Lanny
Ratings49
Average rating4.1
Boek geleend en gelezen als opwarmertje voor een verjaardagscadeau van dezelfde schrijver, aangezien ik Max Porter in het geheel niet kende. Gelezen op ouderwets papier, dus eens een keertje zonder citaten uit het boek :-) Dat papier is ook wel nodig bij deze, gezien de nogal aparte vormgeving van een aantal hoofdstukken (waarvan ik vermoed dat het afbeeldingen in een e-versie zijn).
Die hoofdstukken zijn vanuit het perspectief van Dead Papa Toothwort, een soort natuurgeest die al lange tijd door een dorpje in de buurt van Londen waart. Hij leeft (?) op flarden van gesprekken van de dorpsbewoners en blijkt speciaal geïnteresseerd in een jongetje dat pas sinds kort in het dorp woont.
Werkelijkheid en verbeelding gaan fijn door elkaar heen lopen, aanrader!
(eigenlijk 4,5* omdat er 1 hoofdstuk wat mij betreft een beetje te was)
This book was exactly what I had hoped for: experimental, strange, surreal, interesting. It was more fantasy than horror, though I did take a break halfway through because the second section felt anxiety-inducing rather than scary. Ultimately it's about a boy who goes missing and the people around him struggling to cope. I particularly loved the myth, and the imagery, and the fast changes between perspectives. It's not told in a traditional way, so it won't appeal to anyone who likes things predictable. Not sure how I feel about the ending yet... it was well-executed and clearly thought out but perhaps not what I expected, not much left up for interpretation. I would definitely recommend this to the right kind of person.
Well that was bizarre. Not read anything like it. I'm not sure if I enjoyed it tbh! Kind of?
I can't be the only one who occasionally picks books up on a whim, right? Especially lately, since I've been less and less up to date with new releases, I tend to just pick whatever catches my eye. So when the library had this book on their book picks for “getting lost”, I was very much into it. A story about a Green Man character, a being as old as the forest itself, who is so aptly named Dead Papa Toothwort? Oh, you'd better believe that I was invested.
As it turns out, I was right to feel that way. This story feels like going back in time, to the days when stories were told around a fire. From the very opening, Max Porter builds this atmosphere that is hard to ignore. A tiny town, full of people going about their daily lives. A being in the woods, watching. Waiting. Dissatisfied in the lack of attention to nature and whimsy that people have developed. That is, except for one little boy. One spot of bright in the dark.
Lanny's character is hard to describe. He of course has the quintessential “little boy” personality, but he is so much more than that. He is the child that all of us were at one point, before the world tried to convince us that magic wasn't real. Porter weaves a story, with Lanny at the center, that is full of intrigue and enchantment. Here is a boy who still sees the beauty in things. A boy who doesn't care about fitting in, because that's not what is important at all. I loved that his two parents were on such different spectrums about how to act towards him, because it felt like the way all of us are looked at by the world. It was gorgeously done.
Alas, I have to stop here or otherwise I run the risk of spoiling things on accident. I will say that this story definitely took a turn that I wasn't quite expecting, but I loved it all the more for that. This is my favorite kind of folk tale. A little dark, a lot magical, and brimming with atmosphere. I truly recommend the audio book! Take some time, and get lost in this wonderful story.
I loved this book! I took a chance on the title based on a brief recommendation I stumbled on online and was delighted to discover a captivating, at times scary, tale of a special boy in a small English village that is watched over by a very old, possibly malevolent, spirit.
It's not the sort of story I usually find myself interested in, but Max Porter invests such depth in his characters I felt I knew them, and had to find out what happened next. The story is told from the first person perspective of four primary characters, but Porter also weaves in the voices of many of the villagers through brief thoughts, or snippets of conversation heard by the spirit, Dead Papa Toothwort, a variation of the Green Man myth that lives in the forest outside the village. The result of this choice is that the village comes to life in a three-dimensional way.
The lives of the characters intersect with Dead Papa Toothwort in a way that is genuinely scary and uncertain and kept me guessing to the end.
I also enjoyed the way the tale straddled the territory between the human world and the ancient natural world where pagan spirits and faeries might live.. Although 90 percent of the tale is definitely rooted in a world that is familiar to me, the whole story felt magical.
I listened to the audiobook version, which I highly recommend. The voice actors portraying the characters and villagers do an outstanding job of expressing the characters' emotions. I will undoubtedly read the book eventually, as the writing is very good and features lovely turns of phrases best enjoyed with one's eyes, rather than ears.
Lanny is a book of modest length so it is fairly easy to breeze through.
Loved this book, I both read and listened to it on audio. I finished this book my one setting it was such a joy to read.
I adored this book. Poetic, thrilling, heartwarming and strange. My heart was quickening, my eyes were brimming. Lanny is an absolute joy and my favourite of the Booker list so far. Just spectacular.
