The Forest Lover

Rating:
Summary: Emily must be pleased.
Review: I just finished The Forest Lover, and it's incredible. Susan Vreeland's knowledge of the Indian country and the depth with which she handles it are amazing -- as deep and encompassing as the territory itself. Emily Carr becomes the environment. I can taste the paint -- the woods -- the totems. It is all deep and real and incredible as is Emily's talent. Vreeland's is a match for hers. I know Emily must be pleased. Vreeland hasn't compromised in any way with telling her story, any more than Carr has compromised with her painting. I think it's a classic. And such beautiful writing. The language -- description -- feelings -- the artist's struggle. What an accomplishment. What an amazing work!! Susan Vreeland is an artist and Emily must be applauding her. She dealt in detail with the most complicated and difficult aspects of Carr's life. As she did with her painting -- portraying the inner world of felling -- finding truth. Vreeland and Emily found "the God in the thing" and it counts!!!

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing and tedious
Review: I loved the Girl in Hyacinth Blue and liked the Passion of Artemisia so I was pleased to discover that Susan Vreeland had written a new book on Emily Carr, an intriguing Canadian artist who is not well known in the U.S. I saw the exhibit of Emily Carr, Georgia O'Keefe and Frieda Kahlo at the National Musuem of Women in the Arts and was really moved by Emily Carr's forest paintings. Her passion for her subject was quite evident, and I was looking forward to learning more about her life and her work.
Right now, I am about half way through the book, and so far I am very disappointed. The writing is very tedious, the characters are one-dimensional, and the story is simply not told in an interesting way. At this point, I am forcing myself to read this book in the hopes that I learn something about the artist who managed to lead an interesting life in a society that suppressed individuality and who found her voice through her paintings of trees and the native people of Canada. I can't recommend this book for the pure pleasure of reading of good story, however.

Rating:
Summary: Dull
Review: I was so excited when I picked this book up. I really enjoyed Girl in Hyacinth Blue and thought this book would be as good. Big disappointment.

I was only able to read the first 50 pages and then I had to give up. I could not get into the characters or the story- I was especially disappointed with the character of Emily. I felt Vreeland did a poor job of telling us who she was- other than she likes nature and native cultures. I found everything about the writing dull and drab- from her descriptions of things to the characters themselves. I found myself not caring what was happening in the story and there was no help from Vreeland to try and create any interest or excitement for this story. Also, even though I'm an avid reader, several times I didn't understand what was going on- her transistions from one scene to the next were terrible!! For instance, in one part we meet a man and it's not until many pages later we learn his name. This confuses things. She talks about her sisters, but it's many pages later we learn their names & not too much else about them. And at 50 pages, I still hadn't figured out where this story was leading- what was its purpose? What would make this book worth finishing?

I'm sorry to say I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. There have only been a handful of books in my life that I have not finished and this is one of them! Be warned.

Rating:
Summary: Really the best
Review: Most of what I pick out (and up) to read is not worth the hype. I'm all too frequently disappointed. But lately I've come across three books that totally lived up to their reputatations: Birth of Venus, Bark of the Dogwood, and this book, The Forest Lover. All three are excellent and should not be missed, but of these, The Forest Lover is my favorite. Check it ou.

Rating:
Summary: Fact and fantasy: a tough combination
Review: Much of what Ms. Vreeland has researched and written contributes to this story, but the inclusion of a fantasy lover seems terribly awkward for anyone familiar with Carr's incredible work. Was she loveless? Hardly. Love need not come in the throes of possible passion, but perhaps in the embracing of life and art. I felt the French lover seemed to ring untrue, and didn't know he was total fiction until I had finished Forest Lover. I wonder if an editor, publicist or Ms. Vreeland decided on this tact? Still, it is an interesting insight into Emily Carr, and I appreciate what she has written about Carr and the Pacific Northwest.

Rating:
Summary: Time Magazine was right --- this is a major disappointment
Review: My husband has a subscription to Time magazine and usually I read it faithfully, as well, but I've been behind in my reading lately and it serves me right. I bought Ms. Vreeland's newest novel based on how much I had enjoyed "Girl," but I quickly lost interest in this slow moving story. Only later did I open up the Time review to "Forest Lover" and see that their reviewer had similar concerns. The reader has to be very patient to wander through this forest and the writing seems rather trite and simplistic.

I'm not sure I'd buy Ms.Vreeland's next novel. For once, the reviewer was right!

Rating:
Summary: Potlatches banned?!
Review: Such is the dominance of US literature and culture over Canada that it can be difficult for non-Canadians to appreciate its history. Reinforced when considering British Columbia. Traditionally, Canadian culture has been centred on Ontario and Quebec. A third handicap is when a subject or backdrop is the native tribes of BC, who often rate cursory mention.

