| Title | : | The Witch of Hebron (World Made by Hand, #2) |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0802119611 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780802119612 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 336 |
| Publication | : | First published August 1, 2010 |
In the tiny hamlet of Union Grove, New York, travel is horse-drawn and farming is back at the center of life. But it’s no pastoral haven. Wars are fought over dwindling resources and illness is a constant presence. Bandits roam the countryside, preying on the weak. And a sinister cult threatens to shatter Union Grove’s fragile stability.
In a book that is both shocking yet eerily convincing, Kunstler seamlessly weaves hot-button issues such as the decline of oil and the perils of climate change into a compelling narrative of violence, religious hysteria, innocence lost, and love found.
The Witch of Hebron (World Made by Hand, #2) Reviews
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(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted illegally.)
I'm not sure why exactly I decided to read James Howard Kunstler's newest post-apocalyptic "doom-n-gloomer" novel The Witch of Hebron; after all, I found the first book in this series, 2008's World Made by Hand, rather ridiculously silly, taking what's actually a fairly fascinating true subject (the fact that sometime soon, the human race is simply going to run out of fossil fuels) but then constructing a laughable if not perversely charming melodrama around it, envisioning a neo-Luddite utopia in upper New York where for some reason all these former commuting white-collar workers now not only live like the Amish but even dress and talk like them too. And indeed, if you find the details of that first novel teeth-gnashingly bad, then get prepared for a major dentist visit with this new one, which essentially picks up exactly where the first novel left off, taking the former's absolutely most annoying details and making them the main thrust of this second book: the cornpone "Little House on the Prairie" dialogue, the self-righteous indignation (sometimes right in the narration itself) regarding 20th-century lifestyles, the idea that women in a post-Industrial world will voluntarily go back to being the demure, powerless baby factories that God Meant Them To Be. (Plus, I have to admit, I have a lot of respect now for the Atlantic Monthly Press marketing staff, who managed to keep a straight face while selling this to the public as a prescient extrapolation of the theories in Kunstler's nonfiction book on the same subject, The Long Emergency, when in fact one of the major concepts in both these novels [with this newest one even named after it] is that a post-oil world would bring a return of people with literal magical powers, actual witches and actual oracles and others from the "days of fairytales" that the invention of electronics in the 20th century wiped out, which pretty much once and for all finally puts the kibosh on that "Kunstler is a genius and we should all pay attention to what he says" argument from your crazy survivalist friends.)
In fact, this book contains so many scenes of quiet women with child-bearing hips voluntarily dropping to their knees and servicing the men around them, no matter if they're the story's villains or heroes (and seriously, I'm not exaggerating when I say that this occurs at least once with nearly every female character in the entire novel), I started wondering after awhile if we haven't in fact all been interpreting these novels completely wrong, and that what Kunstler is really doing with these books is creating an astounding modern remake of John Norman's so-bad-it's-brilliant "Chronicles of GOR," a series of fantasy novels from the '70s and '80s that purportedly detail life among a non-human race of full-time Conan-like muscular warriors, but in reality are all about the gender-role-based, elaborately ritualistic dominant/submissive erotic rites that define the relationship between men and women in their culture. After all, Norman didn't mean at first for the GOR books to be erotica either, but rather a countercultural-era Lord of the Rings ripoff, until both the author and his readers started responding more and more to the sexual details he kept slowly adding a little more to each volume, until by book 5 or so everyone looked up and realized that the GOR books had become out-and-out smut; and I have to confess, I'm highly tickled by the idea of Kunstler's post-oil books succumbing to the same fate, until half a dozen books in they're suddenly completely about hot submissive Amish sex and kinky hive-mind witch orgies. Now that would be a series worth reading, versus the harmless yet nonetheless infuriating drivel that constitutes these first two books.
Out of 10: 4.7 -
If I were to call this book comical, it would mean that the author had intended it to be as such. So I can't do that. Because I'm certain that it wasn't intentionally comical. I laughed out loud for the absurdity of some of it. I couldn't help myself. The fact that the writer is taking this seriously made it all the more hilarious.
A melodramatic post-apocalyptic tale (a genre which I think I may steer clear of for a time, seeing as how it is all anyone can form a story around) that comes off unintentionally silly, often campy, and stale. With the premise- the world running out of the fossil fuels we so desperately need to continue our current standard of living- it would seem that you could create soemthing epic and brilliant. Something that has a deep and thoughtful meaning behind it as well as an entertaining story. The fact that this is an actual possibility in the near future, lends the only sense of urgency this book generates.
