American novelist and doctor Daniel Mason is already well known for his wonderfully atmospheric historical novels The Piano Tuner and The Winter Soldier. North Woods sees him explore innovative approaches to historical fiction, and even surpasses those earlier books. The narrative begins in the 1760s and continues through to the present day – and then moves further into some undated moment in the future. It tells the story of a “remote station of the north woods” in Massachusetts, and a lemon-yellow house with a tall black door that is built in this “hilly, snow-dusted country” which lies towards “sun’s fall”.
The story is told in fragments that capture the lives of the inhabitants of this place. They include a young couple who have fled a Puritan colony, Native Americans defending their territories and an English soldier who decides to give up “the smell of gunpowder” and devote himself entirely to apples. There are also jealous sisters, a man engaged in “Southern business” (hunting for a runaway slave) and a hunter who hires a medium to lay ghosts to rest. His attempt fails entirely because, for Mason, history is raucous and rowdy. No character in his novel is ever entirely dead. All reappear repeatedly – and their echoes are felt in the text.
Throughout these many narratives Mason shows how random objects – books, rings, stones, paintings – are preserved despite disruption. But it is not only human life that endures and is resurrected. Non-human actors also play their roles – lusty beetles, spores, seeds, logs and even a wild cat. The fate of humans and the processes of the natural world are inextricably linked. The apple orchard that lies at the centre of the novel starts with a seed which “gently parts the fifth and sixth ribs” of a dead English soldier. The Osgood Wonder, the apple tree that grows from this seed, has “deep English roots” and becomes “the nonpareil of the district”. But after a squirrel drops a single acorn, the orchards are gradually “swallowed up by oak and chestnut”. The chestnuts then fall prey to a spore, which is shaken from a dog’s coat and goes on to lay waste half the chestnut forests of New England. Later, young lovers from out of the area bring firewood to the now deserted house. Enjoying days of glorious sex, they are unaware that one of the logs in the boot of their car contains “the larvae of a scolytid beetle overwintering within the bark”. Soon, “the beetle has locked his mate in lust”. This coupling leads to the spread of Dutch elm disease: “It is logs and beetles all the way back.”
Mason tells these proliferating stories through a patchwork of different texts – a book of “Apple Lore”, calendars, ballads, footnotes, letters, case notes, an Address to an Historical Society. These texts are also interspersed with images of paintings, photographs and fragments of musical scores. This might sound chaotic, and the reader does have to work to keep up. Narrative batons are picked up and dropped at a dizzying speed. Occasionally, the reader worries that Mason is about to be buried under his own flamboyance. But part of the joy of this book is exactly that feeling of risk and reach.
Perhaps the most moving section relates to Robert, a schizophrenic who lives in the house in the early years of the 20th century and who is “interested in the enumeration of what seemed like every single tree and stone” in the forest. When Robert’s sister fails to believe in his visions, he makes films to record the ghosts of past inhabitants. When his sister returns, many years after Robert’s death, she plays them and sees nothing “but the gentle motions of a forest that no longer was”. She also remembers how Robert believed that by walking through the forest and “stitching” with his footsteps, he could “repair” the world.
This idea of “stitching” seems to mirror Mason’s own work in writing this novel. All he is doing is describing the history of a small patch of woodland. Yet through some strange alchemy he shows how death is “not only the cessation of life, but vast worlds of significance”. Inevitably, as the story progresses the human impact on the natural world grows darker. But this is not a melancholy book. “To understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.” No matter the extent of the destruction, “it all begins again”. This is a brave and original book, which invents its own form. It is both intimate and epic, playful and serious. To read it is to travel to the limits of what the novel can do.
