#the vorrh

[sharry-arry-odd]

"Why do you imagine that the tree of knowledge was for men?" said Nebsuel in a jarring, amused breath. "Because the Bible says so." "Which Bible?"

The Cloven, B. Catling

[calamityk8]

“i feel as if i have been asleep too long.

my dreams, if that’s what they are, seem always to be in advance of my sleep, awaiting me to continue their tale, to unwind their continuity,- in daylight, they ache continuously. I have become bewildered by their closeness and my distance. I have been swallowed to this spot of land, the previous arrows stitching the way to here. i cannot see the bow, lying somewhere beneath me in this place of contradictions, where it smells of snow and glows humid. My feet have held to the ground before, but now i am unattached, and the roots and the sinews of my pain nag at my hope in dopey, vague wafts. I am being erased by familiarity, the sense of knowing this journey from before. The arrow’s path has made me as vacant as the half-light landscape around me...

I have been too slow on this journey: the air and the sky have seduced me. No blood has been shed, and history can’t move without this. I have to cut the light with blood, let her exhale and twist in my hand. Tonight, I will divide a life and paint the future road glorious. Enough of these shallows: The cities lie on the other side of the Great Forest, and I will burn my way towards them. She is in my hand, demanding arrows and distance traveled.”

from, ‘The Vorrh’, by B. Catling.

[bookcoversonly]

Title: The Vorrh | Author: Brian Catling | Publisher: Vintage (2015)

[the-bookist]

The Erstwhile by Brian Catling

The Vorrh, the first fantasy book in a trilogy by Brian Catling, is one of my favorite fantasy books of the 21st century. The book was consuming like it’s namesake, and I found myself falling deeper and deeper into the mythology of this historically, geographically, and culturally, alien world.

Set in the 1920’s in a colonized part of Africa on the edge of the legendary forest known as the Vorrh, the book explores what is different about cultures and people, the importance of stories and myths to people, and how all of these things intertwine and are vital to the survival of the others.

It is fantasy with biblical references and a hint of the historical. It made sense and was fun all at the same time, a feat not many books can pull-off, or pull-off well for that matter.

So when I started the Erstwhile, the second book in the trilogy, I was excited. I was looking forward to what would come. Now though, I feel like I was robbed.

The Erstwhile happens about nine months after the events of the Vorrh. We see many of the same characters, the return of a few of those who died in the previous installation, and we meet a few new ones like any good sequel. The style is consistent from the Vorrh to the Erstwhile, and to be honest, that is the best part of the book. The prose.

Everything else about the book is frustrating. It’s like watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2. The first of the series was enjoyable so you are expecting the same from the sequel, but you feel letdown more often than not.

Characters are arguably the most important part of any narrative, and many of the main characters this time around read like assholes. One is a sex-crazed monster, a few abduct a child for some reason, and one is an arrogant fanatic of sorts. The few main characters the reader can really root for include the woman who had her child abducted and a Jewish-German doctor who never sets foot near the Vorrh.

And some of the storylines within the plot feel like they would be much more rewarding if they weren’t cut short. One, in particular, is reminiscent of Prospero and Caliban, and I was genuinely excited to see how this would play out only to have its legs cut out from under as the Prospero in this situation kills the aforementioned Caliban.

In other storylines, I found myself willfully rooting against the main characters and wanted to see them fail. In the plot to locate the Limboia, the brainless slaves used to cut the trees of the Vorrh for production, I wanted the expedition to crumble. Not just because, you know, slavery, but also because the leader of the expedition is a pompous asshat who needs to be cut down. Literally or figuratively. I’m not picky.

The plot of the Jewish-German doctor feels out of place since he never goes to Africa. No, he is hundreds of miles away in Europe. His only connection to the story are his interactions with the Erstwhile, abandoned angels who were supposed to guard the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden, but they weren’t very good and failed spectacularly. His plot has tension and mystery, and really I would have read the book if it were dedicated to him and his journey. But no. He gets to share the book with all of the ‘meh’ of the book.

What else was disappointing was the lack of the Vorrh. The first book went to great lengths to have this mythic forest not be a set piece but an independent and seemingly sentient character. That feels lost in the sequel as the forest is mentioned mostly in passing. Sure, the expedition for the Limboia takes place in the Vorrh, but the danger of the forest established in the first book isn’t there this time around. At first, it was palpable. There was dread when the forest was mentioned, and the idea of the forest fighting back was all too real. Now the forest is like a grove of Venus flytraps. Unless you are a fly, there is no reason to be afraid.

Beyond that, the book feels incomplete. Where it’s predecessor could stand on its own as a good fantasy book, the Erstwhile is dependent on the first and hopefully the third book of the series. We are left with more questions at the end of the book than at the beginning and close to no resolutions. Almost like this was a marketing ploy to get us to buy the last book in the series so we can have these questions answered.

Will I buy the third book when it comes out? Yeah. And I can only hope it returns to the quality of the Vorrh and not of the Erstwhile.

2.5/5 cups of coffee

[trophoniuss]

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

It would have been foolish to think that the life of the arrows was inert or incidental. The truth was that each of the Bowman's handmade shafts of wood, feather, bone, and steel was an extension of nerve, breath, and skill. The arrows' continuance was like the nerve fibres outside the brain, which hold memory in a twined conflict of disbelief and certainty; fibres found in the spine and muscles, sometimes even in the hands, that remembered past places, past movements. As it was with trees, whose delicately calligraphic postures waved and shredded the communicating wind with their stencilling semaphores. The arrows were made of all their elements, bound together with intent.

[thehungrylittlebookworm]

Just One Word Challenge | May 26: Never-Ending

The Vorrh is a vast - perhaps endless - forest, sentient and magical, a place of demons and angels, of warriors and priest. Legend holds that the Garden of Eden still exists at its heart.

[shadow27]

Miracles are never comfortable; for the hungover, the debauched, and the anonymous, they are intolerable.

B Catling; The Vorrh

(On loan from @arlingtonvalib)

[shadowscoffee]

Good morning.