The prose is brittle to the touch but instead that being a beautiful quality, it instead makes it feel old and stymied. If that weren't enought to make you steer clear of the book altogether, the characters are flat and boring imitations of characters you've seen before in every other Stephen King book. There is something human about them, but not enough. You don't give two shits about what happens to them or where they're going. It's like watching mold grow.
The mouldering characters, the stale writing, the brittle sentence structure and the unnecessary landscape-styled descriptions make this book an enormous bore. -
I won this through First Reads.
I was a little worried when I got this that I might not be able to follow it because I hadn't read
World Made by Hand. Fortunately, this is one of those sequels that completely stands alone. It's a cozy post-apocalyptic story in which a boy runs away, gets tied up with a crazy bandit named Billy Bones, several people meet a mysterious woman, and a band of Jesus freaks really are freaks. It had a very old-fashioned feel to it, kind of like
Alas, Babylon or
Earth Abides. However, it also was clearly a book for our time. The apocalypse was a slow one. It's the kind that seems to be trending right now. The world goes backwards as the oil supply gets cut off, electricity is no longer being generated, and disease has taken a chunk of the population. However, the fall of American civilization is just something that's happened and people go on as best they can. Just as in any period in history, there are some real creeps out there, but most of the people are good. I really enjoyed this book and have downloaded the audiobook of
World Made by Hand because I want more. -
While the characters and plot had promise, the effect of the novel felt very hollow to me. I can only point to the prose itself, where phrases were coined from cerebral rather than visual or emotional words. Some moments were evident where the writer tried to be writer-ly, which threw a wet blanket on the whole scene and depressed the mood going forward.
Although visual descriptions were offered, none burned in my mind like other works I've read, yet many should have. While the characters moved and spoke and acted, none evoked that distinct perfume that distinguishes one from the others. Frankly, the plot surprises were but jolts, like hitting small pot holes in the road; none fascinated nor intrigued me. The novel has paranormal elements, which themselves should be interesting, but strangely, never fulfilled the promise.
In a world where so much was lost, and the reader was constantly reminded of the ways things had been, the sense was not deep nor tragic, and often faded to a drab background. I was unconvinced of the author's vision of that world, and of the characters moving through it. That said, the handling of story and descriptive texts were competent, so my rating is 3.5, but not enough magic transpired to move it to 4 stars. -
Kunstler makes the post-oil life in a small upstate NY town sound a little too good to be true. Sure, half of the US population is dead, there's no electricity and people don't stray too far from home because of packs of roving bandits...but there's still fresh garden produce, local cheese, homemade wine and friendly neighbors. I am not sure of the author's message. We (well, half of us) will pull through the collapse of the world as we know it and establish a much simpler, but maybe richer, life? You better make sure that you live in a small town if you want to come out on the other side of Armageddon? Start stockpiling guns, seeds and clothes now so that you have something to protect yourself with and plenty to barter?
Sarcasm aside, I actually enjoyed this book - it's a sequel to "World Made By Hand" - despite the somewhat romanticized view of the future. There are some dark scenes that seem more believable and it's always interesting to think about the what ifs... -
This was not at all what I expected. I did not expect this to be a loosely veiled fantasy of child pornography, fetishism, and sex. There are multiple episodes of the 11 year-old main character watching grown men masturbating, watching people engaged is sex, and a "touching" scene of the 11 year-old and a 13 year-old prostitute having sex. Oh, and the adults engaged in the sex trafficking of boys as young as six.
The premises of the book is fantastic with the post apocalyptic societal regression but was overtaken by a disturbing sexual focus that quickly became the plot. The author's view of women was barbaric and one dimensional.
I would never recommend this book to anyone I know. I wonder if the authorities shouldn't keep a close eye on the author and his obsession with child pornography. -
I enjoyed 'World Made By Hand,' but the minor issues I had with that book became exasperated in this follow-up. So much so that I could not make it more than a couple of chapters. The mere explanation of the past book was poorly executed, let alone the rest. I would not like to be a female in the world Kunstler envisions.
