- Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: Phoenix (Jun 3 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0753816857
- ISBN-13: 978-0753816851
- Product Dimensions: 12.9 x 2.3 x 19.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 259 g
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
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Product Details |
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First Sentence
Woodland straddling two counties and several town-lands, a drowsy corpus of green, broken only where the odd pine has struck up on its own, spindly, freakish, the stray twigs on either side branched, cruciform wise. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Woodland straddling two counties and several town-lands, a drowsy corpus of green, broken only where the odd pine has struck up on its own, spindly, freakish, the stray twigs on either side branched, cruciform wise. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
O'Brien Misses The Mark,
By Totally Anonymous (Private) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In the Forest: A Novel (Paperback)
I had a hard time making up my mind about Edna O'Brien's latest novel, IN THE FOREST. There's no doubt that O'Brien is a masterful writer...just read THE COUNTRY GIRLS TRILOGY or WILD DECEMBERS and you'll see just how good she can be. Maybe O'Brien simply raised the bar so high herself and that's why I thought IN THE FOREST just didn't live up to her previous writing.I think IN THE FOREST missed the mark in part because it's so predictable and in part because of the lack of complex characterization. O'Brien's Eily Ryan is too good, too innocent, too naive. And, just as Eily is too good, Michen O'Kane is too damaged. We understand why he does the things he does, but his psyche is such that he doesn't have to struggle with his bad deeds; he's too emotionally shattered to understand their full impact. I also didn't think O'Brien's prose, especially her distinctly Irish voice, lived up to her past work. This isn't to say the narrative or the dialogue is bad. When compared with 99% of the stuff on the bestseller lists these days, the narrative that comprises IN THE FOREST is superlative, but it's not superlative when judged against Edna O'Brien's previous work. And, I also found evidence of more than a little sloppiness in the narrative of this book. For example, O'Brien writes: "a lying, untruthful, cunning, self-interested liar." That made me sad; I have come to expect a lot more from Edna O'Brien. I realize O'Brien was dealing with factual material here, but I think IN THE FOREST could have been improved had O'Brien fictionalized her account a little more and made Eily a little more "bad" and Michen a little less damaged. I liked the claustrophobic feel of IN THE FOREST but I didn't like the fact that it was so predictable. We know Eily is going to be murdered (even if you aren't familiar with the facts of this case, O'Brien tells us on page two) and we know that Michen is psychically damaged beyond redemption. I found the book mildly interesting, but I really had no emotional investment in it. I would recommend IN THE FOREST only to die hard fans of Edna O'Brien who want to keep up on all her writing.
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't read it alone in bed on a stormy night,
By
This review is from: In the Forest: A Novel (Paperback)
Into the Forest is a disturbing look into the tortured soul of a man haunted by his past. He, is drawn into deeper evils that suck him ever deeper and deeper, not releasing him - or we readers - till the very last page. Based on a true-life triple homicide in Ireland in 1994, O'Brien's tale takes us into the hunted and haunted mind of O'Kane, the murderer. This story deals with acts of naked violence and is not for the faint of heart. No sunny conclusion, either.
2.0 out of 5 stars
In the Forest,
By Matt Hausfater (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: In the Forest: A Novel (Hardcover)
"In the Forest," is a novel written by Edna O'Brien in which she takes us through the twisted mind of a psychotic criminal,describing everything and leaving nothing to the imagination. The story has no protagonist to suppress or defend the intrinsic evil of Michen O'Kane, therefore leaving nearly three hundred pages to indulge in the disturbing and misguided crimes he so selflessly committs. However, this is not where the book fails in its attempt to expose the prejudices of society's outlook on the insane. A lack of connection to O'Kane or any other character for that matter, creates a feeling of isolation from truly understanding O'Kane's motives or convictions at any given time. The story tends to drag on, lacking in substance while O'Kane grows more evil with every turn of a page, transforming into an unrecognizanle form of a human being. The greatest failure lies in the pitiful attempt to include a love theme with O'Kane's proclaimed love a stranger named Eily. The plot is tedious and predictably cut short when O'Kane rapes and murders Eily and then murders her child. Referring back to O'Kane losing his mother which he explains at the end of the novel is the reason why he kills the son, to prevent him from living the life he himself has. This is the only part of the book to be grateful for because it prevents the possibility for a sequel.
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