Book Review: “The Wood Beyond the World”, by Willliam MorrisBallantine, 1974ISBN 345-23730-7-125Paperback, $12.99237 pagesReviewed by D. L. ParkerOne of my recent non-New Year resolutions is to go back and revisit, or read for the first time, all the ground-breaking early originals in fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Now, I’m not good at keeping resolutions, especially if they involve dieting, crushing impure thoughts or keeping my temper when some little zipper snitches my parking space, but this resolution involves books, so I think I have a good chance. Accordingly, when I attended SPOCON, I picked up a few hoary paperbacks from one of the booksellers. The Wood Beyond the World had such a colorful fairy tale color. I wanted an early version of The Moon Pool too, which had an equally lovely cover, but the bookseller knew to the penny how much that original paperback was worth. I was forced to settle for a much later edition featuring a naked lady (humongous rear view) in front of, naturally, a pool. In the old days, I see I could have gone without my occasional dieting resolutions.My goal in re-reading these old gems is, first, to ingest the ones I’ve managed to miss in my omnivorous reading career, and second, to see whether the book still has something to offer modern readers. We all know how cool The Last Days of Pompeii sounded in the days when Jolly good old boy, watch out for that lava rock! wasn’t a comical line to Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s readers. Some books ought to be given their line in the history books, as pertaining to their time, and left to mould there ever after.The good news is that The Wood Beyond the World is still readable. The language is an archaic fairy-tale thee and thou, and suffers a lack of paragraph breaks to modern readers. The Wood Beyond the World was written in 1895, so Morris’ language wasn’t naturalistic to his contemporary readers, either. But after a while I settled down to it, and the language suits the fairy tale themes perfectly. At least Morris─yes, he is that Morris, the multi-talented 19th century designer and artist─does not belong to the wearisome yea, verily! school of King James Bible imitators (like Tolkien at his very, very worst). And we’re all familiar with fairy tales. In this one, a young man of a good house makes a bad marriage. We’re never told why his new wife loathes this handsome, charming, well-to-do fellow (typical: he’s oblivious to his faults). But happily ever after they’re not, and being a noble fellow, young Walter mopes and pines for a change rather than setting her out on the street, divorcing her, or busting her chops. Rich Daddy owns a merchant fleet, and Walter determines to sail away from his misery on one instead. But strangely he sees repeated visions of a beautiful woman, her sweet-faced maid, and a hideous dwarf servant. The three apparitions vanish almost as soon as glimpsed. Walter takes sail, and a dreadful storm blows his merchant’s ship to an unknown shore. There a hermit with a guilty conscience and evasive answers points out a mysterious pass through the mountains. Walter, afire with his visions, can’t resist. His adventure takes him into a strange wood where he first finds the sweet and lovely maid. She is under a mysterious enthrallment, of course, by her jealous mistress. Her beauteous mistress already has a princely boy-toy in attendance, but when Walter appears, she casts her eye on him (and pretty soon, her clothes get cast aside, too). Things get complicated, for though Walter has (in the best tradition of courtly love) pledged his troth to the sweet maid, he’s got an eye for her mistress, too. The boy-toy Prince is suffering the same urge to try greener grasses. All the while, around go the ugly dwarves, yelling mysterious warnings and threats against maid and suitor both.Both the mistress and her maid are enchanters, and I was sure this book was going to turn into some kind of Triple Goddess deal (maybe missing the crone), where the maid was actually the mistress, and the mistress the maid, somehow. The roaring dwarfs I assumed to be Circe-like victims and former boy-toys in real bad humors. But no: all the elements are there, dragging the reader on in real fascination, and then it’s as if Morris lost his nerve. He tacks on a familiar fairy-tale happy-ever-after ending, and leaves me scratching my head on what the relationship between maid and mistress ever really was. And how about the bad wife left behind? Walter takes up with his sweet maid, and Morris forgets about the bigamy problem. Guess divorce was a problem in those days.The last book I reviewed (Consider Phlebus) had a sudden bad end, and this one had a sudden good end. They should have swapped. I had fantasies of re-writing this fairy tale with the story I was sure Morris really had in mind. You might find it a fun exercise, too. Have fun! And you can find the entire text free on Project Gutenberg. Even better.
For Morris (who was not only a writer, but an artist, scholar, and handicraft enthusiast as well), medieval Europe was a still --relevant social and economic model for the regeneration of modern society. It also profoundly influenced his creativity. His fantasies, which are (along with those of Lord Dunsany and George MacDonald) among the most influential works in the genre before Tolkien, are set in a medieval environment that serves as an invented fantasy world. They're also written in a deliberately archaic, medieval-sounding style similar to that of his translations of the Icelandic sagas into English (which won't be to all readers' taste).His plot here has a strong erotic undercurrent (and "erotic" is not a synonym for "dirty") and often considerable sexual tension, and it obliquely raises the issue, usually taboo in Victorian literature, of divorce and remarriage. But he treats this with 19th-century delicacy, and within the framework of an essentially chaste moral vision, so it does not come across as at all offensive. The story itself is an exciting, involving and appealing one, drawing elements from his study of medieval folklore and bringing them to life in imaginative ways. A masterful work, from a master of the genre!
Do You like book The Wood Beyond The World (2001)?
This was only okay in part because after reading the Well At The World's End I had extraordinarily high expectations. This book has lovely, lyrical prose but the story seemed confused and I object to two big things. Thing 1: the female characters had no names, only archetype appellations like The Lady and the Maid. Thing 2: the female characters did all the big work of the story and plot while the protagonist, Walter, seemingly gets all the benefit and never bothers to learn anyone's name. Grrrr…. I object.
—Ellen
I've been meaning to read some pre-Tolkienian fantasy for a while. More precisely, this is proto-Tolkienian, since Tolkien read and liked Morris's books. The setting has vague geography but is meant part of medieval Europe; the characters are explicitly Christian, for instance. The hero, Walter, sets out into foreign lands, chases after some uncanny visions, and things happen to him. Most of the book is driven by thoroughly Victorian gender dynamics, this even though Walter does almost nothing but follow other people's instructions, usually women's. Very archaic language, on a par with The Silmarillion or even heavier.
—Silvio Curtis
The fantastic romances of William Morris are among the most important early works in the evolution of the fantasy genre, and The Wood Beyond the World is one of his canonical tales. The book is short, barely 100 pages, and even then, this is not a book full of action and excitement. No, this is a book with a dream-like quality, as Golden Walter leaves his native city and strikes off into the enchanted land hidden behind the sheer cliffs and mountains of the coast. He falls into an almost gentle intrigue with the Lady, magical ruler of the land, and the Maiden, her servant but winner of Walter's heart. Although I appreciated the languid pace and the setting evocative of Medieval tales, The Wood Beyond the World became tedious reading after awhile. It is also difficult not to read autobiographical elements into this story, especially Walter's betrayal by the wife he loves, when you are aware of Jane Morris's affairs with Dante Rosetti, among others. In that light, The Wood Beyond the World becomes a moving reverie of a heartbroken man finding the gentle, faithful love he longs for.
—Johnny Waco