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Butter
This book has been sitting on my to-read pile for years. I picked it up the last time I travelled "home", which is a town mentioned a few times in this series by its actual name. Because it is set in a place where I grew up, a place where I might not return, but definitely helped shape (or warp) me into the person I am today made me read this differently than someone who is not from the area. I also picked it, the previous book in this series, and one of Kunstler's non-fiction books up at the same time on a day trip from my hometown to "Union Grove" (a town that ridiculously goes by a pseudonym even though no other major settlements in either of these first two books do). I started World Made by Hand and quickly stuck all three books in the to-read someday in the distant future pile until early this winter.
They are bad books. This one is worse than the first. What follows may be minor spoilers, but I will try to avoid any major ones.
First of all, this is a silly series. If you are being generous, you can classify it as magical realism that failed because the author wasn't willing to do the work to sell the absurdities to his readers and not destroy their suspension of disbelief. If you're not so generous, you may say that the series deals with a writer who is ignorant how things like the grid work or that crafting characters that are under 50 today with the mindsets of Boomers and sticking them into a setting that may have worked better as a western novel set in the early days of westward expansion might come off as arrogant and out of touch. Unfortunately, a western wouldn't allow Kunstler to market his political ideologies to a public that has a heightened appetite for dystopias.
In The Witch of Hebron , the grid has finally given up the ghost and collapsed. Oh, sorry. I mean, people no longer get sporadic bursts of electricity that somehow endured in the previous book despite the cratered roads, and rotten houses. Because somehow everything else has been scrapped for other uses in the county, but scavengers have left the electric lines and poles be. So no longer do people in Washington County receive sporadic bursts of religious radio broadcasts (because the world as we know it is over and it's dog eat dog, but some people have nothing better to do than to sit at a broadcast studio preaching God on the off chance the grid will self-heal and send their rants mid-sermon over the air a couple times a month).
Washington County is even more isolated than the events of the first book which occurred a few months prior. The disappearance of a boy makes it so the men of Union Grove have to put down their buttered cornbread, push themselves away from the tables set with hearty casseroles of meats, greens, grains and fat crafted by (mostly) voiceless women. These women also somehow craft old timey 19th century dresses despite not having access to textiles. So the core leadership of Union Grove goes on a search for the boy. They enlist the help of the weird (magical!) cult that now lives in the former high school, and what follows is a a tale of a bunch of dudes I fail to have much sympathy for bumbling about the Washington County hills looking for the runaway. As they travel back and forth across the (not so small) county and neighbouring city, a bunch of coincidences help to locomote the narrative to its conclusion. Coincidence is a common device in fiction, often forgiven by the reader, and sometimes cleverly and artfully done, but in this case it's neither clever or easily forgiven, yet it is commonly used in The Witch of Hebron.
Women in this book and the previous book have largely given up much agency because the author believes that the idea of gender equality is a delusion of modernity. You only hear from a woman when it is time for a male character to be passively or magically saved, satiated by a meal or sex, or play the hero when she falls into direct physical danger. The author hasn't a clue about female sexuality. He created a character in the previous book who is cuckolded instead of using something other than intercourse to satisfy his wife. This highlights how really out of touch Kunstler is with how someone born after the sexual revolution would likely handle untreatable impotence. The women are weird, barely fleshed out archetypes, as it naturally should be in all good fiction, at least in the eyes of a member of the brittle and dying patriarchy.
And then there's the title character of this instalment. She's the Magical Female who will swoop in and fix the men and remedy the author's poor plot. As you're reading this book, you realise that at times the pacing and the story arcs demand someone like the title character because the author lacks the skills to bring it together with anything approaching satisfaction for the reader. In many 20th century works of fiction, we were often given the tropes of Magical Negro, Magical Asian, or Magical Native, but those wouldn't work here. That's because race is barely mentioned in either of the first two books. While, Warren and Washington counties are predominately white, there are plenty of people of colour in and around the two counties. Kunstler just wants us to believe we will all sort of gravitate back to racial groupings leaving white folks in that section of New York, which I suppose the author sees as human nature.
And it's not like he really captured the character of the people of the area either. Instead, most of the featured characters are transplants to the area having moved to the area pre-collapse. As far as I can see, the locals populate the bit roles of idiot, magical hermit idiot, bad guy, head bad guy, inept former leaders of the town, etc. The whole thing is jarring and hacky. I spent the entire two books trying not to constantly think, "Wait, what?" I am at a loss to why he's not slated more.
