In the Woods is set in present day Ireland and as it says on the back of the novel, is a psychological thriller. And it is. At the beginning of the book three children go into the woods by their house, as is their normal thing to do, but after hours missing, two are gone and one, Adam, is found alive. And he is clutching to a tree terrified and his clothes and shoes are filled with blood. The other two are never found. The remainder of the book follows the survivor who is now a detective and goes by the name of Rob Ryan as another child has been found murdered near those very same woods. Nothing easy about this story. But the characters are full and complicated. In fact, I just bought French's second book, The Likeness, that follows Cassie Maddox, Ryan's partner, in another thriller. Good stuff.
The Blind Assassin is set in America in 1945 through 1947 or so. It's a bit of a confusing book and took some definite concentration to follow Atwood's plot. But it's worth the work. This, too, has a death early on as Laura drives her car off a bridge to her death. The question is if it was suicide or an accident. The older sister, Iris, is the narrator and tells the reader about growing up in this somewhat dysfunctional family. The cool (and confusing) thing about this is that there is a book (The Blind Assassin) within the book (The Blind Assassin). Go figure that one out.
So, what do these two books have in common? The authors constantly take the reader back in time to when the characters were young to explain present day behavior. The past is what is forming the present. Which is so true for life. My past can define or form my present.
For Rob Ryan, that event defined the rest of his life. His family quickly moved from the small town near the woods. The murder went unsolved and his life was, as would be expected, changed forever. He started using his middle name and no one connected him as the "boy who survived."
For Iris Chase Griffen, her future was determined by her father's need for money to keep a business intact. A marriage of convenience, one that promised some lucrative support for his factory, was made and Iris's life was changed forever. Not to mention the fact that her sister drove off a bridge.
Both of these people said nothing. Silence. The reader, of course, is privy to their thoughts and struggles so I found myself saying repeatedly...."if only..." But the "if only" never came.
So it got me thinking. How much do I not say? How much has my present been determined by my past? But does it have to be so?
I think not. While my past has already been set, it's not my present nor is it my future. A good friend of mine told me something interesting about the brain. The back of the brain, I think it's called the medulla oblongata, registers emotions and has no concept of time. So if I was scared of something as a child and something similar happens to me today, that part of my brain will go..."RUN!!!! IT'S THE MONSTER IN THE CLOSET! RUN!!!!" Even though there's no monster in the closet anymore (maybe a cat but no monster - and there were real monsters in my closet on Giddings St. in Chicago!). The frontal part of the brain (no idea what that is called and I Googled an image of the brain) is the logical part that understands time and reality. So I need to get the front part of my brain to control the emotional back part of my brain so I can get control.
The point is that I can control my present and my future and when I experience some emotional response that doesn't make sense to me today, it could be a blast from the past. So I can always choose to act differently.
And talking to people is a good thing. Thinking things through with a trusted friend or a therapist is most excellent.
Iris could have made different decisions so she wouldn't have ended up as she did (no spoiler there). Same thing with Rob. I always have a choice. We always have a choice. Even when we decide to do nothing, that is a choice.
And, yes, choices have consequences. So figure those out, too.
And that's all I have to say about that.
