Scan barcode
grayjay's review against another edition
1.0
I'm not sure why I read the second book. I didn't really care about any of the narratives by the end of the first one, but I think I trusted that there must be payoff in project as big as Danieliewski is attempting.
The style is so thick that wading through it overwhelms the narrative, and it's just not worth it for a story about a girl finding a cat in the street. Sure, there are more sinister things going on: some sort of Mexican gang stuff; a group of obscure computer programmer sorcerers or something. I started skipping whole chapters because I just didn't care enough to slog through the poor open-field poetry and lazy dialogue. I think I gave it a good try but after two 800+ page books about nothing, I'm done.
The style is so thick that wading through it overwhelms the narrative, and it's just not worth it for a story about a girl finding a cat in the street. Sure, there are more sinister things going on: some sort of Mexican gang stuff; a group of obscure computer programmer sorcerers or something. I started skipping whole chapters because I just didn't care enough to slog through the poor open-field poetry and lazy dialogue. I think I gave it a good try but after two 800+ page books about nothing, I'm done.
mamimitanaka's review against another edition
4.0
As the disproportionate nature of my review count and read count attests, I never got around to reviewing the first volume of this series and tbh that was in large part because I had no idea how to make heads or tails of it. I enjoyed what I read but much of it felt like set up, and it wasn’t til halfway through this one that I think this series is beginning to get super interesting. An adjustment of expectations must occur when one is reviewing a story that will not be finished, so “Into the Forest” and the rest of what we have of “The Familiar” must be taken for what it is. As it stands, these are shaping up to be unique magical realism with a structure that evokes Danielewski’s obsession with symmetry and narratives towered atop one another, using its flourishing multimedia format to result in a bewilderingly creative interplay between various genre mechanisms, including but not limited to sci-fantasy, slice-of-life, weird horror, mystery and noir fiction, and crime stories. The result for me, so far, has been in parts frustrating and compelling in equal measure, with the good [generally] outweighing my issues. And with this one, the connections between the seemingly disparate narratives are finally coalescing in ways that gradually unfurl rather than appear as grand revelations, and I can safely say at this point that I will probably be finishing the series before the end of the year.
The primary aspect that must be mentioned is that as usual Danielewski has a completely masterful control over the typographical and artistic detail in this novel. For all criticism that can be heaped on MZD’s writing I’ve always puzzled why “gimmicky” is the most common of them [even if the term “gimmick” wasn’t a thought-terminating criticism cliche in the first place], and his books are clearly meant to be understood not only as works of fiction but as works of physical shape and mass that occupies an elaborate sense of space in one hands; in his own way this is how MZD’s work makes the reader naturally engage deeper with the text. The artwork is consistently gorgeous and eclectic while also consistently holding to the overall aesthetic and emotional palette of the series, bursting and flourishing all over the page including textual art, where words themselves coalesce to form images that can be in equal amounts recognizable or alien. One sequence in particular, where a character is facing an inexplicable incident at a pet shop involving cages bursting open, shows this symbiotic relationship between written fiction and visual art brilliantly. This is the way Danielewski expresses his ideas and this is not the work of someone who is coasting on what made “House of Leaves” so alluring [a book which is still structured radically different from this despite also using typographic screwery] but rather an artist continuing to hone his personal literary voice and craft. Basically his style is no more or less “gimmicky” than anyone else’s, it only appears that way because such an expression of an artistic voice in a way as idiosyncratic and antithetical to conventional wisdom as this will necessarily get some people to look at it with suspicion. But there is never harm in meeting something on its level instead of one’s own preconceived expectations, and it’s with this sensibility that it’s best to approach MZD’s fiction. Books can not only be treated just as text as the means to an end for a narrative, but as blooming creative canvases for expression of everything that can fit between the limited space of a page.
MZD’s approach to the symbiosis between character and narrative structure is perhaps what I find both most interesting and most bewildering about the novel as well as its metatextual relationship to television, the medium this series is molded after [as “House of Leaves” concerns film and “Only Revolutions” more broadly concerns music and verse]. Like television “The Familiar” is split into “episodes” with various breaks and commercial transitions [often represented by the visual art], and like many prestige TV series it carries a complex wide-spanning range of perspectives and storylines, this one with narratives that at first seem disconnected yet slowly form lines between each other. And the characters in the novel seem very deliberately archetypal in the way much classic television series conveyed archetypes, making this book seem like an elaborate tribute to television across all its eras, from its “low brow” roots to its increasingly heightened recognition as high art over the first quarter of the century. But there are doubtless ways in which these archetypes are subverted but not necessarily [at least so far] deconstructed; the prime example being the Ibrahim family, who are almost portrayed as the traditional white picket fence family if not for a few things - the fact they’re a mixed race family with a neurodivergent daughter, as well as debt and other financial issues and work problems that make “The Familiar” burn with an undercurrent of post-millennial and Generation Z anxiety, which can be felt to some extent in all of the nine central narratives that are explored here.
