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zoegold7 's review for:
Birnam Wood
by Eleanor Catton
this was almost too relevant of a read - new zealand mountains, gardening, thinking about land use, friendship....im like glad that i put this down in early september when i tried to read it because now is absolutely the right moment for this to have returned to me
something that i really liked about this book is how the land -the (fake) korowai mountain pass - acts as the meeting place/inciting incident/tangly knot at the center of the book. SO much ends up happening here - the extraction of rare earth minerals, guerrilla gardening, anarchist cooking setups, rare bird conservation efforts, etc. etc. and while the land never does have a super active, animate role in the story (which is something that i think would've been interesting, giving more agency to the land itself and letting it be more of a character in its own rite), it does feel cool to read such a land-based story. to what degree are each of the actors on the land extracting from it? this is a question that catton leaves up to interpretation, but also i don't think it's the central question of the book. she is more interested in how we construct ourselves upon the land, and the secondary consequences that can have for the spaces we live in.
there were a lot of things in this book that made me feel emboldened to write about similar things. the way she explores close intimate friendship, especially in a context ripened by shared political committment, was SO COOL to read about - don't think i have ever quite seen something so familiar represented in this way. and overall the way she writes about politics and organizing spaces in such a frank way that doesn't feel cringey was awesome and im like yeah ok so now its time for me to do that....it also makes me think a lot about sam cohen's point about fierce femmes and notorious liars, that fiction gives us a space to hash out differing political viewpoints and let them each stand there, instead of exploring politics thru theory which often has to have its mind made up. i am thinking especially of the scenes with tony where he is pontificating for paragraph upon paragraph, then is met with critique by someone else. i loved those moments, which feel like such a big part of my life and my way of thinking of theorizing and catton digs into rlly big questions thru these characters in such a refreshing and awesome way
also go off omniscience
something that i really liked about this book is how the land -the (fake) korowai mountain pass - acts as the meeting place/inciting incident/tangly knot at the center of the book. SO much ends up happening here - the extraction of rare earth minerals, guerrilla gardening, anarchist cooking setups, rare bird conservation efforts, etc. etc. and while the land never does have a super active, animate role in the story (which is something that i think would've been interesting, giving more agency to the land itself and letting it be more of a character in its own rite), it does feel cool to read such a land-based story. to what degree are each of the actors on the land extracting from it? this is a question that catton leaves up to interpretation, but also i don't think it's the central question of the book. she is more interested in how we construct ourselves upon the land, and the secondary consequences that can have for the spaces we live in.
there were a lot of things in this book that made me feel emboldened to write about similar things. the way she explores close intimate friendship, especially in a context ripened by shared political committment, was SO COOL to read about - don't think i have ever quite seen something so familiar represented in this way. and overall the way she writes about politics and organizing spaces in such a frank way that doesn't feel cringey was awesome and im like yeah ok so now its time for me to do that....it also makes me think a lot about sam cohen's point about fierce femmes and notorious liars, that fiction gives us a space to hash out differing political viewpoints and let them each stand there, instead of exploring politics thru theory which often has to have its mind made up. i am thinking especially of the scenes with tony where he is pontificating for paragraph upon paragraph, then is met with critique by someone else. i loved those moments, which feel like such a big part of my life and my way of thinking of theorizing and catton digs into rlly big questions thru these characters in such a refreshing and awesome way
also go off omniscience