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Geoff's Reviews > There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden
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There Is a Tree More Ancient Than Eden.
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Reading Progress
June 8, 2015
– Shelved
(Other Paperback Edition)
June 8, 2015
– Shelved as:
to-read
(Other Paperback Edition)
February 17, 2017
–
Started Reading
February 17, 2017
– Shelved
February 17, 2017
–
18.31%
"First chapter done aaaaaand a new Leon Forrest fan is born. Holy hell dude can write."
page
39
February 22, 2017
–
Finished Reading
Comments Showing 1-13 of 13 (13 new)
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Ronald
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rated it 5 stars
Feb 22, 2017 01:01PM
It's such a fucking great book.
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Ronald wrote: "It's such a fucking great book."Perfect really. Could not ask for anything more from prose.
Right now my Feed is 100% Forrest. Delightful!
I know - I love watching the stream of people adding such a great book to their TBR! Glad you enjoyed this Geoff - there is a whole lot more loveliness awaiting you in the rest of his work. Including the Big Beautiful Book that is Divine Days!
Some of my favorite sections of The Trilogy so far are just the list of characters at he front. There is so much scope and evocation in what is normally a utilitarian formality of complicated novels.
I can't imagine Divine Days holds the intensity of There Is A Tree... for its length - that would be overwhelming! (I've also seen from reviews that it is more "restrained"...) But Bloodworth, how does its style compare?
So my theory on him and these novels, and as I have tried to set out in my reviews of them, is that he takes styles of African American speech and music and slowly adds more in as he goes along. It is not that the style in Tree is dropped, just that other styles are added. Like, if this is a late Coltrane solo, then Bloodworth retains this (though less of it) and adds maybe Love Supreme era Coltrane, then Wings keeps both and brings in some Bird and then Divine Days brings in the blues (Leadbelly in particular), gospel music and all sorts of other fun and games...So Days is much less "intense", and one certainly could not sustain the intensity of Tree for that long, but through addition rather than any watering-down. But re the style of bloodworth - check out the quote at the start of my review for an idea.
Jonathan wrote: "So my theory on him and these novels, and as I have tried to set out in my reviews of them, is that he takes styles of African American speech and music and slowly adds more in as he goes along. It..."Just reread your review - outstanding! So stoked on Forrest. He's definitely one of those special finds - doing exactly what I want books to accomplish. Aye, moving onto Bloodworth soon...
As a Jazz fan you with thoroughly enjoy his essays too - cheap copies abound and I found them both fascinating in their own right and helpful in understanding what he was doing with divine days
Oh I have a hardcover of the essays, picked it up last year. Going to read everything the man wrote, no doubt.
