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Title: THE GREEN MAN: Tales from the Mythic Forest by Ellen Datlow, Terri Windling, Charles Ves, Charles Vess ISBN: 0-14-240029-7 Publisher: Puffin Pub. Date: April, 2004 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $8.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.88 (8 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: The Green Teen
Comment: I was intrigued by the idea of this anthology, but was rather disappointed to discover that the intended audience seemed to be teenage girls. This is not to say that the book is unreadable by those who aren't of the female and thirteen-year-old variety (I am neither), but it does certainly make a number of the stories rather trite and repetitive. There are a handful of poems as well, but they're so short (and it's unlikely you're buying the book for the poems), that I'll leave them out of the review.
Individual reviews follow:
"Grand Central Park" by Delia Sherman begins our voyage. The first-person protagonist is a young overweight "sensitive geek" girl (autobiographical?) who encounters the Queen of the Fairies in New York City. It doesn't come off well, especially when the author tries to overdo the teen voice. For a far better execution of this idea one should see "Joshua Tree" by Emma Bull later in the volume. The story is bland, the writing cringingly bad at times. Give this one a miss: 2/4.
"Daphne" by Michael Cadnum simply retells the story of Apollo and Daphne (first person again). There's nothing new here for those who know it, especially Ovid's version. 2/4.
"Somewhere in My Mind There Is a Painting Box," by Charles deLint, is the first truly engaging story in the book. Yes, the protagonist is a female teen, told in first-person point of view (one wonders what the directives of the editors were...), but she isn't silly or self-involved as the others seem to be; rather, she's just a young girl without the angst-ridden melodrama of most teen fiction. She encounters a "fairy world" that put me in mind of Tolkien's "Leaf by Niggle." 3.5/4.
"Among the Leaves So Green" is a fine entry by Tanith Lee, featuring a "brand-new" Grimm's Fairy Tale, with twin sisters, a wicked mother, and witches in the forest. A good read, if confusing. It's conspicuous in having our first third-person narrative. 3 out of 4.
"Hunter's Moon," by Patricia A. McKillip reads less like a short story than a condemnation of the practice of hunting. Somewhat moody, she paints a fine picture of Autumn, but there's little here to think of the eponymous "Green Man" of the title, and the characters remain drab. 2/4.
"Charlie's Away" by Midori Snyder takes a slight twist on the theme-here we have a teenage boy. The story is chingly beautiful and sad. The imagery is wonderful, as Charlie escapes childhood guilt into a treetop world, and should be especially poignant to those who remember the anxieties of first leaving home. 3.5/4.
Katherine Vaz's "A World Painted By Birds," on the other hand, is quite simply gibberish and nonsense. In it she has a vaguely Hispanic-themed world, but the storytelling is so disjointed and random that it becomes nearly impossible to learn (or indeed, care) what is happening in the story. It is an impressionistic painting brought to life, with all the failures of narration that this implies. 1 out of 4.
"Grounded" by Nina Kiriki Hoffman returns us to the teen angst motif, rather tired by this point in the book; the protagonist and her mother fly to California to meet her mother's internet-boyfriend (yes, I know...). He has some magic tree-power, etc. Yawn. 1 out of 4.
"Overlooking," by Carol Emshwiller, is a complete mystery to me. At only 15 pages, and in the voice of (apparently?) a fairie-queen of sorts, it describes an encounter with a traveler, his desire to see something (which remains unclear), and then his murder (which she takes part in? Maybe?). It's a jumbled mess. Read a napkin instead. 1 out of 4.
"Fee, Fie, Foe, et Cetera," on the other hand, by Gregory Maguire, is a delightful little jaunt, tongue-in-cheek, about Jack and the Beanstalk's world. How this relates directly to the Green Man is again a mystery, but the description of Jack the Lesser and his ladybugs alone is worth the read. 3.5/4.
Emma Bull's "Joshua Tree" is probably the most effective of the "teenage girl" stories, as the author has the voice down to reality, and paints a compelling picture. The "tree" itself is little seen, but remains a focal point in the girl's history-and she, unlike Ms. Sherman, manages to convincingly speak in the voice of another generation.
"Ali Anugne O Chash (The Boy Who Was)" by Carolyn Dunn is so poorly written that I simply skipped it; apparently it involves Native American myths. 0/4.
"Remnants" by Kathe Koja is less a tale of the Green Man than it is one of modern insanity, told in disjointed form from the point of view of either an insane or mentally challenged individual who lives a "forest" created from garbage-plastic bottles and paper bags strung on rakes. It's disturbing in some of its imagery, particularly when it attempts to evoke beauty from such-it doesn't work, but it's an admirable effort. 2.5/4.
"The Pagodas of Ciboure," on the other hand, by M. Shayne Bell, is what makes the book worth buying, especially if you're a fan of Classical Music. You'll understand why once you've read it-the author takes a story of a rather famous composer and fills in some details, along with a bit of myth that isn't generally known outside of that part of the world. 4/4.
Finally, Jeffrey Ford's "The Green Word" reads rather like a pseudo-horror story in the vein of Stephen King's "Eyes of the Dragon." Set in an unidentified medieval land where traitors are executed and witches revenge themselves upon kings, it is a fairly brutal story, all told. Well-written, but without a major point. 2/4.
So...is the book worth buying? Yes-but only if you enjoy juvenile fiction. Check it out from a library or read the good stories "Fee, Fie, Foe...," "Charlie's Away," "Pagodas," "Somewhere in my Mind...," "Among the Leaves..." and "Joshua Tree." Skip the rest.
Rating: 5
Summary: Read it and be refreshed by green.
Comment: Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling have paid true homage to the spirit of the Green Man in this anthology. Not only do the short stories collected in this hefty volume evoke a true sense of mystery in the wild, but artist Charles Vess -- who publishes much of his work via his own, well-respected Green Man Press -- has provided cover art and incidental illustrations to bring the concept alive.
From top to bottom, front to back, Tales from the Mythic Forest is an excellent collection of stories unearthing the heart of the woodlands, the spirit of the trees and the face of nature.
Rating: 3
Summary: The Green Man
Comment: My library didn't categorize this book as a young adult anthology, which it should have, because it's clearly intended for a YA audience.
Perhaps because of the audience, much of the material was naive in tone and less than dramatic in plotline. There were good stories by Tanith Lee, Patricia McKillip, Carol Emshwiller, Gregory Maguire, Emma Bull and Kathe Koja, but nothing earthshaking. I was disappointed that none of the stories really seemed to have anything incisive to say about environmental themes; they tended toward retold fairy tales and coming of age stories.
I wish that, in these folk/fairy tale-oriented anthologies, real scholars of folklore and mythology would be invited to write the introductions. It would be interesting to get an informed viewpoint on the themes as they have been expressed in real people's beliefs and practices.
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Title: A Circle of Cats by Charles De Lint, Charles Vess ISBN: 0670036471 Publisher: Viking Childrens Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.99 |
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Title: Green Man : The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth by William Anderson ISBN: 0062500759 Publisher: Harper SanFrancisco Pub. Date: 07 December, 1990 List Price(USD): $20.95 |
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Title: The Green Man: Spirit of Nature by John Matthews ISBN: 1590030192 Publisher: Red Wheel/Weiser Pub. Date: April, 2002 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
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Title: The Green Man by Kathleen Basford ISBN: 0859914976 Publisher: Univ of Rochester Pr Pub. Date: 20 May, 2004 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
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Title: Cat in Glass and Other Tales of the Unnatural by Nancy Etchemendy ISBN: 0812626745 Publisher: Cricket Books Pub. Date: October, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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