The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Carrie Ryan) Chapters 18-25

Sometimes speakers or writers have pet phrases which they regularly overuse, apparently with no realization of it.  One that was pointed out to me recently that a relative says is, “Look at it this way…”  Another was a professor who uses the word “Actually” to begin a high percentage of his sentences in lectures.  “Like” and “Totally” are two words we find sprinkled liberally throughout the speech of some young people, as they chew their gum.  On the other hand [there’s another one!] when we notice an author doing this, it becomes a real distraction.  Carrie Ryan probably doesn’t realize – and we might presume that her editor apparently doesn’t either – that she overuses, “cannot help but,” as in “cannot help but think” or “cannot help but wonder” on a pretty regular basis.  Don’t look at me, I’m not going to tell her, either!

When the action keeps up a good pace, this story is as riveting as it needs to be.  But when the action lulls and Mary gets contemplative the story begins to get tedious.  Is it compelling to a 14-year-old girl?  That seems to be the intended audience here much of the time.  There are some embarrassingly awkward sentences sprinkled here and there.  ‘Her long black hair framing skin that was both pale and dark, like the moon as it hangs just over the horizon.’  Skin that is both pale and dark?  You know, like the moon.  ‘I don’t realize until after the word is out of my mouth: betrothed.  It’s as if the individual letters hang in the air like fat rising in water.’  Okay, Carrie, next action scene please.

Except that is it pages and pages of “thoughtful” prose before the Unconsecrated finally break through the front door that had survived the original attack that brought about the downfall of this village.  In any sci-fi/fantasy/dystopia type story, we assume we will be suspending our disbelief a little or a lot to accommodate artistic license.  But we still expect a certain degree of internal consistency.  We want a little assurance that there is a logical reason, for instance, for a corridor of chain-link fences that has been constructed spanning miles and miles from one village to another.

Presumably, the mystery that is the fenced corridors will be explained eventually, even if not to our complete satisfaction.  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen here.  There are so many such oddities that go without explanation in this story that I think we’re just going to have to let most of them go.  In a story like Alice in Wonderland, that might work.  But this story pretends to present more Realism than Alice, so we expect a little more.

The wheels really come off the cart at the end of Chapter XXIV, when Mary realizes she can wrap a note around an arrow and send it across the street to where Harry and the others are living in the treehouse section of the village.  She fills many sheets of paper with ‘…everything I wish I had ever said to Harry…’ and wraps these pages around arrows.  As she fires them across the way, only the last one gets to the intended target.  The rest of them miss their mark: ‘Again and again I embed my story into the skulls of the Unconsecrated that surround us.’  Apparently it doesn’t occur to our author how unlikely it is that all of the arrows hit a zombie in the skull, not a shoulder, torso, leg or simply the ground.  Apparently a little realism wasn’t the important thing here.  This is not “artistic license.”  This is sloppy thinking and poor story-telling.  Harry gets the last message.  (Fortunately it did not embed itself in his skull.)  ‘He leans over and plucks the paper from the shaft, leaving the arrow where it lies.  He unfurls the letter and reads it.  I tell him we are well and ask him if they are doing okay.  And then I ask him if they have pondered escape.  I wait for his answer.’  If this kind of story construction is one of the results of a generation raised on texting shallow messages to one another, we are in greater trouble than we imagined!

 

 

 Next Week: Chapters 26-36 (Conclusion)

December’s book of the month:

“The Cat Who Came for Christmas,” by Cleveland Amory!

This one is for those who have commented on how “dark” the recent selections have been!

From Publishers Weekly:
It is fitting that the founder and head of the Fund for Animals personally rescues and takes in strays, and one incident proved to have a profound effect on him. On a snowy Christmas Eve, Amory helped capture a scrawny cat and took it to his apartment. How does a new cat-keeper train a creature accustomed to fending for itself in Manhattan's alleys? Slowly, with patience and respect. Interspersed with tales of Polar Bear are many digressions involving the author's work with animal-rescue and animal-rights organizations. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:
Apparently aimed at the holiday gift trade, this is the pleasant, rambling story of a white cat rescued by Amory one Christmas Eve. Struggling to understand his feline friend, he becomes devoted to a degree that not everyone will understand. An animal rights activist, Amory shares his feelings about veterinarians, airlines, hotels, human and animal natures, and the complexities of modern life. Although amusing anecdotes abound, there is little action. Amory's intelligent, educated musings explain life as he and his cat experience it. He also includes interesting trivia on ancient feline history and celebrities who loved or hated cats. Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Week 1:  Chapters 1-3 

(First post, 12-5-14)

Week 2:  Chapters 4-6
Week 3:  Chapters 7-8
Week 4:  Chapters 9-10