It's an experimental prose poem, but it's so carefully structured. Dead Papa Toothwort seems a weird indulgence, the snippets of conversation he overheads curling on the page as we eavesdrop on the small village. “Pretty in a smudgy kind of way / all pumped up and shiny like a greased pig / cheers for that Ma, stout gives me the runs / jaunty little bit of topiary / godless, ferret-handling maniac / Mark smelt of rivers, we don't welcome hobbyists Malcolm.”
But Toothwort is necessary to frame the story Max Porter wants to tell. It's a fairy tale for the modern era. (And just as short) Lanny is a precocious child, his parents letting him exist in his sun-dappled world, free to let his imagination wander or they are negligent, bordering on irresponsible and even worse, opportunistic.
Lanny is an intriguing, brilliantly constructed little novel. It starts off with a poeticism that really grabs the reader, pulls them into the pace of this village, the voices of the individuals as well as the hum of the hive. It's lyrical without pretentiousness. The imaginative range of the narrative is both ominous and magical.
As far as story, the first two-thirds of Lanny are wonderful. I was pulled into this village, and into the mind of the mythical creature known as Dead Papa Toothwort. The third part of the story lost me though, enough so I disappointingly felt the need to drop a star. I lost the thread of the story and the rhythm of its telling. Those with a more substantial attention span than I have may have a better appreciation for this section. I didn't follow.
Lanny is oh so comparable in subject and tone to several previous Booker Prize nominees. I don't know if that means it's more or less likely to receive a nod this July, but I won't be surprised if it's on the long list.
‘'It would have been the head of a dolphin and the wings of a peregrine, and it would be a storm-watching beast, watching the weather while we sleep.''
Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers has been on my list for quite some time but for one reason or another, I never seem to find the chance to read it. Lanny was recommended by my personal idol, Jen Campbell, in one of her outstanding videos. I wanted something dark, British and preferably short read to accompany me on my trip to the mountains and Lanny found its place by my side. It is now one of my favourite reads, even endorsed by my partner who is a devotee of Andrić and Márquez. If he is satisfied and I am impressed, Lanny must definitely find a place among your upcoming reads.
‘' You cannot fix the way the world is broken all on your own.''
A family of three moves in a village of 50 houses within commuting distance from London. Robert works in the City, Jolie is an actress and an aspiring crime fiction writer and their son, Lanny, is a charismatic boy who loves Art and feels immensely close to nature. Their life is far from easy, though. Financial insecurity, career uncertainty, a father who is mostly absent and a community that is viciously cruel, firmly shut within their microcosm. Even being an actress is considered suspicious.
‘' What if we said what we really felt?''‘'There is no such thing as trust. It's a pernicious myth.''
In this eerie, beautiful, unique novel, Porter talks about trust, loss, isolation, estrangement. He sheds light on the millennia-old relationship between the human being and nature, between the past and the present, between assumptions and reality, appearance and truth. Lanny is a remarkable child, a boy who weeps over the possibility of another child dying. Jolie is a tender mother but she is also absorbed in her own aspirations and insecurities over her career and the suspicious villagers. Robert is a husband and a father who is simply not there. Troubled, cold, indifferent. He changes and changes and only for the worse. The family is not a shelter but a broken unit and trust cannot be found in this stern community. Those we think we can trust can potentially turn into the greatest threat...
‘' There's a girl living under this tree. She's lived here for hundreds of years. Her parent were cruel to her so she hid under this tree and she's never come out.''
Porter writes in a Post-modern style. His prose is dark, ominous, features of stream-of-consciousness are evident throughout. No matter the style, what makes Lanny such a powerful, impressive read is the theme of nature's influence in the life of a community. Nature acquires a persona, wise and vindictive, in the face of Dead Papa Toothwort, a tree demon. ‘' A man made entirely of ivy'', the Green Man who reigns in British Folklore, representing the Old World that is now lost forever. The jewel of the book, in my opinion, the demon contrasted to Lanny who is the angel of our story. In raw, often violent, scenes, Porter makes use of a number of symbols. Skeletons of animals, a Christ without a cross, ghosts, tales, and dangers born out of the forest and its lore. Magic, irrationality, bereavement. Darkness and silence are signs of the coming evil when even the owls are unable to hoot...
In fear of saying too much, I will stop here. We often say that there are certain books one needs to read in order to experience the atmosphere of a story unlike any other and Lanny is a glorious example. The musings of the villagers will make you think of Saunder's Lincoln in the Bardo. The second part of the novel is one of the most ferociously beautiful moments in Literature and the third part is haunting, unadulterated literary lunacy in its finest form. Forget mundane stories and find yourselves in Lanny's mysterious world for a few unforgettable moments of literary greatness.
‘' Dead Papa Toothwort has seen monks executed on this land, seen witches drowned, seen industrial slaughter of animals, seen men beat each other senseless, seen bodies abused and violated, seen people hurt their closest, harm themselves, plot and worry or panic and rage, and the same can be said of the earth.''
My reviews can also be found on https://theopinionatedreaderblog.wordpress.com/