The thing is, I was sold on this writer because he is often viewed as a leftist. He's not. I think the World Made by Hand he is warning about is something he would love to see come to pass. I have a sneaking suspicion that many of the positive reviews wouldn't exist if this was not a dystopian novel, and while it might stand out as a better than average example of that genre, when you step back and evaluate this as a work of general fiction, it really stinks. -
The Witch of Hebron is the sequel to James Howard Kunstler's first novel A World Made By Hand and like the first it is filled with stories that concern the residents of an Upstate NY town in a postapocalyptic world.
The people in these books have had to suffer through a Middle Eastern war that resulted in Washington, DC being nuked and all foreign oil ceasing to flow to the US. A decade or two after this life has gone back to a late 19th century feel where people travel by horse, the doctor grows opium for surgical use, and most people never venture beyond their home county.
This book begins with the death of a boy's dog. The boy is Jasper, the 11-year old son of the town doctor and his beloved dog was kicked by a spooked horse. The horse is a prize stallion belonging to Brother Jobe, the leader of the mysterious New Faith sect that has recently arrived in town and purchased the old high school as a base of operations. Other principal characters are the road bandit Billy Bones who will sing you his song before he robs you, the town's congregationalist minister who is having a crisis of faith and masculinity, Jasper's father, Brother Jobe who is said to have mysterious powers, and the Witch of Hebron herself.
This book was a pleasure to read. It is a kind of "gentle apocalypse" where the lives of the characters becomes intensely local. This is the type of book that would be written if Wendell Berry decided to pen postapocalyptic fiction. The narrative and the plot flow much better here than in Kunstler's first novel. -
I enjoyed this second book of the World Made By Hand series and would give it a 3.5 star rating - perhaps as I already had some familiarity with the setting and the characters. The author paints, in my opinion, a rose-coloured view of this new post-oil, post pandemic America, however, I still found it engaging and informative. The characters of Union Grove are well developed and well rounded. I also found the sub-cultures in this new society quite interesting: the religious order, the "regular" town folk, the "plantation" colony with it's lord-and-master and well cared for "serfs" and the outsiders. I enjoyed the narrative of how these groups interact with one another and how each is adjusting and adapting to a "simpler"life. In addition, there is the mystic aspect which is examined in more detail in this book - the religious leader and the "queen bee", the hermit, the "witch" that the title of the book refers to. Looking forward to the next in the series.
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Kuntstler continues his story of the people of Union Grove, New York, in a world without oil, electricity, and technology. The second volume takes a turn toward the supernatural with more glimpses into the powers of Brother Jobe and a new character, the Witch of Hebron. Kuntsler adds to his circle of characters with a singing bandit, Billy Bones who composes a ballad about his exploits, victim by victim-a chilling portrait of an anti-social personality. Kuntsler delivers a story of despair and hope in a world that remains made by hand.
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I loved this even more than World Made by Hand. There is a very compelling plot, complex and believable characters, and a hopeful outlook. It is a different coming of age story about a boy from Union Grove and his encounters with the bandit Billy Bones. But, typical of many books written in this decade, there is clairvoyance and people who can "see" into you and the future. Again, this story seems a more possible prediction of the world after the bomb and its following epidemics.
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The Witch of Hebron is at the same level of the previous book
World Made by Hand . This time instead of following only the perspective of one character (Robert), we'll be following a cast of many different characters, some were introduced on book 1, but there are other new characters too. I can't say I had a favorite character but I didn't dislike any of them either, simple but interesting situations happening to them, very small chapters, there are never dull moments, an easy read. There may be some sensitive subjects mentioned on this book, but as disturbing they may be, they can also be considered plausible in a PA scenario (and this is fiction after all). Will check out the following books of this series. -
An excellent installment of this series which widened the world we explored in the first book.
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This book is an extremely fast-paced, plot-driven sequel to Kunstler's "World Made by Hand" that offers more insight into what the author thinks (or hopes) will happen after the collapse of industrial civilization in America. I attended a book signing by the author for this book, where he proclaimed that the story was about the "re-enchantment" of the world after the humm and distraction of modern technology vanishes. The re-enchantment takes on a religious tone, as an intentional community of young Christian believers settles into Union Grove, working industriously to set up an economy of craft and agriculture there. The leader of the clan, a man named Brother Jobe, is a dichotomy of good and evil. One moment he's quoting scripture or offering haven to a woman in despair, the next minute he's resentful and wishing her dead. Brother Jobe reflects the true nature of Nature and Man in this way: holding all possibilities at once, neither all good nor all evil, neither consistently dangerous or benign.
