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A review by thepurplebookwyrm
The Rain Heron by Robbie Arnott
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
This one's... a little difficult to talk about, but here goes:
The Rain Heron opens up with a fable about its titular creature, and how its impact on the weather impacted, in turn, the fortunes of a lone farmer, some time in the undefined past. This, and the recurring Nature-related imagery in the novel, are probably why I've also seen this called an 'eco-fable', more specifically.
The book then follows a series of interrelated characters: a female hermit surviving in the mountainous wilds, a male military medic, and a female military commander (at two different points in her life) whose lives are all affected by the legendary Rain Heron – or the people who wish to capture and harness it.
And it... was basically a miss for me. Genre-wise, The Rain Heron counts as magical realism more than anything else, though it didn't grate on my nerves the way previously read magically realist tales have in the past. Still, the world-building in, and speculative nature of this book didn't amount to much; the story takes place in the unspecified future, past a certain point of no return, it seemed, with regards to climate change. And in... Tasmania, apparently? I figured it was Australia, given the mention of marsupial species, but no place name was otherwise provided in the text, so I guess it doesn't really matter in any case.
There certainly was the titular Rain Heron, and another, somewhat fantastical creature, what I'll call the 'Rainbow Squid' – the ink of which lends a feeling of 'super-realism' to paintings, amongst other things. The writing around those two animals was very evocative, and the descriptions of Nature, of wilderness more generally were beautifully evocative, and immersive as well. But I wish the Rain Heron, at least, had been more immediately present, and focal to the story, in a way it just wasn't.
Outside of that, well... this was a very meandering, and rather empty-feeling story, unfortunately. Overall, I suppose this one counts as character-driven, but that's only because the characters, and attendant character work, were just a little more front and centre than the very bare-bones plot.
This one was all about vibes, really. The theming, such as it was, was incredibly weak – somewhat unlike previous magically realist novels I've read, funnily enough. Sure, the setting and aforementioned vibes reminded me, at times, of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Into the Wild (the movie), but there wasn't anything I could really engage with beyond a very basic: "hoomans be too stoopid and destructive to appreciate and harmonise with Nature, and Nature, for its part, doesn't give a shit either way and will carry on just fine without us (kind of)". Okay.
So yeah: beautiful Nature-related descriptions, very evocative Nature-related vibes, cool magical heron and semi-magical squid, and that's it. All in all, this one felt like a smooth, pretty looking but empty shell I quickly slipped off of (especially past part two). Worth reading once, but no more.
The Rain Heron opens up with a fable about its titular creature, and how its impact on the weather impacted, in turn, the fortunes of a lone farmer, some time in the undefined past. This, and the recurring Nature-related imagery in the novel, are probably why I've also seen this called an 'eco-fable', more specifically.
The book then follows a series of interrelated characters: a female hermit surviving in the mountainous wilds, a male military medic, and a female military commander (at two different points in her life) whose lives are all affected by the legendary Rain Heron – or the people who wish to capture and harness it.
And it... was basically a miss for me. Genre-wise, The Rain Heron counts as magical realism more than anything else, though it didn't grate on my nerves the way previously read magically realist tales have in the past. Still, the world-building in, and speculative nature of this book didn't amount to much; the story takes place in the unspecified future, past a certain point of no return, it seemed, with regards to climate change. And in... Tasmania, apparently? I figured it was Australia, given the mention of marsupial species, but no place name was otherwise provided in the text, so I guess it doesn't really matter in any case.
There certainly was the titular Rain Heron, and another, somewhat fantastical creature, what I'll call the 'Rainbow Squid' – the ink of which lends a feeling of 'super-realism' to paintings, amongst other things. The writing around those two animals was very evocative, and the descriptions of Nature, of wilderness more generally were beautifully evocative, and immersive as well. But I wish the Rain Heron, at least, had been more immediately present, and focal to the story, in a way it just wasn't.
Outside of that, well... this was a very meandering, and rather empty-feeling story, unfortunately. Overall, I suppose this one counts as character-driven, but that's only because the characters, and attendant character work, were just a little more front and centre than the very bare-bones plot.
This one was all about vibes, really. The theming, such as it was, was incredibly weak – somewhat unlike previous magically realist novels I've read, funnily enough. Sure, the setting and aforementioned vibes reminded me, at times, of Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation and Into the Wild (the movie), but there wasn't anything I could really engage with beyond a very basic: "hoomans be too stoopid and destructive to appreciate and harmonise with Nature, and Nature, for its part, doesn't give a shit either way and will carry on just fine without us (kind of)". Okay.
So yeah: beautiful Nature-related descriptions, very evocative Nature-related vibes, cool magical heron and semi-magical squid, and that's it. All in all, this one felt like a smooth, pretty looking but empty shell I quickly slipped off of (especially past part two). Worth reading once, but no more.
Content Warnings
Minor: Violence and Animal cruelty