The wood wife pdf

BUT, I loved Thumper. Thumper was excellent. She was the best part of the whole book, the most whole, real, alive. I might be glad I read it just for knowing her. Sometimes that's what books are for - so you can meet someone. Apr 08, Peter Tillman rated it it was amazing Shelves: friend-recos , sw-us , reread-list , award-win-nom , at-bg-pa , fantasy , on-reserve. Finally got around to reading this Mythopoeic Fantasy Award-winning novel, Windling's debut as a novelist.

She liked the book a lot, and so did I. It's set in the Tucson, Arizona area, my old home town. Windling was living in Tucson part-time when she wrote the book, and caught the flavor of the Southern Arizona desert mountains exceptionally well. The characters are drawn just right, and the fa Finally got around to reading this Mythopoeic Fantasy Award-winning novel, Windling's debut as a novelist.

The characters are drawn just right, and the fantasy part, Nature elementals in the mountains, is very nicely done too. Really an exceptional book that I'm likely to reread in a few years. If you haven't read it yet, you should, especially if you like the American Southwest. I miss Southern Arizona, and this was a nice reminder of why. View all 5 comments. Oct 05, Tracy rated it it was amazing.

I still love this. Apr 07, Kerrie rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Everyone I meet. Shelves: to-read-again-and-again. I read this book once a year and get something new out of it each time!

I often buy multiple copies to pass out to friends, family, even random strangers on the plane! Oct 31, Miriam rated it liked it. I liked this fine. Having said that, it felt a little Like, let's have a bunch of white transplants move to the desert and fall in love with its magic and beauty. Oh, and a few brown people for "local color" and to help the white people find their way.

The attempts to tie it to a world of existing artists--Henry Miller, Anais Nin, a barely-disguised Frida Kahlo, Brian Froud--didn't really add to the story. It's just name dropping and "realism". As for the argument that fair OK. As for the argument that fairy tales and magic somehow don't get proper treatment in the academy or the canon of littratoor, that's probably true.

It's a page-turner. That's fine. And it has deep respect for the creative arts--especially poetry quoting famous poets throughout, basing the story on a poetry collection and painting. But I don't buy that I don't consider it littratoor solely because it has supernatural beings in it. Spoiler alert: if Cooper's poems ARE in fact based in reality, in describing what he actually saw, as opposed to the previous interpretation that these were all metaphors and symbolic language, does that cheapen or enhance the poetic work?

If before people thought that he was creating his own mythology and language to discuss is, and now they see that he was just describing what he saw, to me, that's a step down in terms of the importance of his work, or its originality or intent.

I suppose all poetry is descriptive could be wrong about that, I admit it , but if you're just putting down the various spirits you talk to and what they say and stand for, then how is your work creative or transcendent? This may also be a dumb question coming from a historian who does the exact same thing. But I never claimed to be an artist. Winner of the Mythopoeic Award.

It was written two years later in , and DeLint did a blurb for it, so I suppose he deserves credit - but the theme of this story is extremely similar.

However, I like Winner of the Mythopoeic Award. However, I liked this book a lot better - I am really a huge fan of Terri Windling in general, and I liked the characters, the setting, and just felt that it flowed really well Maggie Black, a sophisticated, successful writer, is unexpectedly named in the will of a famous poet that she had enjoyed a long correspondence with, but never met.

Having inherited his house and papers, although this is rendered bittersweet by the fact that the poet appears to have been murdered under mysterious circumstances, she goes to her new property in rural Arizona with the hopes of writing a biography of the man. In the Sonoran desert, she finds more than she bargained for, not only in the culture shock of the Southwest and the unexpected attraction of a young man she meets there But more than family drama may be involved, as strange visitations and unexplainable phenomena begin to occur Originally written as part of a project in tribute to Brian Froud, one might feel that his artwork is mentioned a few too many times Jan 25, Celia McMahon rated it really liked it.