The characters in the book in fact all display the capability of both good and evil deeds: the child that performs a vengeful and destructive act later redeems himself by saving a life. The bandit who seems to rescue the protagonist from an injustice later murders in cold blood. The wife who has been unfaithful for years becomes the repentant and loved wife. Nature, too, holds both a place of benevolence and violence, of mystery and monotony. The re-enchantment of the world means that anything can happen, that tragedy can become salvation and salvation can bring death.
There are a few things that disturbed me about Kunstler's vision of post-collapse America. As Carolyn Baker wrote in her review, he seems to think that women will revert back to 18th century roles in the future. Every female character in the book is very one-dimensional: a wife who cooks and cleans, a goddess, a witch, a nun, a prostitute. The most interesting female character (the witch of Hebron) has nothing interesting to say. Her short responses and comments seem almost naive and childish. The way the author describes her garments and hair is more memorable than what he has her say. Either this is Kunstler's subconscious projection about women, or he just doesn't know women. Women in this book don't make decisions for others, don't have creative ideas, don't tell men what to do. They are simply there to serve the male protagonists in a culinary, medical or sexual capacity.
The other disturbing thing was Kunstler's sexualization of children. This, in fact, disturbed me more than the sexism. He writes about 12-year olds having sexual contact with each other as if it's a good, wholesome thing. He interjects pedophilia here and there, some of it shocking and horrible and some of it almost casual. Does Kunstler have children? I don't think so. Not only does he not understand women, he doesn't seem to understand children or what they're like at age 12, either. (I do.)
Overall, I enjoyed World Made by Hand much more than the Witch of Hebron. It was a richer, better crafted novel with more developed characters. There are times in Witch that Kunstler seems impatient, almost bored with his own writing, because the chapters are so short and punchy the story gets hurled along sometimes on just dialogue. Is this a literary vehicle, a technique done on purpose for a reason? Is he trying to say that things are getting simpler, and simpler, and simpler? I don't know. Maybe. All I know is that I NOTICED it, and as any good reader worth her salt would say, if you notice the technique, it ain't all that good. -
A very satisfying book. I think I liked it better than the first book: A World Made By Hand.
The action in the second book takes place a few months after the first, at the end of October, some year in the future after the collapse of industrial civilization at the end of the oil age. The little corner of Washington County in up-state New York looks more like the 19th century than the 21st. The small town of Union Grove is surrounded by small farms and the old High School building is occupied by a new Christian sect from Virginia called the New Faith.
Like the first book, Kunstler shows what the world might look like, and how people might respond to a world without government, law and order, electricity, jobs and so much more which we take for granted and don't even think about. But the second book takes the tale a little bit further beyond Union Grove and weaves together a few random strands of various characters' lives into an engaging story.
The main strand is that of 11-year-old Jasper Copeland, the doctor's son, who runs away from home. He meets up with a comical yet ruthless bandit called Billy Bones and reluctantly becomes his protege. The men of Union Grove, while searching for the runaway, come upon a well-kept household in the countryside, occupied by a woman who seems to have some other-worldly powers. Also roaming the land is a sad hermit, once a butcher at a supermarket in the old-days, and now a hunter and trapper who is on his last hunt, determined to kill one of the catamounts which freely roam the backwoods.
The men searching for the boy return empty-handed and enlist the help of Brother Jobe, the leader of the New Faithers. He and two of his followers (who were soldiers in a war in the Holy Land in the dying days of civilization) agree to search for the boy. To say much more would be too revealing...
With the setting of the action at the end of October, with Halloween coming on, Kunstler brings in the themes of life and death, good vs. evil, and the idea that the division between these supposedly separate worlds is quite tenuous. In a world with no government, no law and order, the characters find they have to make their own justice, in the moment, with their own hands. And in doing so they find the difference between good and evil to be flimsy indeed. -
I just couldn't get into the post-apocalyptic setting. I am not sure what all the fuss is about with this one, but I didn't read the first one yet, so maybe I started in the wrong place. I found a lot of it just too disturbing, particularly the scenes with the 11 year old Jasper. Seems like a lot of bad comes to everyone in the book, and it ends too neatly. I also think that sex feels awkwardly placed and overly so.