Still, there’s clearly a grounding into archetypes here because of that aforementioned debt to television serials, and can just as well veer into something that initially seems outright stereotypical, and which I am not exactly sure at this point what Danielewsk is going for. As someone who is both neurodivergent and physically disabled I find Xanther to be an absolutely charming, adorable and compelling protagonist and I would probably take a bullet in the head for her if she was real, but I can see why other neurodiverse folk might view her “disabled savant” personality as problematic. But in Xanther’s case I think her portrayal works to balance out this notion, because she’s portrayed as a disabled person who is, despite her afflictions, mostly thoughtful, considerate and capable, and shows remarkable self-reliance for someone her age while also still feeling appropriately childish, all while never losing sight of the recognition that her physical and psychological ailments naturally limit her as with all disability. Her parents are flawed yet unequivocally positive role models and teachers and her life is defined by constantly seeking to ask questions and keep herself open minded. She is never patronized in the story or by the author, which is MUCH more than can be said for much of the condescending tripe that so often misleadingly attempts to portray our lives and minds ala Rain Man.
When it comes to some of the other perspectives, the intent is not as clear. Wide-ranging ethnic slang is a large part of the novel, and some of the accents in which Danielewski’s characters speak can seem born of a colonialist mentality; see Shnork, whose cadence is too close to Eastern European stereotype for comfort, or Jingjing, who through the fog of his narrative mixes various Asian slangs and languages in a way whose intent is as unclear as what’s actually going on in those chapters. Luther’s is probably the most well-executed, because his perspective probably feels the most authentic, but regardless all of it raises the question of whether or not a white man author should ever veer even tangentially to archetypes when writing about characters that lie outside of the white cishetero hegemony. I do think Danielewski portrays his characters, as always, with the depth and empathy he always has, but this doesn’t mean these portrayals are beyond criticism as their very nature could be understandably viewed as tenuous. I’m told MZD worked vigorously with linguistic scholars to perfect the language in this novel, as well as having various translators from the cultures detailed in this series, so I’ll choose to think the best of him and that he did his work properly and assume he is trying to understand and empathize with the full breadth of his ability, but regardless it’s not my place to make that decision; I would love to specifically hear what POC readers think of all this.
As mentioned a bit before I really enjoy how this series so far has been playing with genre fiction and weaving disparate pulp mechanics together to create something with a unique, playful dynamic. We've got crime thrillers working with slice-of-life realism that can turn into magical realism within sentences, colliding with dense mysteries and drugged up surrealist narratives and even hints at westerns, etc. As of right now, I'm not sure what the nexus of all of it will end up being, but on its own it's engaging, off-kilter, and interesting.
Some stray thoughts on the different perspective chapters I couldn’t fit into a paragraph but are compelling me to talk about them anyway:
-The Jingjing chapters seem to be throw-book-at-wall levels for a lot of people, but after finishing “Into the Forest” I can honestly say they’re some of my favorite bits of the series so far. And they ARE completely impenetrable at first glance, and they did leave me grasping desperately for some thread of coherency at first, but it wasn’t until long even into the first book that I really started to fall into a hypnotic rhythm they have that none of the other perspectives do. He narrates in a mix of English, Malay and Chinese that coheres into a Joycean dream-babble that becomes kind of intoxicating once you completely liberate yourself from trying to parse it word by word. I actually found Anwar’s chapters more difficult because of the amount of ever-deepening internal monologue and its collusion with computer jargon that flew over my head, or Cas’ as well for just feeling like being placed into the middle of a storyline where you seem to be missing some vital piece of information that the characters aren’t yet they won’t directly discuss it; and by contrast Jingjing’s is much easier to attune to since the language and the feel of the words on the page is much more enjoyable to latch on to, especially when the writing reaches a percussive sing-songy cadence. Jingjing’s sections unfold appropriately like the hypnagogic state of mind of its drug-addicted narrator and his dreamy adventures in the urban heat and delirium of nocturnal Singapore, and it makes his chapters, for me, delightfully fun to read. There’s lots of neat moments, but I especially loved the scene in this one where he’s withdrawing on his hammock and has a vision [?] of the cat materializing to him.
