Campfire Reads Review: Into the Forest
“Back then, it seemed the forest had everything we needed. Every mushroom or flower or fern or stone was a gift.”
Author: Jean Hegland
Goodreads Description: Set in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home.
Okay, so the title of this book is maybe a little on-the-nose for my first Campfire Read Review (and possibly for the novel itself). It’s set in –you guessed it– the forest, and it follows two sisters, Nell and Eva, whose family is torn apart by what is effectively the fall of western civilization. They are orphaned pretty early in the story, and have to learn how to survive without electricity, running water, or gasoline. Their relationship takes a toll, too (as any sisters’ would given the circumstances), and they have to learn how to be both sisters and allies against the unforgiving world around them.
The novel was written before the massive dystopian lit trend of the last decade, so I tried to view it from the perspective of someone living in 1998 (before the market was over-saturated with post-apocalyptic fiction). I’ve never been a huge fan of this genre, generally speaking. Maybe it’s because the thought of the world ending bums me out and I figured it bums most other people out, too. If civilization as we know it ever does fall, I don’t think it will be the dystopian books that will be flying off the shelves. I’d bet there would be fights in the streets over copies of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy or Pride and Prejudice, or really any book that makes people happy. Personally, I would fight to the death over my volumes of The Lord of the Rings.
Nell understands the importance of books. At one point in the story, she has to decide what books she is going to save from her parents’ bookshelf. She has to choose between classics like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights, and The Odyssey.
“Sorting through the heaps of books on the floor, I loved them all. I loved the smell and the heft of each of them, loved the colors of their covers and the feel of their pages. I loved all they meant to me, all they had taught me…”
Ultimately, she makes a practical choice –the encyclopedia– even though it breaks her heart to leave all the other books behind.
What I liked most about Into the Forest was Nell’s connection to the forest itself:
“[I] dream I am buried in the earth up to my neck, my arms and legs like taproots tapering to a web of finer roots… As I look out over the earth, my skull expands as though I were absorbing the above-ground world and the sky itself through my eye sockets. My head grows until it is a shell encompassing the whole of the earth. I wake softly, with a sense of infinite calm.”
In many ways, Nell is more at home in the forest than she is in the house she grew up in. The forest doesn’t rely on electricity or gas. It was there well before civilization was and it will be there after it’s gone. Nell understands this, and she trusts in the wisdom the forest it has to offer her.
I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s into dystopian fiction. Like I said, I don’t typically go for that genre but considering that, I thought the world was well crafted and rich in detail. It wasn’t dismal, either. Nell’s intelligence and willingness to adapt proves that the end of the world doesn’t have to be the end of the world. If civilization as we know it does fall, this is one dystopian novel that’s worth saving.
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