I'd first come to know Froud when he worked with Jim Henson, and my love of him grew from there. Now, I am not a big art person, but when it comes to the weird and the mystical, I'm your girl. That's why I jumped at the chance to read this book. Also, I adore magical realism. Maggie Black inherits the estate of the deceased poet, Davis Cooper, and moves from the west coast to Arizona where she plans to uncover what really happened to her friend. Upon arriving in the southwest, she quickly finds herself in awe of its beauty and wonder.

The house is full of magical paintings, poems, and hints to what happened to Davis. Taking these clues, Maggie navigates the desert, its inhabitants, and her own past as she grows into the person she has always meant to become. To me, this book made me feel like I was in Arizona. I've only been there once, and it made an impression on me. Reading this felt like visiting again. This book is a love letter to the southwest and everything it embodies. We're grounded in reality, but find ourselves slipping into a fantasy world beyond our own.

But we only get glimpses. I've never walked the desert and climbed its mountains, but by reading this book I feel like I already have.

The aspects of the folklore and mystery kept me engaged. The writing was beautiful; it is pure poetry. This is a perfect novel that will stick with me for a long time. Recommend for people who want something magical set in a desert and helmed by a strong woman. I fell in love with Charles de Lint's Forests of the Heart early on, and after reading more of his works, decided to go for Terri Windling next, hoping for something similar in terms of both the mythic themes and the love of the desert.

I was also interested in how much, if any, Windling's and de Lint's friendship may have influenced their writings. There are may common elements between the two authors. The Wood Wife, to some extent, shares the same idea of consent reality found in de Lints books, and the idea of paintings creating bodies for spirits found in de Lint's Memory and Dream seems to be taken directly from this book.

Also, the obvious love for the desert is common between the two authors, as is the discontent with the urbanization of it. However, where the two authors diverge is their writing style. Windling is much more straightforward and much less lyrical than de Lint. However, she tends to describe things to a much greater extent -- especially the lighting.

When reading de Lint, I always got an impression of poetry, even though his works are strictly prose. With The Wood Wife, my impression despite the embedded poetry sprinkled throughout was of light.

There were many times while reading this book that I looked up from it to the set of paintings of desert sunsets I have hanging on my wall. She makes me want to go to the desert, just for a while, despite the fact that I've never been that far west in my life.

Sep 24, Suanne Laqueur rated it really liked it. A poet leaves his Tucson house and all his work to an artist in California. She moves to Arizona, and through subsequent friendships and a romance, begins to discover the poet, his talented and disturbed wife, and the magic of the Arizona desert.

Does life imitate art, or art life? Fantastic and gripping, you can actually feel the heat of the desert sun on the pages. Oct 23, Katie rated it really liked it Shelves: how-library , format-physical-book , books-read-in , books-read-innew. This is good, but we just didn't connect all the way, me and this book.

It probably didn't help that I thought the ex-husband was one of the most interesting characters. I don't think I was supposed to think that.

The Rincon Mountains are a place where spirits watch over the land and humans may either live in peace or at odds with these timeless beings. Here, the blurry line between mortal life and the spirit world wends itself through the characters' lives in a beguiling, serpentine manner. The natural world is all-encompassing in its wild thrivi 4. The natural world is all-encompassing in its wild thriving existence—so much deeper, wider, and longer than any mere human life.

But the poets and artists among us are those who hold the keys to connect and communicate with those others who walk unseen or simply unrecognized among us. And it is at that nexus of true art where the novel's power lies.

Probably the less said about the particulars of the plot here the better, for there is a mystery at play, woven from many different threads, and its shroud is best lifted ever so slowly by Windling herself.

Highly recommended for readers who enjoy subtle contemporary fantasy-mystery of a folkloric nature, and in particular those drawn to the desert lands of the American Southwest.

Mar 19, Jo Walton added it. Nov 04, Ethan rated it liked it. This book started out very well. It was quite interesting and the descriptions of the Southwest are excellent. The main character is well realized. Crow is well done, though the other human characters don't seem quite as powerful, and only Tomas is truly interesting, since the others are fairly bland. Sometimes the POV seems a bit sloppy, but them's the breaks with an omniscient narrator.

