Mythago Wood

This is not a bad book. I would have rated it three stars if I could have withstood finishing it, but I just can't keep going with a book I'm hoping to finish so I can read something more interesting. The last straw came when I realized that this isn't the whole story anyway, and the story will continue in the sequel, Lavondyss. For the purposes of recommendations on Goodreads then, I'm rating it as “didn't like it that much.”

The real problem is that despite winning the World Fantasy Award, this book is not really fantasy. It's somewhere to the left of magical realism. It's not even “portal fantasy” as the genre understands the term today. It thoroughly takes place in our world and never really leaves it. It's full of mythical stories and characters based on a fairly simple premise: there is a woodland in England that has never been penetrated and it interacts with the psyche of those nearby to produce heroic characters of myth like King Arthur and Robin Hood. shrug This is all presented in a psychoanalytic framework that I'm sure would mean more if I'd dug more into the symbolism, but I feel like I've kind of outgrown that and would just like to read something either fun or more interesting.

And it's not more interesting because it's written in a literary style that is quite distant and unengaging despite the simplicity of the story.

Basically, this is the kind of book that has been winning the World Fantasy Award since its inception in 1975. Look at the list of winners for best novel: hardly any of them are “fantasy fantasy,” except Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, or perhaps one win by Michael Moorcock (which I haven't read). Almost every winner of the award is a book that takes place in our world with some minor supernatural elements. Technically fantasy, but not what most people think of as “fantasy.” It's just more of an indication that “Winner of the World Fantasy Award” on the cover means more that it's a particular kind of book, in a particular style, rather than indicating that it's a good book. I just can't keep reading when I've got good genre fiction scratching at my door.