I found this book on my Mother’s bookshelf, which maybe should have been a warning but the back of the book sold it to me. ‘Lord of the Rings out of Watership Down.’ I liked Lord of the Rings so I thought that Dunction Wood could have a lot for me to enjoy. However, I failed to acknowledge the fact that Watership Down scared the crap out of me as a child and my common sense must have abandoned me because moles can’t use swords or bows.
Dunction Wood deals with a lot of issues including but not limited to: childhood isolation, parental abandonment, bereavement, disability discrimination, the difficulties of puberty, baby murder, building your own home, rape, incest and incest rape. You would think with this list of things that the book spreads itself too thin. This is exactly the case because, at 730 pages, it’s unnecessarily long. With the book’s over ambitious approach to getting so much in, it has a lot wrong with it, so much so that I probably couldn’t list them all in a 10,000 word dissertation, so here is my top 5, in reverse order.
Number 5: Length. I’ve already mentioned the length of the book. Out of the 730 pages, 300 could be cut due to unnecessary details, a further 200 for over-description and the remaining 230 would make quite a fantastic read. If not for my other 4 issues...
Number 4: Using ‘mole’ instead of ‘one.’ This is a personal thing and it only made me angry after reading the afterword. Horwood says he describes the mole as ‘seeing’ when they are seeing with their sense of smell and hearing. But he still refers to them as ‘somemole, nomole, anymole.’ It doesn’t make sense that the author is worried about moles not seeing, reading or writing when the characters don’t consider themselves beings. Humans don’t walk around saying things like, ‘is anyperson there?’ so why the hell would a mole say it?
Number 3: POV. Sometimes the point of view changes three times in the same paragraph which would be fine if it was done for a reason or there was some kind of control involved, but it reads like lazy writing and can become quite confusing. At one point I read on for a page after the POV changed thinking I was still with the mole, when actually, it was a dog lash wolf thing. Oh, the dogwolf was afraid of the mole. But that’s believable because these moles can read (William Horwood would like to state that when he says ‘read’ he actually means, ‘read brail through touch.’)
Number 2: Poetic language. Poetic language can be excellent if used well and in the right places. However, Horwood uses it sporadically and while this could be to highlight the mood in the Dunction System, it’s used too far apart to be the case. There is a lot of it in the beginning, with alliteration and colourful language but as the novel grows longer, Horwood seems to lose interest in it which, again, is a sign of laziness. Because of its inconsistency, it has a negative effect on the flow and pace of the novel.
Number 1: General writing style. Out of the books I’ve already looked at on here, Dunction Wood is a cross between A Cavern of Black Ice and The Book of Mormon. It’s not a great combination. The two aspects don’t work well together and over the last 300 pages, I was literally dragging myself to the end, not completely kicking and screaming but it felt more like hard work than anything else. The narrative is so distant for such a long time it’s hard to empathise with any of the moles/characters/dogwolves.
If you love moles and want to hear about mole love, mole hills and mole rape this book is definitely for you. My summary of the book? ‘Here are some moles.’ Enjoy.
you're an idiot.
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I remember reading Duncton Wood in the mid 1980s and thought it was a great book. One of those books which I couldn't put down. If you like animal stories or indeed, just a deep, involving narrative, this makes a very enjoyable read.
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