JerryB

The Woodcutter is a fascinating book ... it's like Kate Danley (the author) set herself the task: "I wonder how many fairy tales I can work into a single narrative that encompasses them all and somehow remains cohesive and coherent." So far — I'm a bit more than halfway through — she is succeeding ... more or less.

On the surface, the book is very simple; short words, short sentences, short chapters (79 of them!), and essentially a straight-line narrative. But the storytelling is very compressed, and more allusive than literal, and there are all these connections to keep track of ... or at least it feels like I need to keep track of them. One cannot help but notice the connections to Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Snow White, Rumpelstilskin, Cinderella, Baba Yaga, and more that I'm not remembering at the moment, and more still that I suspect link the story to fairy tales I'm not familiar with. And once one has noticed them, they all somehow command a place in one's overall conception of the story Danley is telling with them, and therefore one must keep them in mind as one reads, to get the full effect of the story. BUT ... every tale is modified so that it is not the same as the original that we have dim-to-vivid memories of, so there is that added complexity as well. It seems I can't even talk or think about it without getting all blathery and convoluted ... but sheesh, it's just an extended modern fairy tale, right?