A review by conspystery
In the Night Wood by Dale Bailey

adventurous dark emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

I really enjoyed this book. The best way I can think to describe it is intricate in every possible manner; from the writing itself in setting and characterization alike to the layers of thematic meaning in its various narratives, this book is painstakingly, delightfully detailed. Its depth is rich to the point of intoxication, which for me made the book impossible to put down. 

The prose of In The Night Wood is, in my mind, its greatest quality. Everything about it is enchanting, verbose, and ornate. The voice it gives to the narrative is compelling: it conveys alluring verdant unease with its descriptions of the woods, emphasizes the suffocating presence of grief and the slip from reality that loss can drive a person to in how it voices Erin and Charles, and the tight-knit, familiar, and yet somehow hollow insularity of the town is intriguing. I loved how specific ideas, and sometimes even whole phrases, were repeated throughout the book, always growing more vines and roots and leaves of words as they echoed to match the sprawling theme and setting. I truly think the writing of this novel lends credence to its plot in an impossible-to-ignore manner; it complements the narrative gorgeously, suits the book so perfectly it’s unsettling. I adored it. 

I also massively enjoyed how twisting and and interweaved this book is with itself-- all its different layers, and there are many, are interconnected like a narrative net, and that in itself aligns with the novel’s theme in a way that is immensely fascinating and deeply satisfying at once. There are a few planes of literary significance with this book: its existence as a contemporary fiction novel, the plot of the titular children’s book Charles is researching, and the relevance of that children’s book to the “real” reality the novel takes place in are the main ones, though the lines between them blur throughout it. This book is also preoccupied quite heavily with writing, storytelling, and literature itself-- there’s many references throughout to various works of literature that in turn shape its own narrative. My favorite of these is the continued referral to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; that one in particular lends a lot of depth to the setting, symbols, and events of the novel, and it is endlessly compelling to consider. The narrative thread of storytelling as a self-fulfilling prophecy and the inevitable circularity of fate ties all these realms for interpretation together, and it does so in accordance with its own ideas: self-fulfilling, self-compounding, and intertwining. It’s hard to describe. This book is entrenched in its own layers of existence, in every aspect. It’s beautifully fitting and intriguing to read.

A complaint I’ve seen in other reviews of this book is that the protagonist Charles is unlikable; his treatment of women is reprehensible at best and he spends much of the novel spiraling further into his own questionable behavior and mindset. I don’t disagree with this assessment. In fact, I think it’s the point. This book ends with a very solid breaking of its own cycle through active effort, addressing that even then, “there [are] wounds beyond healing, breakages beyond repair.” It challenges Charles and the audience to hope anyway, to try, and I interpreted its challenge as the beginning of Charles’s own quest to redemption, if possible at all, as well as the resolution of his struggle to grieve effectively and cope with loss. His character arc ends in his taking control of “fate” to the extent that it even exists and asserting autonomy through hope, and I find that fresh optimism totally satisfying as a resolution of the book’s themes. Also, I don’t think the narrative approves of Charles’s more reprehensible actions-- namely his affair with Syrah-- at all. I actually think it condemns them, considering its resolution hinges on Charles breaking from his destructive spiral. He is saved via confronting his wrongs, in part through the acknowledgment of Erin’s autonomy by entering the true Night Wood at the end. He makes an effort to break the cycle of fate as it is written. The cycle includes his own writing of fate, his bad choices and questionable behavior. Ergo he faces his wrongs and begins the journey to reconciliation. That’s how I interpreted it, anyway.

I do agree there were issues with the narrative treatment of the women in this book-- they do at times seem to fall into unfortunate cliches, and of course Charles, as the protagonist, takes narrative priority over them. I found overall that as far as this story explored Charles’s own stumble into mystery and self-definition, his presiding over the plot was somewhat necessary for it to work-- and maybe that’s an issue in its own right. I understand completely the frustration with the women of this novel not being as relevant to the plot as one might hope. Specifically, I really enjoyed Erin, Helen, and Silva as characters, and while I do feel they had a functional amount of depth for the story to unfold as it did, I would have loved to see their characters given more priority. That’s the one area of In The Night Wood I wish had been a bit different.

Ultimately, though, I found this book utterly bewitching. It embodies its themes with the atmosphere it creates and draws the audience in; everything this book does serves its narrative and its narrative serves everything it does in turn. As tangled of a web as this book is, every string of it feels intentional and full of meaning, rife with opportunities for interpretation. There are parts of it that I feel could have been approached just a bit better, but they are few and far between. Overall, this story effectively communicates the pressing nature of grief and how we write the fate that surrounds us, unearthly and twisting and full in its presentation. I enjoyed it immensely, and I feel like it definitely merits a reread.
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