous books."

This was OK, as I remember, but it is a long time since I read it.

Journal Entry 2 by cowprintavenger from Sheffield, South Yorkshire United Kingdom on Saturday, January 14, 2006
I got this book from my housemate last year and I still haven't got round to reading it - it's on my bookshelf along with about 50 other books I still have to read! I thought I'd write an entry for it anyway, just so there's a record of what happened to it. I'll probably be passing it on once I've read it.

Released 16 yrs ago (7/7/2007 UTC) at Oxfam shop, Fulwood Road in Sheffield, South Yorkshire United Kingdom

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