-There’s something quietly haunting about the Isandorno passages, which are written in a somber, realistic sense and don’t have the same supernatural edge as the rest - but despite this they burn perhaps the strongest with a sense of mystical, almost dread-inducing intrigue. And they contain some of the best passages of prose in the novel, foregoing some of the convolution for phrasing that's beautiful in more of a stark way.
-Luther's chapters in the first book were some of the most frustrating for me precisely for just how dense the slang is [and I guess all of this is on me for being a peabrained monolingual American], as well as having the highest abundance of phrases that eschew English entirely. But in the second book his narrative has gotten a lot more interesting, because the lyrical flow of his passages clicked and reveal Luther as possibly the most brutal and uncompromising of all the protagonists, and it's in this one we finally get to see just how bad of a dude he really is, making me increasingly nervous for what seems like his inevitable collision with Xanther's story [as is seemingly being set up].
-Of all the narratives, Cas and Ozgur's respectively feel the most Pynchonesque, both of them sort of focusing on the idea of being towered over by invisible forces of governance and power that neither understand. It's especially effective with Cas, whose narrative seems due for reaching a head in relation to Xanther's and everything going on in LA, yet even the reader is left in the dark as to how this is playing out, overall making me feel as lost as her as she holds something of immeasurable and practically eldritch power in her hands [quite literally]. And the twist at the end of Cas' narrative in this entry [and thus the book] definitely perfectly primes what's left of the "season" [as it is] to tie up in an interesting, complex fashion.
And finally, this series so far has been great at evoking the overall sociopolitical climate of the early 2010s [at least in the United States], where the liberal promises of hope and optimism from the Obama administration were dwindling yet still not fully subsumed by the darkness and pessimism from around 2016 and beyond, and that sense of boiling anxiety for the dark political horizons to come feels palpable, and this is reflected on how both books so far have built on the foreboding tone of the last - reading the third will likely be the card that determines for me if this is the direction this series is going. Or rather has gone, since the fifth novel is sadly the end of this captivating weird magic Danielewski is capturing here, at least for the foreseeable future. But nevertheless, the investment, while sometimes frustrating, has been worthwhile so far and I'm excited to see where this concludes as it is. Stan Kle, btw.
"Where identity's at stake, the unconscious keeps attempting to create a blind until it succeeds in fortifying one beyond the abilities of the intellect to parse. We cannot mentally accommodate the vastness of the variables we daily inhabit. So we invent a self we believe we can."
The primary aspect that must be mentioned is that as usual Danielewski has a completely masterful control over the typographical and artistic detail in this novel. For all criticism that can be heaped on MZD’s writing I’ve always puzzled why “gimmicky” is the most common of them [even if the term “gimmick” wasn’t a thought-terminating criticism cliche in the first place], and his books are clearly meant to be understood not only as works of fiction but as works of physical shape and mass that occupies an elaborate sense of space in one hands; in his own way this is how MZD’s work makes the reader naturally engage deeper with the text. The artwork is consistently gorgeous and eclectic while also consistently holding to the overall aesthetic and emotional palette of the series, bursting and flourishing all over the page including textual art, where words themselves coalesce to form images that can be in equal amounts recognizable or alien. One sequence in particular, where a character is facing an inexplicable incident at a pet shop involving cages bursting open, shows this symbiotic relationship between written fiction and visual art brilliantly. This is the way Danielewski expresses his ideas and this is not the work of someone who is coasting on what made “House of Leaves” so alluring [a book which is still structured radically different from this despite also using typographic screwery] but rather an artist continuing to hone his personal literary voice and craft. Basically his style is no more or less “gimmicky” than anyone else’s, it only appears that way because such an expression of an artistic voice in a way as idiosyncratic and antithetical to conventional wisdom as this will necessarily get some people to look at it with suspicion. But there is never harm in meeting something on its level instead of one’s own preconceived expectations, and it’s with this sensibility that it’s best to approach MZD’s fiction. Books can not only be treated just as text as the means to an end for a narrative, but as blooming creative canvases for expression of everything that can fit between the limited space of a page.
