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Lanny

a Novel
Apr 24, 2020CALS_Lee rated this title 4.5 out of 5 stars
I along with many readers loved Porter's unique debut, Grief is the Thing With Feathers, which used the mythological crow figure and a prose-poetry style to tell the emotional struggle of two children and their father after the sudden death of their mother/spouse. Porter's style here is much the same, a storytelling mode that blends prose and poetry. This blend is more balanced in the first part of the book, where Porter includes phrases of text (snippets of conversation said to be being spoken in the story's village) arranged visually like a modernist poem might be. The prose meanwhile takes a stronger hand in the latter part of the book. Similarly also we have a mythological being brought to life at the center of the story, pulling many of the strings. Here though the character, Dead Papa Toothwort, is considerably more difficult to understand and get a grip on than Crow was. Dead Papa Toothwort is something out of the dark and primitive woods, rural and uncivilized, strange and unfamiliar, triggering humanity's fears and anxieties. He's something out of England's pagan past, with uncertain motives. The story also centers again on children, this time just one really. Lanny is an only child, and has an eerie connection to nature. The village, and sometimes his parents, are unnerved by him; he's considered a weirdo, "off with the fairies". In part 2 of the book, he disappears, and at that point the book gets a touch more conventional, showing "what really happens" in the minds of people when a child goes missing and suspicion and emotions run high. The story finally takes a wild swerve in part 3, with a set piece that reminds me of something out of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, before resolving the storyline.