Robert Holdstock's Lost Stories

[Freudian Monkey]

I've been writing an academic paper on Robert Holdstock's views, or rather, his "theory" of storytelling. He has mentioned on many occasions that the main inspiration for his Ryhope Wood -series has been the lost oral stories that were never written down. "To every Iliad and Odyssey there are hundreds of equally magnificent stories that were lost in time", he said. His Ryhope Wood series have been primarily an attempt to recreate or to reinvent the story structures, the language and the core themes that such stories might have had. He believed that such stories are always founded on a traumatic experience that are then retold in countless concealed forms, much like the freudian dreamwork retells the matter of the unconscious through concealed symbols. The matter of the collective unconscious of the forest (which Holdstock didn't believe in but which he used in his works constantly) then takes a form of an archaic sacred myth, which echoes throughout the forest shaped as Arthurian romances. However venturing deeper into the heartwood reveals much older story structures - the structure of romance breaks down and the story becomes an epic tragedy. This happens both in Mythago Wood and even more prominently in Lavondyss, where Tallis ventures in the hearthwood and witnesses the tragic act that inspired the stories of Ryhope Wood.

Romance thus is merely a conduit, a contemporary structure through which modern people make sense of the archaic story matter of the forest, which can never be written down. But romance in itself is a form of degeneration, a perversion of the original story. It twists the meaning of the sacred myth which it is trying to imitate by replacing something inherently mythical with something fabulous, by bringing the gods and heroes of myths into the spatiotemporal, where they turn into ordinary human beings and where their role is no longer to uphold the structures of cosmic ontology but to are reduced to play a role in a love story. A person must outgrow the degenerative influence of romance to journey into the heartwood, and this journey is truly a demanding one - it is a process of deindividuation; the death of everything individual. In heartwood waits only death, the complete dissolution of form, and for some, a rebirth into form again.

The story being retold in the forest has a strict role hierarchy, much like the roles in the ancient Greek theater plays. Every role is a mask, which a person wears to both reveal and conceal: to reveal a part of the collective unconscious in him and to conceal his individual identity. Every actor must play his role, and every deviation from that role causes change in the forest's story structure. Usually this change leads to tragic results, as in the case of Tallis, who ends up imprisoning his brother into the unknown region. The character arc of the story characters is thoroughly deterministic and mythagos of the forest will react to Outsiders based on their role in the forest's story arc. However it's possible to change one's role in the story, or severe ties to a particular story arc altogether, but this requires extraordinary knowledge and understanding of the forest - it's accomplished only by a shaman or a scientist.

Well, here's something to start with. If there are any people here who enjoy Holdstock's works, please write a line and express your thoughts about Holdstock as a storyteller or about the wall of text above.

Regards,

FM

[Wispy]

Hallo Freudian Monkey! I was Rob's partner and now attempting to be his literary executor. Your piece is fascinating and touches on much of what obsessed Rob - especially the collective unconscious! I am in a rush now but just wanted to register having seen this. I'll try to revisit when I have more time to think and comment! All best, Sarah (alias Wispy!)

[Freudian Monkey]

Hallo Freudian Monkey! I was Rob's partner and now attempting to be his literary executor. Your piece is fascinating and touches on much of what obsessed Rob - especially the collective unconscious! I am in a rush now but just wanted to register having seen this. I'll try to revisit when I have more time to think and comment! All best, Sarah (alias Wispy!)

Oh my, I didn't quite expect to get this kind of reply.

I watched the wonderful panel discussion arrange in The British Library on September of 2011 that you also attended. I have been a huge fan of Rob's work for almost 20 years.

Would you be willing to do an interview with me at some point, either through Skype or via email? I'd love to hear more about Rob's thoughts on oral storytelling and frankly about a bunch of other things as well. :) One of my biggest regrets in life has been that I never attempted to interview Rob when he was still with us.

I will write more throughout the weekend.

Thank you so much for your reply Sarah! It really means a world to me.

Best wished, Pekka.

