This week's bookcase includes reviews of The Trees by Ali Shaw, Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh and Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama.
The Trees
Ali Shaw
When a forest erupts through the ground overnight, the modern landscape that we recognise today is destroyed and mankind is thrown into complete and utter turmoil. Amongst the chaos, survivors Hannah and Adrien's paths cross, and they embark on the journey to Ireland to find Adrien's wife and discover just how far the forest reaches.
A gripping journey to the heart of wilderness, this book exquisitely captures the conflict between nature and man, but also between defeat and determination. The reader is plunged into a narrative simultaneously bewildering and yet somehow hauntingly familiar, forcing us to consider how the natural world has become an elusive stranger to us all.
The Trees is a stunning and vivid examination of the relationship between humans and the environment in which they live. Violent, beautiful, devastating and utterly enchanting, it's a complete triumph for Shaw, who masterfully brings every detail of the book to life. A wonderfully imaginative story, but also a compelling social commentary, The Trees is a rarity and an absolute must-read.
Eileen
Ottessa Moshfegh
This is Moshfegh's second novel and after her highly acclaimed debut, McGlue, this one certainly doesn't disappoint. This story is constantly surprising, occasionally hilarious, but undoubtedly dark. The titular character, Eileen describes one week in her life, aged 24, just before Christmas, 1964. A tightly wound and unstable woman, her narration is somewhat unreliable but all the more thrilling to read. She lives in a rundown house with her alcoholic father and spends her days working in a juvenile correctional facility for young boys. The novel describes one fateful day where Eileen leaves her town in the bitterly cold winter without warning and never returns. This novel is an impressive character study full of subtle nuances, shrouded in mystery. Eileen is hard to sympathise with but extremely intriguing. However, if you are looking for a strong storyline above all else, this probably isn't a read for you. Embrace its unsettling hedonism.
Six Four
Hideo Yokoyama
A former detective in a Japanese police force, facing problems both at home and at work, finds his obsession with an unsolved case leading him ever closer to a conspiracy. It's a hoary old premise, but given a fresh spin by Japanese crime writer Yokoyama, who peppers the narrative with intriguing and not altogether flattering insights into his country's culture and bureaucracy. Subtlety, on the other hand, is not one of the author's strengths, and dramatic tension is frequently undermined by pages of boring exposition and a tendency to hammer home every little plot point in a way that leaves nothing to the reader's imagination. Potboilers of this sort usually make up for such sloppiness with sensational content, and while Six Four does - eventually - deliver with the shocking twists, at more than 600 pages, it takes a frustratingly long time for them to arrive.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here