The Forest - Hardcover

Rutherfurd, Edward

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0609603825 ISBN 13: 9780609603826

Publisher: Crown, 2000

Synopsis

In The Forest, Edward Rutherfurd, whose greatly admired Sarum and London have captivated millions of readers, now unfolds the saga of nine turbulent centuries in the life of the quintessential English heartland: the New Forest.

The New Forest lies in a vast bowl scooped from England's southern coast. To its west runs the river Avon, from Sarum to the harbor at Christchurch, and to its east the port of Southampton. In the heart of the New Forest itself, some one hundred thousand acres of forest and heath sweep down to the Solent water and the Isle of Wight and overlook the English Channel just beyond.

From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest has remained a mysterious, powerful, almost mythical place. It is here that Saxon and Norman kings rode forth with their hunting parties, and where William the Conqueror's son Rufus was mysteriously killed. The mighty oaks of the forest were used to build the ships for Admiral Nelson's navy, and the fishermen who lived in Christchurch and Lymington helped Sir Francis Drake fight off the Spanish Armada. The New Forest is the perfect backdrop for the families who people this epic story -- a story that makes clear the connections between the dark, dangerous, sensuous life of the primeval forest and the genteel life of Georgian and Regency society.

There are well-born ladies and lowly woodsmen, sailors and smugglers, witches and Cistercian monks, who live in the lovely abbey of Beaulieu. The Forest's Lady Adela is the cousin of Walter Tyrrell, who is blamed for the death of Rufus, son of the Conqueror. There is Brother Adam of Beaulieu, who is content with his service to God until a poaching incident puts him in contact with an intriguing young woman named Mary Furzey. There is the merchant Totton family of the harbor town of Lymington, and the Penruddocks and Lisles of Moyles Court. The feuds, wars, loyalties, and passions of many hundreds of years reach their climax in a crime that shatters the decorous society of Bath in the days of Jane Austen.

Edward Rutherfurd is a master storyteller whose sense of place and of character -- whether fictional or historical -- is at its most vibrant in The Forest. Like Sarum and London, it is a gripping novel of living history.

About this title

About the Author

Edward Rutherfurd was born in Salisbury, England, and educated at Cambridge University. His first novel, Sarum, was an instant international bestseller. His subsequent novels -- Russka and London -- were also highly acclaimed bestsellers here and abroad.

From the Inside Flap

In The Forest, Edward Rutherfurd, whose greatly admired Sarum and London have captivated millions of readers, now unfolds the saga of nine turbulent centuries in the life of the quintessential English heartland: the New Forest.

The New Forest lies in a vast bowl scooped from England's southern coast. To its west runs the river Avon, from Sarum to the harbor at Christchurch, and to its east the port of Southampton. In the heart of the New Forest itself, some one hundred thousand acres of forest and heath sweep down to the Solent water and the Isle of Wight and overlook the English Channel just beyond.

From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest has remained a mysterious, powerful, almost mythical place. It is here that Saxon and Norman kings rode forth with their hunting parties, and where William the Conqueror's son Rufus was mysteriously killed. The mighty oaks of the forest were used to build the ships for Admiral Nelson's navy, and the fishermen who lived in Christchurch and Lymington helped Sir Francis Drake fight off the Spanish Armada. The New Forest is the perfect backdrop for the families who people this epic story -- a story that makes clear the connections between the dark, dangerous, sensuous life of the primeval forest and the genteel life of Georgian and Regency society.

There are well-born ladies and lowly woodsmen, sailors and smugglers, witches and Cistercian monks, who live in the lovely abbey of Beaulieu. The Forest's Lady Adela is the cousin of Walter Tyrrell, who is blamed for the death of Rufus, son of the Conqueror. There is Brother Adam of Beaulieu, who is content with his service to God until a poaching incident puts him in contact with an intriguing young woman named Mary Furzey. There is the merchant Totton family of the harbor town of Lymington, and the Penruddocks and Lisles of Moyles Court. The feuds, wars, loyalties, and passions of many hundreds of years reach their climax in a crime that shatters the decorous society of Bath in the days of Jane Austen.

