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At the Edge of the Woods
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono
6 posts | 4 read | 4 to read
"Balances wonder and disquiet with incomparable grace and precision...Ono continues to captivate." --Bryan Washington, author of MemorialIn an unnamed foreign country, a family of three is settling into a house at the edge of the woods. But something is off. A sound, at first like coughing and then like laughter, emanates from the nearby forest. Fantastical creatures, it is said, live out there in a castle where feudal lords reigned and Resistance fighters fell. When the mother, fearing another miscarriage, returns to her family's home to give birth to a second child, father and son are left to their own devices in rural isolation. Haunted by the ever-present woods, they look on as the TV flashes with floods and processions of refugees. The boy brings a mysterious half-naked old woman home, but before the father can make sense of her presence, she disappears. A mail carrier with gnashing teeth visits to deliver nothing but gossip of violence. A tree stump in the yard refuses to die, no matter how generously the poison is applied.An allegory for alienation and climate catastrophe unlike any other, At the Edge of the Woods is a psychological tale where myth and fantasy are not the dominion of childhood innocence but the poison fruit borne of the paranoia and violence of contemporary life.
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blurb
xicanti
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono
post image

Part of me thinks this book was an excellent allegory for all sorts of important stuff, all wrapped up in dark fairy tale logic. A much larger part of me couldn‘t click with the allegorical elements because they were basically IT and I wanted a stronger human component.

Alwaysbeenaloverofbooks Awwww 🐶 🐾 ❤️ 2y
36 likes1 comment
blurb
xicanti
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono
post image

This is probably my last larger library haul for a while. So many of my holds have (finally) made it through processing that I haven‘t had time to read any of the stuff I‘ve purchased recently, and I don‘t like to let those pile up. The rest of the novels on my list are now suspended until the end of October, barring a couple I‘m especially eager to read.

quote
Bertha_Mason
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono

"His mouth was slightly open—just enough that it made you want to slip in a coin."
-"The Old Leather Bag"

quote
Bertha_Mason
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono

"His muttering began to mingle with the sound of the TV, and like a wound closing, the world sought to regain its proper shape. There might be a place for me in that world. But I had a feeling that I would be denied entry. The one who entered would not be me. All of the sounds humming at the bottom of the space around us invaded and filled me. That was how they rejected me."
-"A Breast"

quote
Bertha_Mason
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono

"She was laughing. She sounded as if she were trying to copy the sound of her own laughter."
-"A Breast"

quote
Bertha_Mason
At the Edge of the Woods | Masatsugu Ono

"Those leaves, due to the weight of the air they scraped away, might make a sound when they struck the ground."
-"A Breast"