Folk

And so, us readers are taken to the island village of Neverness, which is somewhat like rural medieval Northern Europe; horses and sheep, fishing, the baking of bread and the eating of eggs. Zoe Gilbert opens with a thundering scene. A young lad is running, thudding, through a hillside of gorse with other lads. She tells us that there is sweat. That there is stink of leather. For the young lad it is his first time at the gorse game. He fights the thorns of the gorse. He runs headlong deeper into the gorse, seeking the Gorse Mother. What is this annual event of the folk of Neverness?Folk is a story of the folk of Neverness. It is not in any way a 'traditional' novel of a 'story' with core characters. The whole cast of the folk of Neverness are the characters. Characters have a story to tell, and then other characters are told. Werrity Prowd, in her bloom. The ox-men and what they do. May who grows into the supreme fiddler. And the places of Neverness too have their stories told; the Bard House, the seashore caves that are scoured into different shapes, the places where the sheep are tended and the kites fly. Characters and places are re-introduced and re-woven across the two generations of the span of Folk.Folk is spun with truly dazzling writing. Zoe Gilbert is both gifted and inspired in her words and the architectures that they build. Her sentences paint the world of Neverness both subtly and with a thumping pulse. Folk is kinda sorta magical realism, but it is far more than just that genre. Zoe Gilbert's words thump and beat viscerally, and tell of scents and temperatures and storms and winds. The folk of Neverness live a raw life, but a life that is full of their engrained traditions and ways.There is really nothing much comparable to what Zoe Gilbert has written. A small number of stories from a small number of contemporary writers spring to mind, but she has written something unique.There is a map of Neverness; I like maps that show the geography of the place where the storyteller is beguiling us. Just so you know. And, is there anything that is hard work, or does not quite work, in Folk, you might (you should really) ask? Yes is my answer. Because each of the folk of Neverness is written into the story I had to sometimes remind myself of who was who. And towards the end a couple of chapters feel like filler, non-essential, just in there to get them in. But still a masterpiece.The last chapter of Folk begins exactly as the first chapter. The Gorse Game. Two generations after the first chapter. Folk have died and folk have been born, married, lived. Neverness endures as the folk fade in and then are gone. And what endures for this reader is the visceral magic of this author and her craft.

A haunting series of interrelated short stories tells the reader the history of the small village of Neverness and its inhabitants who experience superstition, magic, love, and sorrow. The book begins and closes with a village tradition that is their own version of Beltane, a gorse-maze, and girls who shoot arrows into the maze for the young men of the village to find and be matched for a kiss or more. As the book opens, we meet the ill-fated Crab Skerry and at its close see the fate of the girl he had wanted to kiss, Madden, whose soul is woven by a spell with that of a soaring kite.These are folktales about island folk, mixing classic British Isle fae entities like the water bull, similar to a kelpie, luring young women to a watery death, and simple people with their everyday lives on their farms and in a fishing community. Beyond the elements of familiar folklore, Gilbert has given us truly poignant characters with heartbreaking stories. Ervet and her beloved mawkins, Verlyn, a man with a wing, and his unrequited love for a girl named after a bird, Linnet. There are also images of memorable power like that of a boy named Finch, arms outstretched, covered in bees, green sap emerging from a scratch on his neck.This is a rich an beautiful series of stories that read like a novel. Blending folklore and magical realism, it's a unique book to be savored.

Paul Kingsnorth recommended this to his followers. He was right, it was wonderful. Full of beautiful imagery, fully realized characters, and with magical, but realistic settings, the stories felt very homely. I loved the people and I think I'd love this gorse-scented Isle.

In my kindle app I read the book and enjoyed the twists and turns and characters very much.

Love this book. If you love folklore this is a must have. Join us on twitter for #FolkloreThursday.

(I voluntarily reviewed an ARC for For The Love of Fictional Worlds)My reason for requesting to review this book was at first; was purely aesthetic - LOOK AT THAT COVER! Do you even blame me?And then i read the blurb; this collection of short stories sounded enchanting; certainly alluring enough to hold my interest for it had it's foundation in folklore; which if written perfectly could be end up being a dazzling read; I believed I was in for a fantastic time!As a collection of short stories occurring on an island; so it is highly probable to assume that there should have been connected with each other - yet somehow they still felt disjointed at times, and I do believe it was mostly because the characters failed to leave a mark on me!The writing though; the writing steals away your heart and burrows down in your soul! Ms. Gilbert has this lyrical way of writing; a brilliant balance between metaphors and reality that enchants the reader with the fairytale-sque quality of the story! Which ends up being as much as a pro as well as a con; for the connections between the different characters and the individual stories never ended up being that strong enough or impactful enough to leave a mark on my mind!

One of the most wonderful books I've read in a long time (and I read a lot). This is a collection of linked shorter pieces but it doesn't read like a short story collection: it does have the feel of a longer work to it, perhaps because every story is so beautifully told, and so dense with feeling. I loved every word.

This is a highly original collection of short stories. There is more than a hint of the fantastical about most of them but what they tell of human nature is universal. None of that would of course be any use if they also weren't well written, absorbing and entertaining (there's nothing worse than literature which is terribly worthy but dead boring). Culturally the stories are very British cum Celtic so it would be interesting to know what people from other countries make of them. If you're the sort of person who can't quite rule out the possibility of the magical being outside your window on a dark, rainy night then this book is perhaps for you.

I bought this book after hearing it recommended on the Backlisted podcast. I was a bit dubious that it might turn out to be yet another re-telling of old tales with "a twist" or from another character's perspective. It isn't that at all. It's a little, perfectly realised, utterly magical universe unto itself, with some very subtle hints at fairy stories here and there. I was completely captivated by it from the first chapter. Each tale builds on the previous one in a kind of palimpsest until the last tale brings us neatly full-circle. When previous characters are referred to in a new tale, it makes you want to go back and re-read their story all over again, they are that good. It's like an album of amazing interconnected songs, where you turn the volume up in the fade out of each one to hear the very last notes.I can't quite explain why I loved it so much. It reminds me most of Nick Cave's Sickbag Song; even though the two books are completely different I got a similar magical feeling from it. I carry Sickbag Song around in my rucksack in case of reading emergencies, and Folk is going to join it there. I love it too much to put it away on the shelf.

Beautiful writing, but I'd hardly call it a novel. As another reviewer said, more a collection of slightly interwoven stores, meaning that they take place in the same setting, over a number of years. It is almost as though the characters didn't merit our attention for more than one chapter, which I felt led to a lack of continuity. I was unable, therefore, to invest in the characters as I would have liked.

Short stories or novel? Let’s call it fiction. Let’s call it Folk. It’s the details that mesmerise in this debut from a very competent writer: from the rich descriptive passages to the intricately-drawn illustrations. Each tale stands alone and yet fully immerses the reader into a dark new world. Bloomsbury have certainly delivered on the cover front too - delightful in its foreshadowing of what lurks within.