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I did like this book better than World Made by Hand as far as the actual story. The plot was more cohesive and the story arc felt more complete. It was a good story, whereas the other book was an exercise in world building and author surrogate characters.
But, James Howard Kunstler, you need to go talk to some women. Based on the way you write and treat them in these books, I am not convinced you have ever actually met a woman. There was no reason to include so much sexual violence in this book. Three rapes, one attempted rape, and the murder of a transwoman? Really? And if you really felt that you needed to include all that, could you not have made it mean something or carry consequence? Sophie is almost raped and never thinks about it or mentions it for the rest of the book. Barbara was violently raped and then never thinks about it or addresses it again. She's a point of view character, for crying out loud. Do you really not think that any of these women would experience trauma? That it wouldn't affect their behavior or change their personalities? Clearly, you know nothing about trauma.
I understand that you really hate shopping malls and can't wait for the apocalypse, but could you turn the misogyny down a notch or five? I thought the gender roles in the first book were self-indulgent, but this level of sexual violence is just gross.
(Also, I was completely unconvinced about Jasper's age. He didn't read as 11 at all. You wrote a (maybe) 15 yr old who had an infantile attachment to his puppy.) -
yes.
this is the first story from kunstler i have read. i enjoyed it.
the world we know no longer exists...in a sense, this is a western...men ride horses, or mules. and too, the world has taken on...more of the religious tone of the past. by that, the mystical mysterious stuff is back. things happen.
the telling is like traveling from point a to point b, in a sense. there are other stories like that, the journey...huck finn, the stand from stephen king...the road~mccarthy....the outlander...
those kind of stories are always fun to read. in this one too, more than one character CHANGES.
big big.
comparable to the stand, from king, comparable to twain's huck finn...the good and the bad and the questionable, they all change, they are affected by what happens in the telling. this i like.
there's a pile of characters, some/many w/a religious angle....some w/a....capitalist angle--we need to survive and that has helped us for the last two hundred plus years, much as we're trying to destroy it now...hi ho. those w/the religious angle are not caricatures...they are believable...but they won't leave you feeling insulted or patronized. they are believable. likewise the others....all of them, none are so far off the grid....this isn't revolutionary stuff...just a good yarn.
sue me.
anyway, this was an enjoyable read, i'll read more from kunstler, and so it goes. onward and upward. -
On the whole, I find the near-future world that Kunstler envisions compelling--a United States that has collapsed due to energy shortages, economic woes, and terrorism, but where people are still going on with the project of civilization. The world has a sort of wild west feel to it, though it's set in upstate New York--towns are fairly civilized, fairly safe, but the wilderness between has a wildness to it, and that sometimes spills over.
I also enjoyed the story that Kunstler weaves here from several strands. The one element that put me off a bit was [spoiler]the mystical element. I'm all for a bit of metaphysical mystery, a hunk of ambiguity that can be read as divine or devilish or wholly secular but doesn't necessarily favor any one perspective, but Kunstler seems to be taking it further--which seems odd, since I think he's an avowed atheist. I mean, Brother Job seems pretty clearly to have some kind of supernatural power, and we also see some kind of visionary power from what's-her-name; the titular Witch of Hebron was about the only one that I could buy from a perspective that could be read ambiguously as secular or mystical and be consistent with both (more or less). [/spoiler]
Kunstler is projecting this series to four books, I think I heard, and the bottom line is that I expect I'll be happily along for the ride. -
I saw that this book was about the post-apocalypse world, and I grabbed it at the library to read in the airport while traveling. The main character, Jasper, was extremely unlikeable to me. He was a spoiled jerk who created problems and then whined and moped about them, all the while making things worse for everyone. It was hard to sympathize with him, and I was hoping a mountain lion would just take him out.
I agree with other reviewers who comment on the writer's dismal portrayal of women. I can't think of a single female character who did not exist simply for sexual use of some kind for the male characters, and it was a rare occurrence for a female character to just not end up raped. The writer tossed rape into the scenes like an afterthought, like "Oh, yeah, and then she was raped, and then they all buttered their cornbread and got onto their horses". Not a single woman was able to defend herself, speak up, or speak much at all. Women are essentially background scenery until a penis demands attention in this book.
