Our Lady of the Forest
by David Guterson
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Book Summary Information
Author: David GutersonEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-07-27
ISBN: 0375726578
Number of pages: 336
Publisher: Vintage
Product features:
- softcover book
Book Reviews of Our Lady of the Forest
Book Review: Beautiful, powerful writing
Summary: 5 Stars
I have just finished David Guterson's THE OTHER, which I liked very much, though I understand this book might not have wide popularity, and his SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, which I felt I ought to read since it received so much attention. THE OTHER was compelling, for me, and made me want to read another right away. Funny thing is, SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS, while very fine, and pretty compelling, seemed the work of a very talented and hard-working novelist mastering his craft.
As I understand it, OUR LADY OF THE FOREST (which I read first) followed this one--and this is where the writer came into his full powers. It's nothing short of brilliant, and anyone seriously interested in the art and craft of writing will read this one more than once. The characters that emerge from such wonderful writing stay with me--all of them. The lost mushroom girl, the cynical promoter, the doubting priest, and angry lumberjack, all are so universal and so particular that they seem to have been with us all the time even though they are fresh and alive. The book is a beauty.
One of the things I wanted to address in writing this 'review' is that so many responses from readers on this page are so blank and devoid of the ability to see the greatness of this book. I wonder why they stop to write down such knuckleheaded thoughts about a book that they can't read. It reminds me of the reader reviews of other novels that begin or end, I had to read this book for a class and hated it. I'd just like to say, if you didn't pick the book to read, and didn't get it, why pick up a public microphone to announce your displeasure--it's a little like belching in a public place, proudly.
I saw such reveiws for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE, as if there are some who just can't help trying to add their graffiti crowded caboose to one of the great literary engines of the past one hundred years. Maybe what a serious reader ought to be able to see is that anything worth reading is going to have this jeering, belching crowd following--those who simply could not read the book for what is there on the page. But I wonder that a few of such readers--and maybe they do, and keep silent--don't ask themselves why they weren't able to appreciate the book, and perhaps see this as a potential deficiency in themselves. Or think: maybe I just wasn't ready for that book.
Anyway, such opinions don't effect this book or others, though maybe they do signal to those, like the writers of the review, looking for something very different that this ain't it. Maybe that's legitimate, but it is disturbing. It's like taking poles on the news about whether viewers think someone arrested for a crime is guilty, or whether some government is culpable: it just doesn't matter to the event or to history. It only matters to those who feel they have to get their two cents in, no matter how thoughtless and unconsidered. That's how I feel about such comments on books that have achieved something quite unique and individual. And I would recommend, without reservation, that those who care about writing that is honest and beautiful and powerful should order this book and read it when it arrives.
Summary of Our Lady of the Forest
From David Guterson?bestselling author of Snow Falling on Cedars?comes this emotionally charged, provocative novel about what happens when a fifteen-year-old girl becomes an instrument of divine grace.Ann Holmes is a fragile, pill-popping teenaged runaway who receives a visitation from the Virgin Mary one morning while picking mushrooms in the woods of North Fork, Washington. In the ensuing days the miracle recurs, and the declining logging town becomes the site of a pilgrimage of the faithful and desperate. As these people flock to Ann?and as Ann herself is drawn more deeply into what is either holiness or madness?Our Lady of the Forest?seamlessly splices the miraculous and the mundane.
David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest navigates between the mystical and the cynical in its slowly paced telling of a Marian encounter in North Fork, Washington. The story opens in the North Fork campground among homeless mushroom pickers. The town is reeling from the loss of its logging industry, and its residents make their way by scavenging odd jobs and selling the produce of the forest. Living in the campground, 16-year-old Anne Holmes is a runaway asthmatic whose recent interest in Catholicism follows a period of petty thievery, drug use, and frequent masturbation (an interest that Guterson notes is shared by the town priest, Father Don Collins). While off on her rounds of mushrooming one morning, she encounters a bright light--the Virgin Mary, she believes. Soon, she has drawn a band of thousands as people flock to North Fork to witness the vision and be healed. But, through Carolyn Greer, a world-weary fellow-mushroom-picker who longs for nothing more than an extended vacation to "Cabo"-- readers learn that Anne actually sees nothing, or at least no one else shares the Marian apparition that gives Anne lofty commands each day.
At times Guterson lets his characters' pettiness, opportunism, and cynicism overrun the delicacy of Anne's world. Carolyn's vehement atheism and materialistic languor undermine what could have been a stronger counter-point to her spiritual friend. Even Father Collins, who struggles between fatherly compassion and sexual longing for the young visionary, is too full of self-loathing for readers to embrace him. Yet, the novel's exploration of Anne's abrupt and intense faith pierces the narrative and brings light to it. And as Anne's visions grow in intensity and her health begins to fail, one can't help but long for divine intervention on her behalf. --Patrick O'Kelley
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