“The Forest”, by Edward Rutherfurd

 

624 pages, Crown, ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0609603826

The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd takes place over nine centuries in the New Forest that covers southwest Hampshire and southeast Wiltshire – over 71,000 acres in its present form. When it was first created by William the Conqueror, the New Forest ran from the river Avon from the west to the port of Southampton to the east, with some 100,000 acres of forest and heath that swept down to the Solent water and the Isle of Wight, all set aside for the Kings of England – and nobody else. From the time of the Norman Conquest to the present day, the New Forest has remained a mysterious, powerful, almost mythical place where first Saxon, and later Norman, kings rode forth with their hunting parties (and where William the Conqueror’s son, William II “Rufus”, was mysteriously killed); still later, the fishermen who lived in Christchurch and Lymington helped Sir Francis Drake fight off the Spanish Armada while the mighty oaks of the forest were used to build the ships of the Royal Navy. Although located in the very south of England, one could argue that the Heart of this this sceptred isle can be found in the New Forest.

Beginning in 1099, The Forest is divided into seven chapters: The Hunt, Beaulieu, Lymington, The Armada Tree, Alice, Albion Park and Pride of the Forest; intermingling both real and fictional characters, the narrative traces the lineage of several families over nine centuries. There is Lady Adela, the cousin of Walter Tyrrell who is blamed for the death of the King (as well as Puckle, a gnarled old man who darkly personifies the Forest). Then there is Brother Adam of Beaulieu Abbey who is content to serve God until a poaching incident puts him in contact with an intriguing young woman named Mary Furzey. We have the Totton family of the harbor town of Lymington along with the Penruddocks and Lisles of Moyles Court, all making their ways in their world. The defeat of the Spanish Armada is dealt with, as is the fate of Alice Lisle for her role in the 1685 Monmouth uprising and even a reference to Leonard Hoar, an infamous early president of Harvard. A crime in Bath during the Regency shatters the decorous society of the same before we at last come to the year 2000 and what the world holds in store for The Forest.

I see what Rutherfurd is attempting to do with The Forest, tracing the families who make it their home as they rise, fall and struggle to survive, all while the New Forest rises, falls and struggles right along with them, as if it, too, were a living thing with desires and aspirations, as well. In one sense, the forest is a character in its own right: mysterious, ever-present and with designs of its own. It is also subject to the whims of time and of chance…as are we all.