Mythago Wood

A little bit of Narnia here, a bit of Carl Jung there but most of all a big chunk of real life myths...

One of the most original fantasy novels I've read when it comes to world building. A secret realm is one of the common tropes but I've never seen it done in this way. It's basically our world but some of the forests are sort of magical. So old that time itself warps. So old that ice age has never ended there. So old that these forests have their own will. Mythago Wood is one of them and we explore it in this tale of two brothers - Steven and Christian.

The novel is split into three acts and act two was the best in my opinion. The beginning intrigued me but I wanted to kind of move on to “the good stuff”. We just scratch the surface there, don't even enter the forest proper. Then there's a lovely romance of act two that is fated to not end well - not a spoiler they say it outright. This was my favorite part of the book. Very lovely. I'm not into romances but this worked well for me.

I was looking forward to the third and longest act as we finally go explore the forest but unfortunately it dragged too long. There was a moment where main character does a dumb thing which leads to low key action scene just for the sake of something actually happening. It took me three days to read the last 50 pages. The ending also isn't done that well. The conclusion with the villain was very disappointing. I don't know what the author was aiming for. There are some Christian themes (pun intended) but then Holdstock subverts readers' expectations in one of the worst ways possible. I think I'm too dumb to understand what he aimed for maybe? Not read well enough in classic literature or myths? I don't know...

I do feel that if there were multiple POVs or if it was written in third person instead of first, the novel would benefit. The prose felt a bit sterile. Maybe it's to do with Czech translation. The entire series is not available in physical form in English language at the moment so I broke my rule and read it translated as Czech publisher is releasing the whole series in pretty nice illustrated hardcover edition.

Nevertheless, the book as a whole is definitely worth a read and Holdstock deserves a bit more fame for what he had created here. I hope he expands the world in later novels as it was a bit underutilized here. A brief walk through the expanse that is out there. From what I read the best is yet to come in Lavondyss. I'm also pretty sure that without Mythago Wood there would be no American Gods. Gaiman even wrote the introduction for this novel as Holdstock's friend and fan.