Product Description

Few places lie closer to the heart of England's heritage than the New Forest. Now Edward Rutherfurd, is a chronicler who can weave its mystery and legends into a compelling narrative worthy of its role in our history. From the cruel forest laws of the Normans and their passion for hunting, to the founding of Beaulieu Abbey by capricious King John; from the very real dangers of the Spanish Armada to the elegance of Georgian Lymington; from the herds of wild deer and horses which have roamed free since time immemorial to the mighty oaks which provided timber for Nelson's naval ships, Rutherfurd has captured the essence of this ancient domain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12523 in Books
• Published on: 2001-04-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 912 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
When readers get into the game of comparing novelists (X writes very like Y, and so on), one writer who absolutely defies comparison with his peers is Edward Rutherford. With books such as Sarum and Russka, he created a genre that was virtually his own: the immensely researched, fascinatingly detailed epic narrative in which a sense of place was more profoundly established than in practically any other writer. This has been a hard act to follow and Rutherford has not been a prolific writer. Hopes were high for The Forest and this atmospheric tale of the New Forest is just as accomplished as Rutherford's earlier books.

Other writers have tackled the area before but this is surely the definitive chronicle, with all the stories and legends of the place woven into a narrative that has all the power and drama of Thomas Hardy filtered through a very modern sensibility. The elements that Rutherford comprehensively includes in his tale range from the savage forest laws of the Normans and their hunting pursuits to the founding of Beaulieu Abbey by the mercurial King John.

Rutherford inextricably involves us with his massive cast of adroitly realised characters, and we are taken along with them as they fear the threat of the Spanish Armada into the heart of this ancient domain, with its flocks of wild deer and horses. As before, Rutherford has the grandest ambitions for his arm-straining volume (coming in at 600 pages): from the novel's opening with a plane flying high above a cathedral in April 2000 to the 15th year of the reign of Queen Victoria, the reader is swept through a whole clutch of narratives involving the life and death struggles of the denizens of the New Forest. Certain characters stand out as particularly well drawn: the canny Brother Adam is a rare example of a virtuous man in literature who doesn't end up being simply bland and anodyne. But Rutherford is equally skilful at dealing with the violence of the Monmouth rebellion and his grasp of the shifting patterns of history has, if possible, deepened from his previous books. For those seeking the breadth and solidity of the great 19th-century novels, here is a latter-day work that will more than fit the bill. And who would have thought that the description of a fight between buck deer could be quite so vivid?

Her buck had hit firmer ground and his feet suddenly got a purchase on the grass. His hindquarters shivering, he dug in. She saw the shoulders rise and his neck bear down. And now the interloper was slipping on the wet leaves. Slowly, cautiously, their antlers locked, the two straining bucks began to turn. Now they were both on grass. Suddenly the interloper disengaged. He gave his head a twist. The jagged spike was aiming at the buck's eye. He lunged...

Mail on Sunday
‘Hugely impressive’

Daily Mail
‘Exerts a hypnotic charm’

Customer Reviews

Pride of The Forest
Edward Rutherfurd is an author with a specialised genre all of his very own. He writes historical fiction which follows a place though the people who live there. 'The Forest' is a novel about the New Forest, as told though the stories of the families of Cola the Huntsman, The Prides, Furzeys, Grockletons, Puckles and so on from the founding of the Forest in William the Conquerors's time, right down to the present day. From the killing of King Rufus (who died in the New Forest) though to the trial of Alice Lisle, down to the family politics of Jane Austin's Bath, this is an epic tale which manages to wind together the past, present and future, pulling the reader slowly though the family trees and then swiftly though the fights, arguments and feuds of the families and the forest they have made their home.

If it has a fault, it is that the structure of the book (each chapter is a new generation, though not necessarily the generation after the one you last saw, and gaps of hundreds of years are not uncommon) lends itself to a slightly fractured plot-line, though Rutherfurd's sense of narrative continuity means that the gaps between the stories are never too shear, or that a somewhat distanced narrative can occasionally make character motivations a mystery (Though this works both ways, it's never obvious when a character's mind is being opaqued deliberately), or a tendency towards slow movement as the setup for the new generation is explained.

The Forest is an excellent book by a master of narrative, but the structure might be a little strange and distracting to some readers. Nevertheless, it's definitely worth reading especially if you have read, and enjoyed, previous works by the Author

Excellent!! Brings history to life! Didn't want it to end!!!
As someone who has grown up on the edge of the New Forest, this book really brings to life the history of the town I live in and the surrounding areas. As with Sarum before it, it is amazing to know the places being written about and get a feel for the way life would have been for my ancestors. Edward Rutherford has inspired me to take a deeper interest in history, as he brings to life the thoughts and feelings of the people of past times, not just their 'material' accomplishments. Another brilliant novel from the author, which I am sure is just as engrossing for someone who has never visited the area as it was for me.

A disappointing return to Rutherfurd's epics
Another epic from Edward Rutherfurd and, after the success of his other novels, an eagerly anticipated one.

It follows the same recipe, tracing the trials and tribulations of a handful of families, the noble Lord and the lowly peasant, through the centuries from the time of Norman king, Willilam Rufus, to the present day.

The New Forest is an atmospheric and mystical place and Rutherfurd pulls out all the stops to portray this. He only presents the last 1000 years, a snapshot in the annals of history and it may be that he needed to stretch further back in time to get a real sense of the place and its inhabitants. Or it may be that the characters are somewhat two dimensional and fail to evoke an emotional affinity in the reader, as his previous creations have done. In both 'Sarum' and 'London' it is quite a wrench as Rutherfurd leaves families in one era and moves onto the next episode in history. However, we take the love or hate we have built up with us and visit it onto the next generations, proving that long-running feuds and grudges do exist outside of the novelist's mind. In 'The Forest' we do not feel such a loss as he moves onto the next era and don't much care either way what happens to the characters. We feel more emotional about the tree and the deer, which in itself is a testament to Rutherfurd's great talent in showing that all nature and life are interwoven, but leaves us striving to find the heart of this novel.

The book ends a little flat, without the poignant sense of time moving on and standing still simultaneously, as in his previous novels. If you have not read Rutherfurd before, this is an enjoyable and satisfying novel, but if you have read and loved 'Sarum' and 'London', then it is a credit to the extremely high standard of those novels that 'The Forest' is not the masterpieces they are.