A review by lgrunwald
Lavondyss: Journey to an Unknown Region by Robert Holdstock
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
5/5!
"All your life you have been at the edge. You have opened threshold after threshold and stepped closer and closer to the centre of the realm, to the heartwood-to Lavondyss. But you still have a journey to make and it will be a terrible journey. It will bring you home, yes, but equally it will take you further from home than you have ever imagined."
Once again, Robert Holdstock has absolutely blown me away with his mythago saga. After reading "Mythago Wood" and it quickly becoming my favourite novel of all time I knew I had to check out the rest. So, I decided to go in publication order and snagged a beautiful copy of Lavondyss. While, technically, this book isn't really a direct sequel to Mythago Wood and you don't really have to read that one to read Lavondyss I would still highly recommend you do. As the main character of this novel, Tallis Keeton, is the younger sister of one of the protagonist of the first novel named Harry and having that extra context of his story makes the novel immensely more enjoyable. I'm honestly not sure what someone would think reading only this one without reading Mythago Wood first or if they would appreciate it as much.
Holdstock has once again showed his deep understanding of the power of myth and the sharing of ancestral storytelling. Just like her brother Harry before her we venture into the Ryhope Wood where myth and legend come to life before our very eyes, time in ever changing, and the wood more mysterious and dangerous than ever. We are shown the perspective of the wood through Tallis as a child first and her preparation on her brother's rescue who has been trapped in the wood by an unknown force. We watch as she grows to understand the land, the stories she herself is creating, and her learning how to harness her shamin like powers of mask making to enter into the deepest section of the wood, Lavondyss, where the beginning of all myth lies.
The prose of Robert Holdstock and the world he has created continues to strike awe into me almost as much as something like one of Tolkiens many works. The striking way he reshapes stories known to use such as Arthurian Legend, Greek epics, or even Norse sagas and completely reshape them to sound even more ancient and magical than they do already is an accomplishment I don't think any other author I've run across can compare to. How stories of steel backtrack to iron, bronze, stone, and even bone. How he shifts classics to an almost neolithic sound...to a story that seems like it could be so real and live deep in all of our human consciousnesses. From a time long before.
"All your life you have been at the edge. You have opened threshold after threshold and stepped closer and closer to the centre of the realm, to the heartwood-to Lavondyss. But you still have a journey to make and it will be a terrible journey. It will bring you home, yes, but equally it will take you further from home than you have ever imagined."
Once again, Robert Holdstock has absolutely blown me away with his mythago saga. After reading "Mythago Wood" and it quickly becoming my favourite novel of all time I knew I had to check out the rest. So, I decided to go in publication order and snagged a beautiful copy of Lavondyss. While, technically, this book isn't really a direct sequel to Mythago Wood and you don't really have to read that one to read Lavondyss I would still highly recommend you do. As the main character of this novel, Tallis Keeton, is the younger sister of one of the protagonist of the first novel named Harry and having that extra context of his story makes the novel immensely more enjoyable. I'm honestly not sure what someone would think reading only this one without reading Mythago Wood first or if they would appreciate it as much.
Holdstock has once again showed his deep understanding of the power of myth and the sharing of ancestral storytelling. Just like her brother Harry before her we venture into the Ryhope Wood where myth and legend come to life before our very eyes, time in ever changing, and the wood more mysterious and dangerous than ever. We are shown the perspective of the wood through Tallis as a child first and her preparation on her brother's rescue who has been trapped in the wood by an unknown force. We watch as she grows to understand the land, the stories she herself is creating, and her learning how to harness her shamin like powers of mask making to enter into the deepest section of the wood, Lavondyss, where the beginning of all myth lies.
The prose of Robert Holdstock and the world he has created continues to strike awe into me almost as much as something like one of Tolkiens many works. The striking way he reshapes stories known to use such as Arthurian Legend, Greek epics, or even Norse sagas and completely reshape them to sound even more ancient and magical than they do already is an accomplishment I don't think any other author I've run across can compare to. How stories of steel backtrack to iron, bronze, stone, and even bone. How he shifts classics to an almost neolithic sound...to a story that seems like it could be so real and live deep in all of our human consciousnesses. From a time long before.