[Freudian Monkey]

I'll continue my analysis of the holdstockian theory of storytelling a bit more.

I actually have been pondering about a certain, rather mysterious aspect of Lavondyss for a long time already, and I'd like to hear Sarah's thoughts on this question, if possible.

Maybe I can outline the quest with a few quotes from Lavondyss:

"Skogen is changing. What does that tell you?" - -
Morthen said, "A new voice is in the land."
"That's right. A voice from outside, from the ghost world which I've told you about."
"England", she said, pronouncing the name perfectly.
"Yes. Someone from England. He is approaching us. He is causing change."

Here he sat, without food, without drink, without sleep... for five days. - -
When he was empty and dizzy with loss, he began to feel how close the Skogen was.
He sang to the coming force. He sang to his son. - -
It was not Scathach who stood before him, but a woman.
Were was his son? He had been so certain that this arrival would be his son: the Skogen... Searching for him.


There's actually quite a lot to unscramble here, but bear with me. Skogen (which in swedish means 'forest') is the shadow of the forest, an architypal symbol for all change in Ryhope Wood. Skogen is also a role that an Outsider often play when they enter the Ryhope Wood - they are the bringers of change into the wood's story structure. Now, what is significant here is that Wynne-Jones seems confident that the person representing Skogen in the forest is a male - he uses masculine pronoun to describe Skogen and believes it to be Scathach. When Skogen turns out to be Tallis instead, he is thoroughly perplexed.

Later in the novel Tallis finds out, that she was summoned into the forest by Harry and was at times representing the spirit of Harry in the forest, which might be offered as an explanation for why Tallis is so often portrayed as masculine entity. However the mystery of gender roles in Lavondyss goes deeper. Tallis is named after the medieval storyteller Taliensin, a man. Also Tallis' journey into the forest is very similar to a hero's journey into the underworld to save a damsel in distress (his brother Harry) portrays her as a masculine figure. There are also other defining characteristics about Tallis that portray her as a masculine entity in Ryhope Wood, for instance her behavior as a child, as a mother and as the user of masculine and feminine magic in the Wood. She also experiences her rebirth in a form of a Holly Tree, which in Celtic mythology represents masculinity.

Scathach's gender role in Lavondyss is also rather mysterious. Scathach is named after a warrior woman from Irish mythology. In Lavondyss he is however a male warrior destined to perish in a Ragnarök-esque battle called Bavduin. However there is a particular scene in Lavondyss where Tallis tries to look at Scathach through Moondream, the mask that reveals the feminine side of the forest, but is stopped by Wynne-Jones who seems terrified by what Tallis might see if she sees Scathach through the mask.

So why Rob has gone though so much trouble to leave us all this mysterious symbolism if it was not significant in some way? And as I said, Tallis’ role might be explained through her role as Harry’s masculine spirit in the Wood, but why then is Scathach gender role also ambiguous?

I my view the explanation has to do with the nature of the archaic story being retold in Ryhope Wood. It’s a tragic tale, shaped after the collective sacred myths, inspired by the first filicide that Tallis witnesses in the heartwood. The character roles being played in Ryhope Wood are thus similar to those of an ancient theatre play – they’re one dimensional personas that are always tied to static, even deterministic story structures. Thus, if a hero journeys into Abyss to save his loved one from danger, he is either a male (which is almost always the case) or the hero is a female that has taken a profoundly masculine role in the story (which in Jungian terms represents her overemphasized animus), which often tells of her divine nature or otherwise supernatural character – or it might be done for comic effect, in which case we’re not dealing with sacred myth any longer.

The inescapable conclusion to this realisation is, that the role of the conqueror, the savior, the destroyer – the Outsider who brings change into the forest – is always a masculine role. Thus Tallis becomes the masculine Skogen, and the mythagos around her react to her masculine role accordingly.