Edward Rutherfurd is a master storyteller whose sense of place and of character -- whether fictional or historical -- is at its most vibrant in The Forest. Like Sarum and London, it is a gripping novel of living history.

Reviews

Lg. Prt. 0-375-41037-6 cassette 0-375-40960-2 England's James Michener will undoubtedly have another huge commercial success with this history-drenched blockbuster, which essentially resembles it predecessors: Sarum (1987), Russka (1991), and London (1997).The subject is England's southern ``New Forest'' area, originally founded as a game preserve by William the Conqueror, and prized as ``a source of inspiration, of study and recreation'' throughout the centuries thereafter. Rutherfurd's episodic history of the Forest begins in 1099 with a romantic tale of Saxon-Norman enmity that climaxes with the assassination of King William ``Rufus,'' then incorporates several lengthy stories in which local families' successive generations keep reappearing: in 1294, a love-struck monk fathers a young married woman's child; supporters of Queen Elizabeth's rival, Mary Queen of Scots, furtively prepare for the Armada deployed by Mary's Spanish supporters; haughty Alice Albion risks treason in a later age of violent political factionalism (in the longest chapter here, which also offers an intriguing characterization of ``liberal'' monarch Charles II); and, in Georgian times, a Jane Austeninspired tale of social-climbing and arranged marriage is deftly balanced against a vigorous indictment of continuing commercial exploitation of the Forest's abundant resources. All this often feels like a history lesson. Still, Rutherfurd has once again combined absorbing historical information with enviable narrative skill and a real gift for creating credible representative characters. Popular fiction at its best. ($300,000 ad/promo)-- Copyright © 2000 Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

As he did most recently--and with greater success--in London (LJ 6/15/97), Rutherfurd offers a sweeping picture of an area of England by focusing on a few families who lived there. This time he concentrates on the New Forest, part of the southern coast of England bounded by the English Channel. Rutherfurd traces the lives of peasants, smugglers, churchmen, woodsmen, and upper-class families from the 11th to the 20th centuries. These assorted men and women take part in the events surrounding the death of King Rufus (William the Conqueror's son), the failure of the Spanish Armada, England's Civil War, and more. Rutherfurd has always used his characters more as placeholders in history than as living human beings, but those in The Forest are particularly one-dimensional. That, plus the annoyingly Michener-like didactic tone of the narrative, makes this a hard book to recommend, even for fans of Rutherfurd. Still, readers looking for a fictional overview of English history will find it here in spades. Think of it as a Cliffs Notes with much heft.
-Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Rutherfurd follows the successful format he introduced and developed in his previous novels, Sarum (1987), Russka (1991), and London (1997). What he does is take a long sweep through the history of some location and personalize it by following the fortunes of certain families through the ages. His latest novel focuses on the New Forest, a region in southern England that has played a significant role in the country's history. The story opens in 1099, just before the death of King William II in the New Forest, shot in the eye by an arrow, either by accident or by design. Rutherfurd slowly builds the story up to the present day, charting, as has been his pattern in the previous books, the ups and downs of a few families as the epochs of English history wash over the sceptered isle and, in the process, documenting the political, social, economic, and ecological issues and the impact these issues have had on people's lives, common, noble, or royal. And since the author's focus is on the New Forest, even animals appear as characters! The trouble with Rutherfurd's storytelling is that he has obviously done copious research, and he tips in too many long paragraphs of undigested information. Still, readers learn a lot from him, and his latest is no exception; so expect demand for this detailed novel. Brad Hooper

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Hunt
1099

The deer started. She trembled for a moment, then listened.        

A grey-black spring night still lay like a blanket over the sky. Along the edge of the wood, in the damp air, the peaty scent of the heath beyond mingled with the faint mustiness of last year's fallen leaves. It was quiet, as if the whole island of Britain were waiting for something to happen in the silence before the dawn.

Then suddenly, a skylark started singing in the dark. Only he had seen the hint of paleness on the horizon.

The deer turned her head, not satisfied. Something was approaching.

Puckle made his way through the wood. There was no need to move silently. As his feet brushed the leaves or snapped a twig, he might have been mistaken for a badger, wild pig or some other denizen of the Forest.

Away on his left, the screech of a tawny owl careened through the dark tunnels and sweeping arches of the oaks.