MZD’s approach to the symbiosis between character and narrative structure is perhaps what I find both most interesting and most bewildering about the novel as well as its metatextual relationship to television, the medium this series is molded after [as “House of Leaves” concerns film and “Only Revolutions” more broadly concerns music and verse]. Like television “The Familiar” is split into “episodes” with various breaks and commercial transitions [often represented by the visual art], and like many prestige TV series it carries a complex wide-spanning range of perspectives and storylines, this one with narratives that at first seem disconnected yet slowly form lines between each other. And the characters in the novel seem very deliberately archetypal in the way much classic television series conveyed archetypes, making this book seem like an elaborate tribute to television across all its eras, from its “low brow” roots to its increasingly heightened recognition as high art over the first quarter of the century. But there are doubtless ways in which these archetypes are subverted but not necessarily [at least so far] deconstructed; the prime example being the Ibrahim family, who are almost portrayed as the traditional white picket fence family if not for a few things - the fact they’re a mixed race family with a neurodivergent daughter, as well as debt and other financial issues and work problems that make “The Familiar” burn with an undercurrent of post-millennial and Generation Z anxiety, which can be felt to some extent in all of the nine central narratives that are explored here.
Still, there’s clearly a grounding into archetypes here because of that aforementioned debt to television serials, and can just as well veer into something that initially seems outright stereotypical, and which I am not exactly sure at this point what Danielewsk is going for. As someone who is both neurodivergent and physically disabled I find Xanther to be an absolutely charming, adorable and compelling protagonist and I would probably take a bullet in the head for her if she was real, but I can see why other neurodiverse folk might view her “disabled savant” personality as problematic. But in Xanther’s case I think her portrayal works to balance out this notion, because she’s portrayed as a disabled person who is, despite her afflictions, mostly thoughtful, considerate and capable, and shows remarkable self-reliance for someone her age while also still feeling appropriately childish, all while never losing sight of the recognition that her physical and psychological ailments naturally limit her as with all disability. Her parents are flawed yet unequivocally positive role models and teachers and her life is defined by constantly seeking to ask questions and keep herself open minded. She is never patronized in the story or by the author, which is MUCH more than can be said for much of the condescending tripe that so often misleadingly attempts to portray our lives and minds ala Rain Man.
When it comes to some of the other perspectives, the intent is not as clear. Wide-ranging ethnic slang is a large part of the novel, and some of the accents in which Danielewski’s characters speak can seem born of a colonialist mentality; see Shnork, whose cadence is too close to Eastern European stereotype for comfort, or Jingjing, who through the fog of his narrative mixes various Asian slangs and languages in a way whose intent is as unclear as what’s actually going on in those chapters. Luther’s is probably the most well-executed, because his perspective probably feels the most authentic, but regardless all of it raises the question of whether or not a white man author should ever veer even tangentially to archetypes when writing about characters that lie outside of the white cishetero hegemony. I do think Danielewski portrays his characters, as always, with the depth and empathy he always has, but this doesn’t mean these portrayals are beyond criticism as their very nature could be understandably viewed as tenuous. I’m told MZD worked vigorously with linguistic scholars to perfect the language in this novel, as well as having various translators from the cultures detailed in this series, so I’ll choose to think the best of him and that he did his work properly and assume he is trying to understand and empathize with the full breadth of his ability, but regardless it’s not my place to make that decision; I would love to specifically hear what POC readers think of all this.
As mentioned a bit before I really enjoy how this series so far has been playing with genre fiction and weaving disparate pulp mechanics together to create something with a unique, playful dynamic. We've got crime thrillers working with slice-of-life realism that can turn into magical realism within sentences, colliding with dense mysteries and drugged up surrealist narratives and even hints at westerns, etc. As of right now, I'm not sure what the nexus of all of it will end up being, but on its own it's engaging, off-kilter, and interesting.
Some stray thoughts on the different perspective chapters I couldn’t fit into a paragraph but are compelling me to talk about them anyway:
-The Jingjing chapters seem to be throw-book-at-wall levels for a lot of people, but after finishing “Into the Forest” I can honestly say they’re some of my favorite bits of the series so far. And they ARE completely impenetrable at first glance, and they did leave me grasping desperately for some thread of coherency at first, but it wasn’t until long even into the first book that I really started to fall into a hypnotic rhythm they have that none of the other perspectives do. He narrates in a mix of English, Malay and Chinese that coheres into a Joycean dream-babble that becomes kind of intoxicating once you completely liberate yourself from trying to parse it word by word. I actually found Anwar’s chapters more difficult because of the amount of ever-deepening internal monologue and its collusion with computer jargon that flew over my head, or Cas’ as well for just feeling like being placed into the middle of a storyline where you seem to be missing some vital piece of information that the characters aren’t yet they won’t directly discuss it; and by contrast Jingjing’s is much easier to attune to since the language and the feel of the words on the page is much more enjoyable to latch on to, especially when the writing reaches a percussive sing-songy cadence. Jingjing’s sections unfold appropriately like the hypnagogic state of mind of its drug-addicted narrator and his dreamy adventures in the urban heat and delirium of nocturnal Singapore, and it makes his chapters, for me, delightfully fun to read. There’s lots of neat moments, but I especially loved the scene in this one where he’s withdrawing on his hammock and has a vision [?] of the cat materializing to him.