My main problem with the book was all the hippyesque blabbermouthing about mysticism and art. The poetry is This book started out very well. The poetry is far too prevalent and it is terrifically drab stuff. If you want to write a poetry book, then go for it, but don't write a so-called novel and slather it with line after line of dull poems.

Overall, and despite the goofy feelgood arty crap, I still enjoyed this book. There were plenty of interesting and surprising moments. Interestingly enough, Windling references the story of True Thomas, about whom Ellen Kushner wrote a book that I just happened to check out from the library at the same time. Both are pretty good books. Jun 18, Tim rated it it was amazing Shelves: fantasy , favorites , female-protagonist.

A terrific work of fantasy in a modern setting, drawing on vivid depictions of the landscape of the American southwest, subtly developed characters of real depth, and a dazzling imagination for surrealist art that blends seamlessly into the novel's reality.

I don't want to say too much more than that, really, but speaking of "seamless," I would note that the use of a poet and his poetry in a fictional context is hard to pull off without seeming painfully contrived. That it isn't -- that the poetr A terrific work of fantasy in a modern setting, drawing on vivid depictions of the landscape of the American southwest, subtly developed characters of real depth, and a dazzling imagination for surrealist art that blends seamlessly into the novel's reality.

That it isn't -- that the poetry is even an appealing component of the story -- could almost be considered as much of an achievement as the rest of this captivating tale and its endearing main characters. Jun 05, Lori Cooper rated it it was amazing.

I've always wanted to see the desert and now I feel as if I have actually been there. Terri Windling does a magnificent job of describing the scenery in such detail that I feel I have to sweep desert sand from my toes! Loved this book. So glad I found this at a thrift store for a quarter! Worth so much more! Feb 03, Margaret rated it really liked it Shelves: fairytale-myth-inspired , contemporary-fantasy. I went through a phase where I only wanted my folklore in vaguely historical realms--much like the stories themselves--but lately I've begun preferring them mixed into contemporary life and living.

Maybe this mirrors my own self now, a folklore lover that also works 4 jobs at a time, lives in a city, and wants to know there can still be some magic in the day to day. In The Wood Wife, This is one of those wonderful, contemporary mythic novels that blurs the boundaries between reality and folklore.

In The Wood Wife, writer Maggie inherits the remote Arizona home of her favorite poet Cooper, who she's never met but has been corresponding with for a long time. She fell in love with his poetry collection The Wood Wife, and ever since the two have exchanged letters. And can I just say, I want to read all of this poetry collection! Windling gives little snippets, but not enough for me. It reminded me of Songs for Ophelia by Theodora Goss, but with an underlying story to each poem.

Maggie is a city-smart cosmopolitan traveler, yet she ends up falling in love with Arizona. In Cooper's house, she finds snippets of poems, and also a room full of the magical paintings of Cooper's long deceased wife, Anna Neverra, whose work is often compared to Leonora Carrington, one of my favorite artists.

Anna's paintings and Cooper's poems hint at magical and folkloric creatures that haunt the Arizona wilderness. And a mystery that Maggie must solve.

If you like art and folklore in your fiction, then you're bound to enjoy this. I know this is a beloved book, and a bit of a classic for urban fantasy. The writing is lush, the story well-developed.

Strong characters, too. But the issues with appropriation overwhelm the whole of it for me. Re-reading some old favorites at random this month.

Really loved her ability to write magic into the real world which reminds me of Charles de Lint. However, instead of Ottawa, Windling makes the Southwest her domain. Not to be missed for anyone who loves modern fairy tales. Nov 17, Andrew K.

Lee rated it liked it. Floundering in life, trying to break out of a co-dependent relationship with her ex-husband, unable to maintain any other romantic relationships, and unsure what to do next with her life, Maggie Black is elated to learn that she has been left a cabin in the hills outside of Tucson.

Her benefactor is the late Davis Cooper, a Pulitzer-winning poet with whom she maintained a regular correspondence, and on whose work she wrote a thesis. Frustratingly, Cooper repeatedly put Maggie off when she sought to visit him in person or to see more of his work. Maggie must also untangle the riddle of how Cooper died, his lungs filled with water in the middle of the dry desert, and what went wrong in his tempestuous relationship with the surrealist painter Anna Naverra, a marriage that seems to have bound them both to the land while destroying their artistic outputs.

