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A review by naoms
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
5.0
A book of mystical speculative fiction grounded in the desert mountains (a character in their own right), with an endearing group of people and enough of an edge to the story that it sank into me.
Here European folklore and Southwest spirits merge; here painters, poets, farmers, and handymen attend to one another; here there are Celtic spirals and cacti spines.
"Fox sat on the steps of his adobe cabin breathing in the intoxicating smell of the desert after the rain: the pungent scents of creosote and sage, and the spicy scent of mesquite wood burning in a house farther up the mountain. The rains had brought autumn wildflowers to the rock-strewn mountain slopes. Yellow brittlebush blanketed the hillside and orange globe mallow lined the sides of the wash. The small oval leaves of the cottonwood trees were turning autumnal gold. In the stillness of early evening eh could hear the call of the mourning doves, a lone coyote high in the hills, and sound of someone approaching, tires sliding on the old dirt road. An engine revved, revved again, then silence. A string of steady curses. Grinning, Fox got to his feet..." (20)
"She is something other than woman in this place... I accept the fact that [she] has visions; she is after all a woman, a witch, a lapsed Catholic, a painter, a Surrealist... I can't see it, but I can almost hear it. A low drum beat. A murmur of language. There are poems in these trees, in the rock underfoot. I resist it, this slow seduction." (50-1)
"I need the wild. I need the source. I need a land where sun and wind will strip a man down to the soul and bleach his dying bones." (75)
"The sky overhead was turning deep blue, streaked with banners of orange, red and pink. The desert was bathed in a golden light, each cactus, each small tree vivid, distinct. Its beauty stopped her on the path. Something had changed. Something was different ever since she woke up that morning. Her eyes seemed to have adjusted now to the subtler colors of the Sonoran palette. The desert was no longer an emptiness, an absence of water and dark northern greens, but an abundance: of sky, of silver and sage and sepia and indigo blue, of gold desert light, so pure, so clear she wanted to gather it up in her two cupped hands and drink it down." (140)
"It was curious to her that it didn't alarm her more to have her vision of reality so abruptly expanded to include the surreal, the supernatural—although it now seemed the most natural thing of all. But is was the only thing that made sense of it all..." (170)
"The world would be a tamer place. And that, Maggie thought, would be a loss." (227)
"She looked at the words. Type on a page. Runic shapes in black, black ink. Words were chunks of turquoise in her hand; words were what protected her." (306)
Here European folklore and Southwest spirits merge; here painters, poets, farmers, and handymen attend to one another; here there are Celtic spirals and cacti spines.
"Fox sat on the steps of his adobe cabin breathing in the intoxicating smell of the desert after the rain: the pungent scents of creosote and sage, and the spicy scent of mesquite wood burning in a house farther up the mountain. The rains had brought autumn wildflowers to the rock-strewn mountain slopes. Yellow brittlebush blanketed the hillside and orange globe mallow lined the sides of the wash. The small oval leaves of the cottonwood trees were turning autumnal gold. In the stillness of early evening eh could hear the call of the mourning doves, a lone coyote high in the hills, and sound of someone approaching, tires sliding on the old dirt road. An engine revved, revved again, then silence. A string of steady curses. Grinning, Fox got to his feet..." (20)
"She is something other than woman in this place... I accept the fact that [she] has visions; she is after all a woman, a witch, a lapsed Catholic, a painter, a Surrealist... I can't see it, but I can almost hear it. A low drum beat. A murmur of language. There are poems in these trees, in the rock underfoot. I resist it, this slow seduction." (50-1)
"I need the wild. I need the source. I need a land where sun and wind will strip a man down to the soul and bleach his dying bones." (75)
"The sky overhead was turning deep blue, streaked with banners of orange, red and pink. The desert was bathed in a golden light, each cactus, each small tree vivid, distinct. Its beauty stopped her on the path. Something had changed. Something was different ever since she woke up that morning. Her eyes seemed to have adjusted now to the subtler colors of the Sonoran palette. The desert was no longer an emptiness, an absence of water and dark northern greens, but an abundance: of sky, of silver and sage and sepia and indigo blue, of gold desert light, so pure, so clear she wanted to gather it up in her two cupped hands and drink it down." (140)
"It was curious to her that it didn't alarm her more to have her vision of reality so abruptly expanded to include the surreal, the supernatural—although it now seemed the most natural thing of all. But is was the only thing that made sense of it all..." (170)
"The world would be a tamer place. And that, Maggie thought, would be a loss." (227)
"She looked at the words. Type on a page. Runic shapes in black, black ink. Words were chunks of turquoise in her hand; words were what protected her." (306)