North Woods - book club review

The book North Woods by Daniel Mason qualified under our book club’s charter that we read books we would not otherwise go out and pick up on our own. We all seemed to enjoy this choice as a book club book.  In preparation for meeting, some reread certain inflection points, skimmed other chapters, revealing a complexity and depth of plot not evident in a casual read.  It’s an easy casual read.  Meeting to discuss this particular book though, examining its literary variety, the constant of Mother Nature, enhanced its richness.  This was a good one to kick around together.

In respect for one central theme, apple pie was served along with apples and cheddar cheese. 

Jeff, who had recommended North Woods, led the discussion; he began with, who was our favorite character in the novel?  Because the story was a series of short stories, of a place and a house in the woods over centuries, plenty of interesting characters passed through.

Here are our highlights in a loosely chronological order:

The founding lovers and surviving old woman established the place in time, a sanctuary, a reference point.

Charles Osgood was from a ‘martial’ family whose personal obsession with apples – a ‘Pomaniac’ – inspired him to grow an orchard after his service in the French and Indian War.  Osgood reappears twice again in the story, first at a seance, then in the closing chapter with another ghost. We will come back to ghosts.

Osgood’s daughters, Mary and Alice, can be viewed as a unit; their names combine to “malice“, a combination of the Latin words "malum" (evil) and "malus" (apple).  The root supports the association of the apple with the concept of evil (or temptation) in cultural and religious contexts.  As codependent identical twins, these two were an interesting pair in life, reappearing in death.  As a sidebar, the early chapters’ overt biblical references including an apple offering, Adam’s rib, and the Tree of Life reflected the contemporaneous Zeitgeist, an early hint of author Daniel Mason‘s versatility and facility with nuance.

A brief but popular character was Anastasia - of Irish descent - a sexed up psychic reminiscent for Chuck of fraudsters who harvest evangelical demagoguery in Oklahoma.  The séance scene was as wild as Anastasia’s moral compass, worth re-reading for its comedic build up and intense conclusion.

Doug liked the CPA, a curious if flawed amateur historian, expelled from the local society for his numerous indiscretions with the ladies of the club.

George Carter Jr. appeared as a boy first, growing up with the twins, and again later in life, reflecting a man of his time, from peeking in on rutting neighbors as kids to grown up themes of awkward social interaction.

Nash and Teal’s homosexual romance was written in an epistolary style, through their correspondence. The letters reflected their emotional yearning, a relationship between two creative gay men - one an artist, the other a writer - kept apart by convention during their productive years, and a jealous housemaid in their final years. 

The catamount was the dangerous character, spanning time, its presence projecting uncertainty, wild.  Chuck passed around his brother’s picture of a western mountain lion, fed on cattle, as large as zebra-eating African lions.  These are big cats, and you’ll never see one. 

Bill held that the main character of the story was the house, growing early in the book, suffering ailments of time and decay, a rebirth, ultimately destroyed in fire.  Was that fire preparation for rebirth?  

Through the parade of characters, we were reminded that people come and go, all kinds of people, sharing love, love lost, obsessions, passing through time, in the perpetual circle of life. Mother Nature: rinse and repeat.  For Geoff, the book prompted a deliberate reflection on six decades of changes here in this slice of Norwell and up in the woods of Freedom, both.   Absent massive events such as fire or flood, we barely notice the day-to-day changes we live through.  More time in the woods helps us appreciate the richness. More ‘forest bathing’: time in the woods to breathe in synch with the trees breathing out.

The plot line included stories of hardship, slavery, murder by poison, murder by axe, yearning, love, heartache and heartbreak.  A series of short stories, connected by place.  

The first indication that characters re-emerge as ghosts was Mary’s dispensing the slave catcher, a decade (or so) after her own death. The ghost thread prompted the open question whether we believe in ghosts. Bill reminded us, back in the day, they did.  Our group ran a range: something extant beyond our corporeal reality to Chuck’s demand for hard verifiable evidence.  Doug sought middle ground describing a spectrum, rationality to spirituality.  Geoff noted that dreams are an access point to people who have gone, and to many other spiritual interactions, but that our soul’s work happens in our lifetimes.

The story’s end was abrupt, some of us feeling as though an editor said, ‘Hey you’re at 350 pages, finish up!’  Some were upset about this, wanting more. I personally found the late plot reveal when Osgood picked up Nora after her car accident adequately connective. 

The plot, highlighted by the people and their stories as well as the literary variability, felt jumbled, perhaps intentionally chaotic.  Nature, on the other hand, the northwoods, remained constants throughout the centuries.  Frequent cross-references and re-emergence of earlier characters, also contributed to a sense of continuity.  Author Daniel Mason seemed to pull this all together.  It was good, and better to read with others.

Our next book is the Wolves of K Street to be led by Bill with help from Chuck who lived amongst DC’s lobbying world back in the day.  Next meeting July 15, 7 PM.