I was not impressed with this book or this writer. Besides his crappy attitude about women, the book just didn't make any sense. Too much supernatural, witchy, cast-a-spell nonsense, relying on coincidences to tie up the weak story and bring it to a merciful end. -
A little bit odder than World Made by Hand, this book follows along with other characters previously introduced. The adults from the first book are still featured heavily, but the main character is an 11-year-old boy, son of the community's doctor. The boy is barely believable in terms of his abilities and maturity. Do I think he could do the things he did? Maybe. Do I think adults would trust him to and let him? Doubtful. Is he written as a child I could believe exists? Yes. He's not a savant, but he is clever and pretty self-reliant, even though at times he is very risk-averse (and risk could probably save his little butt sooner).
All that being said, it's still a good book. It introduces a bad guy who is really, really bad. The boy has the misfortune to be thrown together with the bad guy, so much of the story revolves around the two of them and the boy's attempts to disengage.
The writing is good and still somewhat spare, as in the first book. I continue to enjoy the post-something (pandemic? nuclear war?) future that has thrown all of these people together to try to make their way in the new world. It's a refreshing change from the zombies-ate-my-dog-and-I-barely-escaped style. I believe that James Kunstler's post-trauma future is probably far more realistic and likely. -
This book was a bit of a come down from World Made by Hand in writing style - I think Kunstler used up all of his nature adjectives in the first one - but had a much more activity & forward motion. However, the lack of any lesbian, gay, or queer presence in TWO novels about the future really pisses me off. The only LGBT character is a trans sex worker who is described in the crudest way the first time we hear about her (by an uncouth character, but still, no counter-point is offered) and then killed immediately upon introduction. Great. Perhaps if no queer or trans characters had been introduced I would have just chalked it up to the author's insular life experiences, after all this book pretty much makes a fetish out of the old-timey ways of the Hudson Valley and in parts reads like a sequel to Laura Ingalls Wilder's Farmer Boy (that's a compliment, all you Almanzo fans hear me, right?). But introducing a trans woman just to bash her, trash her, and knock her off seems petty and pathetic. Boo. In my own personal view of the future I like to entertain the thought that I survive, along with a healthy chunk of my LGBT community.
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WOW. Okay, so, this was written in 2010, and clearly takes place after that in the in-universe chronology, so there's no excuse for the caricature of a transwoman (or drag queen, the narrative isn't clear). None, whatsoever. So: be prepared for a HEFTY dose of transphobia (a very violent kind) in this book.
Again: eh. Stuff happens, but there's no tension, we only really see inside the heads of the male characters, and there's so much pointless sexual violence against women that I came away feeling a little sick. I don't disagree that the collapse of society would lead to stuff like that, but the fact that it's so pervasive here, and lingered upon, is totally gratuitous (as is the coming-of-age sex scene with two pre-teens, so uh, warning for that, too).
I kept feeling like Kunstler was going for a Little, Big sort of implication with the supernatural elements in the story (though that book has its own issues, too), but it felt clumsy and handwaved at best.
Save your time, read Station Eleven instead. -
Quite slow and weirdly misogynistic. My favorite bit of that was when a man can't get it up anymore he finds another man to service his wife because as all women know the be all and end all of sex is having a hard penis around. / sarcasm. The woman doesn't decide this yourself, mind you. Nor does she get to choose her own lover. Hubby decides for her, he picks a guy, and she goes along. And that's the action of a limp man who no doubt voted Democrat in our world! The book is full of stuff like this. Apparently the post-apocalyptic world is going to be 1952, but without cars. Plus some Tom Sawyer.
Still, I made it through, so maybe I should give it 2 stars, but no. Can't bear to. -
It was more young reader level (middle school?) and left out some fairly predictable aspects of life after civilization, like renewable energy, post nuclear war effects, and extreme weather due to climate change. Another note of interest, was the treatment of female characters in the book. All were, at best, sidekicks to the many main male characters. Even these, included hardly mentioned wives, a love-goddess/witch, whores, and a morbidly obese freak of nature who was bedridden, had ESP, and apparently popped out multiple babies frequently, nursing 2 at a time of her quads. This guy seems to have some weird ideas about women. Just sayin'.
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The Witch of Hebron is the sequel to Kunstler's earlier book World Made by Hand.
The latter book was excellent, this book... not so much. I found it lacked the adventure and detail of the first. Deviating further into the supernatural certainly didn't help as it veers the book away from a future you can associate with in real life into the fantasy fiction realm which is not as enthralling.
It's an alright book, but no where near as good as the first.
