The development of a "wayward" child (was it the child who was "wrong", or the people who made him)...society's fear of "different"...a caring mother still full of sexuality...the confusing workings of a madman's mental state. Edna O'Brien's In the Forest touches on a lot, but doesn't exactly hit any one directly on the head. The imagery is beautiful, quiet (reflective of the scenery), and captivating; and it's easy to fluidly move from feelings of sympathy to disgust for O'Kane—an artful manipulation on the complex workings of human/societal emotions. However, chapters written in random perspectives across so many characters made it hard for the reader (at least me) to develop any real attachment to them.
I guess the success of this work isn't so much in the narrative as much as in the thoughts and emotions it draws out. You get fragments of "truth" out of order through quick exchanges by characters ingeniously presented like an afterthought. You feel the rage of the women in the woods, yet also perhaps understand the forgiving-ness of the doctor. With all of these things adding together, the memory of the real-yet-fictional Eily and Maddie hang like a ghost in your memory before the book even ends, and probably will longer still.
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