Out of collection ( )

Finally finished. This and Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock were given as favourite books by Robert Macfarlane in a newspaper article. Couldn't stomach Mythago Wood but I did finish The Forest of Hours - and enjoyed quite a lot of it - but I'm left wondering what the point of it is. Didn't really teach me anything, no arc of plot, a very faint emotional journey. So in the future I shall stick to reading Rob Macfarlane's own books which are wonderful. ( )

Finally finished. This and Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock were given as favourite books by Robert Macfarlane in a newspaper article. Couldn't stomach Mythago Wood but I did finish The Forest of Hours - and enjoyed quite a lot of it - but I'm left wondering what the point of it is. Didn't really teach me anything, no arc of plot, a very faint emotional journey. So in the future I shall stick to reading Rob Macfarlane's own books which are wonderful. ( )

Skord, huvudpersonen i Kerstin Ekmans Rövarna i Skuleskogen, är ett troll. Inte den sorten som man möter på internet och rätteligen borde kalla sportfiskare, ej heller den sorten som John Bauer avbildade. Han ser ut som en människa, kanske bara lite hårigare, och med ett finger färre på vänsternäven (vilket är hans eget fel). Men han åldras inte som andra, och från det att han först ger i människofölje på 1300-talet till det att han ger upp andan dröjer det 500 år.

På den tiden hinner han vara landstrykare, prästumgänge, mekaniker, alkemist, fältskär, fästningssatt, doktor och mesmerist. Han umgås med excellenser och lärda. Och med rövarna i Skule, skogen där han visserligen inte föddes men dit han många gånger kommer att återvända, till slut också för att dö i saknad efter sin sista älskade. Då har han sett kristendomen dra norrut, liksom knektarna, han har deltagit i trettioåriga kriget och givit upp chansen att bli medicine doktor för att befria jättar, och han har sedan länge tröttnat på att se de omkring honom åldras och dö bort.

Bra bok, fint språk, speciellt norrländskan. En del historiska gestalter dyker upp, oftast lätt omgjorda, och vanligen sådana man inte känner närmare till. Att Skord verkar bli alltmer osympatisk ju mänskligare han blir är kanske bara vad man kan vänta. ( )

It was a scrawny little troll, unknowing and guileless, and not much given to thinking at all. There was little more than fluttering, like the wings of jays, going on under that tussock of hair.

Skord is a creature of the forest – not a troll as I thought of trolls, and not very fantastic except that he has the gift, shaman-wise, of sending his consciousness into other beings (which he does by habit just for the trip), and he lives for the five hundred years of the novel. There are giants in the forest too: these are slow-lived and eon-slow of thought. Like Skord, they are more likely to be victims of humans, as humans develop from medieval to the industrial age. The forest is that of Sweden’s wild Skule, and as much a presence in the book as the sea in Moby Dick – both the real-as-real depiction and getting metaphysical about it too.

Skord, who cannot help but mimic what he hears and sees, learns from humans, interacts with them and slips into their world. This is the story of his knowledge gained of that world, his corruption by it, his possible escape from it and salvation? It’s the alien eye turned on us and on our history. The book is dark and grim, with gentle gleams. Skord is more acted upon than acting; he witnesses how strange we are, without any concern to judge us – he can be disturbingly detached, at our abysmal behaviour. Yet it is his empathy with vulnerable things, often animals or children, lives he can identify with, that is his grace. I experienced this as an anti-human book. Whether it is or not I don’t know, it remains enigmatic to me. It is a creatures’ book, however.

It has been translated into drop-dead gorgeous English. The translator, Anna Paterson, must have brought such art to it herself, even if the Swedish is this lovely.

In the end it may be too dark for me or for my comfort, but after two reads now this has got to be one of my most-admired books, certainly of recent ones. The woman is a genius. I’ll have to try her crime novel, Blackwater, that is above and beyond your usual crime novel, they say. Alas with a different translator, but again, a remote forest setting. ( )