Puckle: was it his father, or his grandfather, or someone further back who had been known by the name of Puckle? Puck: it was one of those strange old names that grew, mysteriously, out of the English landscape. Puck Hill: there were several along the southern shores. Perhaps the name came from that. Or perhaps it was a diminutive: little Puck. Nobody knew. But having got one name, the family had never seemed to bother with any more. Old Puckle, young Puckle, the other Puckle: there was always a certain vagueness about which was which. When he and his family had been kicked out of their hamlet by the servants of the new Norman king, they had wandered across the Forest and finally set up a ramshackle camp by one of the streams that ran down to the River Avon at the Forest's western edge. Recently they had moved several miles south to another stream.

Puckle. The name suited him. Thickset, gnarled like an oak, his powerful shoulders stooped forward as though he was pulling some great weight, he often worked with the charcoal burners. Even to the Forest people his comings and goings were mysterious. Sometimes, when the firelight caught his oaken face in its reddish glow, he looked like a goblin. Yet the children would cluster round him when he came to the hamlets to make gates or wattle fences, which he did better than anyone else. They liked his quiet ways. Women found themselves strangely drawn to some deep inner heat they sensed in the woodsman. At his camp by the water, there were always pigeons hanging, and the skin of a hare or some other small creature neatly stretched on pegs; or perhaps the remains of one of the trout who ventured up the little brown streams. Yet the forest animals hardly troubled to avoid him, almost as if they sensed that he was one of them.

As he moved through the darkness now, a rough leather jerkin covering his torso, his bare legs thrust into stout leather boots, he might have been a figure from the very dawn of time.

The deer remained, head raised. She had wandered a little apart from the rest of the group who were still feeding peacefully in the new spring grasses near the woodland edge.

Though deer have good vision, and a highly developed sense of smell, it is on their hearing -- their outer ears being very large in relation to the skull -- that they often rely to detect danger, especially if it is downwind. Deer can pick up even the snap of a twig at huge distances. Already, she could tell that Puckle's footsteps were moving away from her.

She was a fallow deer. There were three kinds of deer in the Forest. The great red deer with their russet-brown coats were the ancient princes of the place. Then, in certain corners there were the curious roe deer -- delicate little creatures, hardly bigger than a dog. Recently, however, the Norman conquerors had introduced a new and lovely breed: the elegant fallow deer.

She was nearly two years old. Her coat was patchy, prior to changing from its winter mulberry colour to the summer camouflage -- a pale, creamy brown with white spots. Like almost all fallow deer, she had a white rump and a black-fringed white tail. But for some reason nature had made her coat a little paler than was usual.

To another deer she would, almost certainly, have been identifiable without this peculiarity: the hindquarter markings of every deer are subtly different from those of every other. Each carries, as it were, a coded marking as individual as a human fingerprint -- and far more visible. She was, therefore, already unique. But nature had added, perhaps for man's pleasure, this paleness as well. She was a pretty animal. This year, at the autumn rutting season, she would find a mate. As long as the hunters did not kill her.

Her instincts warned her still to be cautious. She turned her head left and right, listening for other sounds. Then she stared. The dark trees turned into shadows in the distant gloom. A little way off a fallen branch, stripped of its bark, glimmered like a pair of antlers. Behind, a small hazel bush might have been an animal.

Things were not always what they seemed in the Forest. Long seconds passed before, satisfied at last, she slowly lowered her head.

And now the dawn chorus began. Out on the heather, a stone chat joined in with a whistling chatter from its perch on a gorse bush -- a faint spike of yellow in the darkness. The light was breaking in the eastern sky. Now a warbler tried to interrupt, its chinking trills filling the air; then a blackbird started fluting from the leafy trees. From somewhere behind the blackbird came the sharp drilling of a woodpecker, in two short bursts on a bark drum; moments later, the gentle cooing of a turtle dove. And then, still in the darkness, followed the cuckoo, an echo floating down the woodland edge. Thus each proclaimed its little kingdom before the time of mating in the spring.

Over the heath, rising higher and higher, the lark sang louder still, above them all. For he had glimpsed the rising sun.

Edition details

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0609603825
• ISBN 13: 9780609603826
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 624