The Story of the Forest: Shortlisted for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction 2023

Product Information

You see we have so little of the past except of course memories and fairy stories because we came from a regime where you couldn't trust what was inside your own head, your soul had been taken into public ownership, you doubted your own recollection, that was just the way it was, you accepted it, what could you do? So we had a coffee pot and we had a story and the story was ours. It didn't belong to the People, but to us. Was it true? At the time it didn't matter. Grant’s vivid portrayal of the journey of a Jewish family over the course of the 20th century is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the enduring power of family ties. Linda Grant Review Most pressingly, it acts as an impetus for her older and seemingly wiser brother Jossel to propose the family emigrate to the US. As it turns out, only Jossel and Mina set out on the journey, leaving their siblings and parents to uncertain fates. They find themselves stranded, initially temporarily, in Liverpool by the outbreak of war, but as a Jewish community of similarly placed immigrants begins to form in the suburbs, they ultimately decide to remain in the UK.

One of the things I enjoyed most about The Story of the Forest was the way in which the narrative-style changes as the family itself develops. Beginning as a fairy story, complete with a sense of child-like wonder and dream-like unreality, the narrative style gradually shifts to reflect the changes in the family and their circumstances. By the end of the book, I was no longer reading a traditional fairy story but a contemporary novel with metafictional elements. That might sound like a slightly pretentious literary device but Linda Grant handles these shifts in tone and style so deftly that they never interfere in the central narrative. You notice that the book has changed but, as if by magic, feel that it’s just because the characters have changed. In the case of The Story of the Forest, we are constantly reminded about Mina’s brush with the Bolsheviks. This is all very well and good but it becomes less interesting the more we hear it. Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads' database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Last on

At the heart of the novel is Mina, a young woman who dreams of a different life than the one her parents have planned for her. Through her experiences, we see the ways in which the immigrant narrative is carefully crafted and remade over time, as individuals and communities adapt to new circumstances and changing cultural norms. It is an encounter which Mina (who has an lifelong sympathy towards Communist Russia rather at odds with the bourgeois suburban life into which she settles) clings to as foundational to her identity – a story she tells time and time again but which for later family generations takes on more the trappings of a legend or fable. Much later it is even made into a commercial film with a more fantastical element to it. Jonathan Freedland exploring Jewish identity in fiction from Amos Oz, Ayelet Gundar-Goshen & Jonathan Safran Foer Linda Grant (1951- ; active 1993-) was born in Liverpool, England. Both her Liverpool roots and her Jewish heritage (she is the child of a Polish-Jewish father and Russian-Jewish mother) are reflected in her fiction. She studied English at the University of York, before completing postgraduate work in Canada.

Hexham Book Group's meets on the second Tuesday of the month at 7.30pm in Scott's Café at the Forum Cinema, Hexham. Family stories can be heartwarming and sweet. However, usually this is because they’re part of your history and they fondly remind you of your ancestors. Someone else’s story isn’t always as interesting. I'm just suggesting what Mummy always said, that you tell the authorities what they want to hear, Paula says. 'It's only common sense, self-preservation. They were immigrants, no one knew them, they could say what they liked. When you're uprooted like they were, you can be anything you want. Who's going to say otherwise? Howard Jacobson delivering a lecture on Why We Need The Novel and talking to Philip Dodd about his dystopian novel JI thought I would be dnf-ing this as I trudged through the first few chapters. I didn’t find young Mina and Jossel compelling or likeable and thought the writing style, further faulted by some abounding typos, was stilted and arching for a resonance and depth of meaning it failed to achieve. However I found that some of the fault laid in my own expectations, as I went into the book thinking it would be mystical, poetic and bucolic and it delivered a very small amount of that. So begins a journey that sees Mina and her older brother Jossel leaving their family for the New World. They make it as far as Liverpool before an unexpected marriage, the outbreak of World War I, and a second marriage proposal get in the way of their American Dream, and the book then follows them and their descendants as they navigate life in twentieth-century Britain. I enjoyed this book immensely. The beginning is immediately gripping: shades of Little Red Riding Hood as Mina goes into the forest to collect mushrooms. She meets a group of young Bolshevik men and, while we can breathe a sigh of relief as she comes to no obvious harm, it's a life-changing - even life-saving - experience. So why didn't I give it five stars? Well, all the female characters are strong, admirable women but I somehow yearned for a male character I could really like. Too many nebbishes... There were no magical elements, there was instead a spoilt girl and a pompous brother, a group of boys who believed in ideas that were going to crush them.