-There’s something quietly haunting about the Isandorno passages, which are written in a somber, realistic sense and don’t have the same supernatural edge as the rest - but despite this they burn perhaps the strongest with a sense of mystical, almost dread-inducing intrigue. And they contain some of the best passages of prose in the novel, foregoing some of the convolution for phrasing that's beautiful in more of a stark way.
-Luther's chapters in the first book were some of the most frustrating for me precisely for just how dense the slang is [and I guess all of this is on me for being a peabrained monolingual American], as well as having the highest abundance of phrases that eschew English entirely. But in the second book his narrative has gotten a lot more interesting, because the lyrical flow of his passages clicked and reveal Luther as possibly the most brutal and uncompromising of all the protagonists, and it's in this one we finally get to see just how bad of a dude he really is, making me increasingly nervous for what seems like his inevitable collision with Xanther's story [as is seemingly being set up].
-Of all the narratives, Cas and Ozgur's respectively feel the most Pynchonesque, both of them sort of focusing on the idea of being towered over by invisible forces of governance and power that neither understand. It's especially effective with Cas, whose narrative seems due for reaching a head in relation to Xanther's and everything going on in LA, yet even the reader is left in the dark as to how this is playing out, overall making me feel as lost as her as she holds something of immeasurable and practically eldritch power in her hands [quite literally]. And the twist at the end of Cas' narrative in this entry [and thus the book] definitely perfectly primes what's left of the "season" [as it is] to tie up in an interesting, complex fashion.
And finally, this series so far has been great at evoking the overall sociopolitical climate of the early 2010s [at least in the United States], where the liberal promises of hope and optimism from the Obama administration were dwindling yet still not fully subsumed by the darkness and pessimism from around 2016 and beyond, and that sense of boiling anxiety for the dark political horizons to come feels palpable, and this is reflected on how both books so far have built on the foreboding tone of the last - reading the third will likely be the card that determines for me if this is the direction this series is going. Or rather has gone, since the fifth novel is sadly the end of this captivating weird magic Danielewski is capturing here, at least for the foreseeable future. But nevertheless, the investment, while sometimes frustrating, has been worthwhile so far and I'm excited to see where this concludes as it is. Stan Kle, btw.
"Where identity's at stake, the unconscious keeps attempting to create a blind until it succeeds in fortifying one beyond the abilities of the intellect to parse. We cannot mentally accommodate the vastness of the variables we daily inhabit. So we invent a self we believe we can."
adamchalmers's review against another edition
Okay, I'm convinced. This keeps all the things I liked about TF1, but the plot is much stronger, the stories connect more, and the whole saga is slowly pushing forward. I found that Luther in particular became more interesting. Very excited for book 3.
steeltoejilly's review against another edition
5.0
MY GOD this book was incredible. I can’t even put into words how much I love this story so far.
wheresthebirds's review against another edition
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.75
fernfuentes's review against another edition
5.0
After the way Vol. 1 ended, I am incredibly happy Vol. 2 was already available when I was done. I loved Vol. 2 even more than the first book in this incredible series. Like a good album where you can’t decide which song is your favorite, I keep jumping back and forth between favorite characters in the series. While the first book had a few odd occurrences, Into the Forest is where things start to get extremely weird, and I love it! This book is filled with so many little details that can be easily missed, but make the story that much more fun if you catch them! I truly hope Pantheon will green light all 27 volumes because I’ll die if I don’t find out how this ends!
good_creon's review against another edition
5.0
Still incredibly unusual, but after spending much of the first volume learning how to read this funhouse of a series, this one went by in a breeze. Some of the pieces of the larger, sprawling narrative are coming into focus, and while there is still SO MUCH that needs to be explained the connections that are made hold the promise of a grand plan yet to play out
pbobrit's review against another edition
4.0
I am beginning to think that the best way to look at this series of books is to view it like a TV series. Volume 1 felt like a pilot, the main characters and locations are introduced and there are plenty of chunks of action to hook the audience. Volume 2, feels like a second episode, it moves at a slower pace, the characters are more fleshed out, but there is still enough plot development to keep the volume going; and, of course, it ends on a cliff-hanger. I am curious as to where this is going and if the author can keep it going at this pace. This is a commitment but so far it has been worth it.
bericson13's review against another edition
2.0
I know I don't get this. I know that. At this point, I'm continuing to read this series to know what happens, not because it makes any sense at all.