Post AhypvTeItvuNkIrJLc by aaron@hilltown.studio
(DIR) More posts by aaron@hilltown.studio
(DIR) Post #AhypvTeItvuNkIrJLc by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:44:52Z
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Thinking to liveblog my way through Robert Holdstock’s Mythago Wood, of which I know very little, as a means of both taking notes and guessing where things are going. We’ll see if I can’t keep this up.Currently I have just started Part 2, so I’m not far into the work just yet.
(DIR) Post #AhypvV8TNFdQM9yv0i by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:50:40Z
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Stephen and Christian are the sons of aging George Huxley, who has been investigating the strangeness of Ryhope Wood for years, a quest that ultimately killed him. They themselves had gone to war, but Christian returned to their childhood home while Stephen convalesced some years in France. Stephen comments about his father’s fascination with the Wood, and we come to understand that it gives birth to manifestations of primeval myths.
(DIR) Post #AhypvWFFFYe7nS9qCm by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:56:25Z
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First George, and later Christian, venture into the Wood, where they can interact with these mythical beings, making this something of a portal fantasy. Portal fantasies often deal with people trying to escape some aspect of their lives, but this isn’t the simplest explanation here.By the end of Part 1, Stephen has accepted the idea that the Wood can produce a version of primeval myths attenuated by the observer, just before Christian disappears into the woods.
(DIR) Post #AhypvXKFESEv9FVLdY by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-01T20:59:41Z
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Part 2 opens with Stephen recounting a particular appearance of a “mythago” or mythical imago, who sails in on a ghostly ship and delivers an oak leaf bearing a C in the shape of a boar’s head. This is clearly intended to be Christian, though he is unrecognizable to Stephen. It seems to me that Christian has become a mythago himself.
(DIR) Post #AhypvYG1lcSc2SXUhc by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T11:57:54Z
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So far in Part 2, we don't get any confirmation of Christian's fate, but midway through this Part, we learn that he's already been gone for 9 months. In the intervening time, two other things occur: 1) a mythago the brothers briefly compare with Boudica, though she is far older than that, probably, appears to Steven (we get his name more often here, spelled with a V), and she begins coming around the house regularly; 2) Steven flies over the wood in a chartered plane.
(DIR) Post #AhypvZ7CZuzkhNPxaK by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:02:31Z
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The Boudica figure calls herself Guiwenneth, and a reason she compares with Boudica in the first place ends up being because she refers to certain technologies she encounters as her word for Roman. Whether this is imprinted by the men who instantiated her, a result of the mythology soup that coalesces in the Wood, or was original to Guiwenneth herself is unclear. Perhaps it's all three.
(DIR) Post #AhypvZwxTUOZHtdIG0 by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:07:37Z
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In any case, an instance of this Guiwenneth figure has appeared to all three (or four) of the men who have so far associated with the Wood. First to George (and possibly to his friend and assistant, Winn-Jones), then to Christian, and now to Steven. The only woman so far to have seen her was George's wife, an event that seems to have driven her to death. The overriding question for them is: whose mythago is Guiwenneth? That is, from whose mythical subconscious did she emerge?
(DIR) Post #AhypvaXpGPsz8Esjiq by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:11:27Z
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This is a central question because George's theory is that the Wood manifests instances of ideal mythical figures from the subconscious of those who are nearby. We know that the instance of Guiwenneth that Christian interacted with died and was buried on the grounds of their estate, well outside the bound of the Wood. George's instance seems to have faded, but we know nothing of her fate since he has removed and hidden or destroyed any notes concerning her.
(DIR) Post #AhypvbCEqADD9Zn0iG by aaron@hilltown.studio
2024-05-02T12:15:10Z
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The second thing that happens is that Steven sees a plane flying overhead and gets the idea to hire the plane for aerial photography above the Wood. We meet Keeton, a scarred RAF captain who is surveying the area and agrees perhaps too readily to Steven's proposal. The Wood defends itself vigorously, but they get pictures nonetheless, some showing blurry figures of mythagos and even a stone building in the Wood.Turns out Keeton was looking for this very place.