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Danny Fenton is Odd
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Danny Fenton was odd
It was a fact no one in Amity would dispute, then again the boy was raised by ghost hunter, he had Fenton blood in his veins, their wasn’t much of a chance for him to be anything but odd from the beginning
But Fenton odd wasn’t what they meant anyway
Danny was a straight A student, he was a Fenton though so that much was to be expected from a family of geniuses, yet for some reason Danny’s grades started to tank, he slept in class all the time and skipped classes when he never used to
It was sudden too, there was no slow decline or odd tiredness that a teacher could ask about, it was just…
One day the boy had perfect grades, the next he couldn’t seem to keep his grade above a C if he was lucky
Of course grades aren’t the only thing that was strange about Danny, there were a lot of things off with him
Like the fact that in the past when he’d always agree to help people study, like the jocks when they had an important game coming up or the goths when they needed to pass a subject to get their teachers off their back, he hadn’t done that in months
Danny used to hide people too, if someone didn’t want to go home? Danny’s house was both large enough and his parents weren’t aware enough to notices some more kids that weren’t their own in the house, only rule was not to go into the basement, as if any of the kids wanted to anyway
There were spare pillows, blankets and padding in the ops center, Danny lent some of those with worse off homes keys, a constant invitation, he hadn’t asked for them back but most had taken the hint and stopped using them
If you were having mechanical trouble? Was your phone acting up? Was your dad’s car totalled and you didn’t have enough money to pay for repairs and were too scared to tell your dad? Danny will have it fixed up before the end of the school day, hell it might even work better than before you gave it to him
Now, Danny didn’t do that, he was too tired to, it wasn’t normal tiredness either, it was like Danny had just given up, like he no longer saw a reason to keep trying
Danny had been on his way to the space program
Danny had wanted to be an astronaut
No one remembers the last time Danny brought up the stars
Danny was odd, in the way that his eye sometimes seemed to shine a toxic green, just for a second never longer, or the sudden fight or flight reflex he kicked into gear in most people, it was mostly fight, it was mostly from Dash
Danny was odd, he felt too large, like too much was condensed into one being and the universe was just now realising that this was a bad idea, but it be couldn’t stop anymore
Danny was odd, he felt too small, skinny stick arm and a lanky body, his family’s height seeming to just barely skip over him, Danny was small, like the world was terrified of anyone looking too close so they shrunk him down, but they didn’t realise that he was still overflowing with wrongness
Danny was odd, in the bruises student see him hiding and the Med-kit he always had on him, the clothes and supply’s stuffed in his locker, the way he looked around as though he was going to have to run any second now
Danny was odd, all of Amity park knew this
Danny was odd, in the way where his voice seemed to echo and a single glance your way could have you frozen stiff in fear
Danny. Was. Odd…
But that wasn’t anything new, Danny was always odd wasn’t he? Why look into something that doesn’t matter? Danny can take care of himself, he doesn’t want help so don’t give him any.
Danny was odd, in the way he’d avoid Dash like the plague, yet when he was caught the boy wouldn’t fight back, the boy wouldn’t even feel fear
Danny was odd, he only had two friends, he only had one sister
One sister? No, no, Danny has two, doesn’t he?
Danny was odd
Danny was Danny
Danny was odd, he knew the mayor, his godfather, yet he hated him, Danny would complain, call Vlad a fruitloop and insult him to the Zone and back
It was strange right? That Vlad was so obsessed with Danny?
It was odd, how uncomfortable Danny got whenever Vlad was around, or how often Vlad tried to find him
…….wasn’t that wrong? No, concerning, that was the word, Vlad was an adult, what did he need with Danny? Shouldn’t someone look into it? Shouldn’t someone help-
Don’t think too much, it’s fine, after all, Danny is odd isn’t he?
Right, no need to think too hard after all
Danny
Was
Odd
Danny was odd, his parent were ghost hunters but he was afraid of ghosts, the first to run after ever sighting, pathetic, but then again…..Danny never did look scared did he?
Don’t think too much, this is an odd place, and he an odd boy, doesn’t that go hand in hand?
Right, Danny is odd but no odder than Amity
Danny is odd, in the way he seems to not be there, he wasn’t easy to forget, no, that was impossible to do, but he wasn’t quite here either….was he?
Danny was odd, in the way he bleed green
Green? No, the boy bleed the galaxy, all stars and supernovas seemed to flash with every shift of his eyes, as though the universe had created them just for him, just for this
But people don’t bleed green or stars, they bleed red, they bleed blood
Danny was human…..wasn’t he?
Danny has never bleed anything other than red
Oh, that’s true
Danny was odd, in the way the world seem to tilt towards him, as though the entire world was here to be devoured by him
But Danny was odd, he wouldn’t do that, he loved this world too much
Danny was a black hole, sucking everything into his orbit, into himself
Danny was a Super Nova, a colosale explosion that could burst at any moment and wipe them out
Danny was a star, without him this world wouldn’t exist, they relied on him, his warmth, his protection
But Danny was human, so he couldn’t be a star…can he?
No, he can’t
Then why does it feel like this?
Danny is odd, but so is Amity
Danny is Amity’s, no one got to take him
Danny is odd, in the way he hadn’t shown up for days, in the way that teachers had sent hundreds of message’s home yet no one responded
Danny was odd, in the way a body hasn’t been found yet their already declaring him dead
Danny was odd, in the way someone saw the government hauling Jazz off somewhere
Danny was odd, in the way that had their skin crawling like bugs had crawled into they skin while they slept
Danny was odd, and his sister was missing, his friends had vanished, presumed dead the GIW had said
Danny was odd, in the way his parents only seemed worried about Jazz
Danny was dead……but he always was…….wasn’t he?
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