Now, all change in the wood occurs based on the acts of the Outsider. Now what does Tallis do almost immediately after she enters Ryhope Wood? She becomes the lover of Scathach. But since her role in the wood is masculine as the Outsider, how can she be a lover of another man? The strict archetypal roles of the wood don’t allow such diversions from the original tale. Thus either Tallis or Scathach has to change for them to be able to journey into Ryhope Wood together. Tallis’ strong will and her chthonic masks make sure that she will not diverse from her active role as the masculine hero who ventures into the Underworld. Therefore Scathach changes – his role becomes a passive role, a feminine role as a follower of Tallis. He is no longer leading the journey toward Bavduin, but is rather following Tallis into the heartwood. After Tallis and Scathach reach the Tuthanach village, their roles whoever change since they part ways and are no longer part of the same story arc – Tallis adopts the role of Wynne-Jones as the old Rajathuk and Scathach retakes his role as the warrior venturing into Bavduin. But this change could never have happened if Tallis and Scathach would have continued to travel together – they have to be separated because Scathach is filling Harry’s place in Tallis’ story as the passive feminine figure to be saved from the Underworld (as Tallis saved him already when she saw him through a hollowing dying under the tree in the battlefield of Bavduin). Tallis becomes very conscious of this problem after talking to Wynne-Jones:

”I have to get rid of him before I can come to you...” she whispered to the distance, to the far peaks, to the unknown region.
“Because you are the same. You are the same. I always knew you were…”

I have to get rid of him. I have to get rid of my tie to him. I have to make myself free.



So there you go, hopefully someone found this interesting.

Sarah, I’d really love to hear whether you and Rob ever had a conversation about the masculinity or femininity in Ryhope Wood and whether Rob indeed intended the gender roles of characters like Tallis and Scathach to be somehow significant in the interpretation of Lavondyss.

Cheers,

FM

[ennison]

I had never heard of Holdstock until today but now that I look him up I reckon he sounds oddly interesting. I doubt, though, that I'll ever get round to reading him. I am not a fan of Fantasy (Yes I know that all fiction has an element of fantasy) perhaps because some of it is such dross. But I say that acknowledging that Peake's work is among my favourite reading. Soo ... maybe I will try something by him.

[Freudian Monkey]

I had never heard of Holdstock until today but now that I look him up I reckon he sounds oddly interesting. I doubt, though, that I'll ever get round to reading him. I am not a fan of Fantasy (Yes I know that all fiction has an element of fantasy) perhaps because some of it is such dross. But I say that acknowledging that Peake's work is among my favourite reading. Soo ... maybe I will try something by him.

I recommend starting with Mythago Wood, it's very accessible and enjoyable to read. Even though I personally think Lavondyss is Holdstock's most ambitious and significant literary work, I actually think Mythago Wood is his best novel. The first person narration offers a much more personal view of the mystery of Ryhope Wood.

[ennison]

I am always wary of writers who write to elucidate an idea since I believe in the primacy of the tale. But believing that is of course only a general stance and reality throws up fiction that I enjoy despite that. Jungian theory is interesting and perhaps fun in psychological studies. I'm not so sure of its use as an underlying structure on which to build a story. Could you suggest any other writers who are similar to this fellow and who I may have heard of so that I could get a better handle on what it's like. I've looked at a number of reader reviews on Goodreads and they are pretty varied. But I always welcome finding some new writer.

[Freudian Monkey]

Well, there's a Finnish author called Johanna Sinisalo - some of her novels are somewhat similar to Holdstock's Ryhope Wood novels. According to his own words Holdstock got inspiration from Michael Moorcock's fiction, but I'm not particularly familiar with his work. I think Sarah could give a much better reply than myself.

I don't really see a contradiction between writing a good story and exploring interesting concepts while doing so. And just because I approach Holdstock's works theoretically doesn't mean that they're built primarily for exploring abstract concepts. But in the case of Holdstock, I think you might like Mythago Wood better than Lavondyss, since the prior is much more story-oriented. Holdstock is not a very typical fantasy author - even the Ryhope Wood novels are rather a mixture of both science fiction and fantasy. He's books often deal with typical scifi themes like time, the nature of knowledge and so on.