For the desert pulses with a deep magic that quickly draws her into its dangerous embrace, changing her life forever. Yet for as intriguing as the story is, the magic element is introduced clumsily.

When Maggie finally encounters the magical beings that have been lurking in the shadows throughout the story, there is none of the fear, or wonder, or surprise, that would be a normal response.

Even though we the readers know from the beginning that there is magic in this desert, it is incongruous that this seems so normal to Maggie when she finally discovers it. Perhaps, though, Maggie is not so surprised because even her ordinary life itself is magical—and this is the real weakness of this book.

There are suggestions that Maggie has been both a poet and a journalist, and at one time had some formal training in literature the thesis on Cooper , but these are mere throwaway details as Maggie drifts casually through life without apparently needing to worry about job or income. She is living in LA at the beginning of the book, and the book mentions that she spent time in the San Francisco Bay area with a boyfriend.

However, she also spent considerable time in England, where her best friend still lives, and mentions a passionate affair in Florence. Though one of her neighbors works two jobs to support her artist husband, all the other neighbors seems to enjoy art and volunteer work and music all without an apparent means of income. This is not the real world for most of us—even if we might wish it to be—and thus it means little that magical Maggie moves so easily from one enchanted world to another.

Feb 10, Naomi rated it it was amazing Shelves: five-star-reads , fantasy , read-in A book of mystical speculative fiction grounded in the desert mountains a character in their own right , with an endearing group of people and enough of an edge to the story that it sank into me.

Here European folklore and Southwest spirits merge; here painters, poets, farmers, and handymen attend to one another; here there are Celtic spirals and cacti spines.

The rains had brought autumn wildflowers to the rock-strewn mountain slopes. Yellow brittlebush blanketed the hillside and orange globe mallow lined the sides of the wash.

The small oval leaves of the cottonwood trees were turning autumnal gold. In the stillness of early evening eh could hear the call of the mourning doves, a lone coyote high in the hills, and sound of someone approaching, tires sliding on the old dirt road. An engine revved, revved again, then silence. A string of steady curses. Grinning, Fox got to his feet I accept the fact that [she] has visions; she is after all a woman, a witch, a lapsed Catholic, a painter, a Surrealist I can't see it, but I can almost hear it.

A low drum beat. A murmur of language. There are poems in these trees, in the rock underfoot. I resist it, this slow seduction. I need the source. I need a land where sun and wind will strip a man down to the soul and bleach his dying bones. The desert was bathed in a golden light, each cactus, each small tree vivid, distinct. Its beauty stopped her on the path. Something had changed. Something was different ever since she woke up that morning. Her eyes seemed to have adjusted now to the subtler colors of the Sonoran palette.

The desert was no longer an emptiness, an absence of water and dark northern greens, but an abundance: of sky, of silver and sage and sepia and indigo blue, of gold desert light, so pure, so clear she wanted to gather it up in her two cupped hands and drink it down. But is was the only thing that made sense of it all And that, Maggie thought, would be a loss. Type on a page. Runic shapes in black, black ink.

Words were chunks of turquoise in her hand; words were what protected her. Let me start out by saying that this book is very definitely set in the fantasy genre. This is not a genre that I read on a full-time basis. So I would like to apologize if I offend the purists out there. On a starry night in April, a famous author named Davis Cooper drowns He leaves the bulk of his money and property to poet Maggie Black with whom he's had a written correspondence, but never a face to face meeting.

Maggie comes to Arizona to write a biography of Davis Let me start out by saying that this book is very definitely set in the fantasy genre. Maggie comes to Arizona to write a biography of Davis. While doing her investigation she comes to meet all of his neighbors, both the human and non-human kind.

I really liked this book. The mystery was carefully woven through and there was lots of emotional stuff about Maggie learning to grow and love herself and those nice touchy-feely topics that girls enjoy. It was weird that the murder wasn't more prevalent. Everyone knew that Davis had been murdered, but it was unsolved and everyone was at peace with that.

There were no ominous shotguns with strangers telling Maggie to "keep outta this". But no one really tried to help her and she never thought about which of her neighbors could be the killer until way late in the book.

The one thing that I didn't really enjoy is that of the creatures. They were eventually identified as the spiritual mages. But there was a lot that was left blurry and weird phrases such as "I am that which cannot be identified. I would be terrible in the fantasy world because I would be wandering around going "Yes, but why?? So I think this is a gentle fantasy that isn't going to take people too far out of the comfort zone, but might be a good introduction to the fantasy genre.

She was full of sorrow and never ceased to think how hungry her father would be, and how her good mother would grieve, if she did not return home. At length, when it grew dark, she saw the light and came to the house in the wood. She begged quite prettily to be allowed to spend the night there.

And the man with the white beard once more asked his animals:. Then the girl went to the stove where the animals were lying, and petted the cock and hen, and stroked their smooth feathers with her hand, and caressed the brindled cow between her horns. Outside is food in plenty, I will look after them first. So she went and brought some barley and strewed it for the cock and hen, and a whole armful of sweet-smelling hay for the cow.

Then she fetched in a bucketful of water, and the cock and hen jumped on to the edge of it and dipped their beaks in. Then held up their heads as the birds do when they drink, and the brindled cow also took a hearty draught.

When the animals were fed, the girl seated herself at the table by the Old Man, and ate what he had left. It was not long before the cock and the hen began to thrust their heads beneath their wings, and the eyes of the cow likewise began to blink. Then the girl went up-stairs, shook the feather-beds, and laid clean sheets on them.

And when she had done it the Old Man came and lay down on one of the beds, and his white beard reached down to his feet.

The girl lay down on the other, said her prayers, and fell asleep. She slept quietly till midnight, and then there was such a noise in the house that she awoke. There was a sound of cracking and splitting in every corner. The doors sprang open, and beat against the walls. The beams groaned as if they were being torn out of their joints. It seemed as if the staircase were falling down. And at length there was a crash as if the entire roof had fallen in. As, however, all grew quiet once more, and the girl was not hurt, she stayed quietly lying where she was, and fell asleep again.

But when she woke up in the morning with the brilliancy of the sunshine, what did her eyes behold? She was lying in a vast hall, and everything around her shone with royal splendor.

On the walls, golden flowers grew up on a ground of green silk. The bed was of ivory, and the canopy of red velvet, and on a chair close by, was a pair of shoes embroidered with pearls. The girl believed that she was in a dream, but three richly clad attendants came in, and asked what orders she would like to give?

She thought the Old Man was up already, and looked round at his bed. He, however, was not lying in it, but a stranger. No one was allowed to be with me but my three attendants in the form of a cock, a hen, and a brindled cow.

The spell was not to be broken until a girl came to us, whose heart was so good that she showed herself full of love, not only toward mankind, but toward animals—and that you have done, and by you, at midnight, we were set free, and the old house in the wood was changed back again into my royal palace. I read it to my dog, he fell asleep before it was done.

I loved the ending! No one should eat before animals they are much easier on u if u feed them first lol. Reply Loved the story with moral Reply Loved the story. Got the kids to sleep. I am planning a discussion of the moral with the kids the next night.

Love the animal theme, got the babes to sleep Reply Nice story , got the kids to sleep with good content Reply Awesome. A very sweet and simple storey with a moral Reply Was a lovely story.

We enjoyed it. I loved the story. Reply Great story! Reply Worst book Reply did anyone ask? Amy enjoyed the story with moral Reply This was relaxing loved it! Reply It was a very nice which says is to be a good and kind person Reply There were three sisters. Amazed Reply Good night. The story unveiled a lovely message, a true lesson of morals for the young.

Unfortunately, my sweet darling child had already fallen sound asleep, peacefully and quietly the same way she did 24yrs ago. Loved it Reply nice Reply Very good story.. Great book, I was able to put my girl to sleep when she asked for a bedtime story. Reply Enjoyed the story.

Thank you. Reply it was veary sad. Disappointed at least. So important ugh loved this Reply Any story works for my daughter to fall asleep. So did this one.