Vreeland tries to remedy this by giving us a work of historical fiction, set in the first 2 decades of the twentieth century, amongst these tribes. Her book is also a searing social commentary on the deprivation and misery endured by the tribes. Afflicted by disease and a demoralisation brought on by British conquest. In the book are depictions of a crusading Christian church and a local government bent on a coerced assimilation of the natives. To such extent that in this period, potlatches were banned?! As symbols of heathen superstition and backwardness.

Students of history will see echoes in similar policies carried out against the Australian Aborigines and the tribes of the US. Yes, this book is fiction. But perhaps it belongs in the same ranks as "Oliver Twist", which Dickens wrote as a contemporary denunciation of nineteenth century British poverty.

Rating:
Summary: A Rich Experience
Review: Susan Vreeland's account of painter Emily Carr's life illustrates the difference between biography and historical fiction. A biographer must stay close to the verifiable facts she has unearthed: dates, places, people, events, the actual words spoken. The historical novelist, on the other hand, faces a different challenge; her task is to make the times and the subject come alive--from the inside out. Vreeland does this magnificently. We have the sense of hearing Emily speak and knowing what's in her heart. To the pedantic critic, Vreeland takes liberties, inventing people and relationships that may not have existed. But to the reader hoping for the rich experience of a controversial woman painter's life, Vreeland has given a gift. We are intrigued, touched, amused and saddened by turn, emotions that great works of fiction evoke in readers. Beautifully written, this book reveals Vreeland's own love of art and nature, her maturing vision of just what it is that makes us human.

Rating:
Summary: A Missed Opportunity
Review: Susan Vreeland's GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE, which showcases the life of Johannes Vermeer (or at least one of his paintings) was released at about the same time as was Tracy Chevalier's GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING. While GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING gained most of the attention, by far, I thought GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE was the better book. Vreeland's second book, THE PASSION OF ARTEMISIA was, however, a very lackluster attempt at capturing the life of the 17th century Italian artist, Artemisia Gentileschi and it can't begin to compare with French writer, Alexandra Lapierre's wonderful book, ARTEMISIA. Vreeland's third novel, THE FOREST LOVER, like her previous two, combines fact and fiction in an attempt to take readers into the world of an artist...this time, however, the artist is far less well-known that either Vermeer or Gentileschi.

The subject of THE FOREST LOVER is Canadian artist, Emily Carr, who was born in 1871 and died in 1945. While Carr isn't well-known in the US and virtually unheard of in Europe, she's quite well-known and highly thought of in her native Canada and her Fauvist paintings of the forests and seascapes of British Columbia are both melancholy and gorgeous.

Even though Carr is now revered in Canada (one of her paintings sold for more than one million dollars a few years ago), like many artists she was almost unknown during her own lifetime and worked under harsh conditions during which she had little or no financial or emotional support. She was a lonely figure with few acquaintances and even fewer real friends. Vreeland does a beautiful job of making us feel Carr's isolation and her loneliness, her struggles and her pain. But, sadly, there the beauty ends.

One of the problems with THE FOREST LOVER, for me, is that it is quite uneven. When Vreeland is writing about Carr's painful isolation and lonely struggles, the book is luminous, intense and poetic, but when she's writing about Carr's interactions with others, the narrative becomes dull, flat and sometimes boring. The book is downright terrible when Vreeland fictionalizes romantic encounters for Carr. I actually laughed out loud (something I rarely do when reading a book) when reading about Carr's fictitious French fur trader lover, Claude Serreau. He was so totally unbelievable he was ludicrous (and hilarious), although I'm sure Vreeland meant for us to find him touching instead. Another romantic encounter that simply didn't work for me was the fictional one between Carr and New Zealand painter, Frances Hodgkins. It seemed as though Vreeland just wanted to infuse a dose of lesbianism into her book and the book didn't need it. In fact, the romantic encounters detracted rather than added. Emily Carr was fascinating enough; Vreeland needn't have made up fictitious lovers for her in order to make her interesting. I felt that Vreeland, herself, was only interested in Carr, so the other characters were given far less attention during their creation than they should have been if they were going to "come alive."

The pacing of the book is erratic as well. Some sections are slow and dreamy while others rushed ahead like a train careening down an Alpine mountainside. I didn't feel Vreeland had her subject matter and her writing under control. Dialogue was another big problem in this book. It was so stilted and unrealistic.

Overall, I think Vreeland missed a wonderful opportunity with this book. In the sections where Vreeland is writing about Carr and her inner life...about her hopes, her dreams, her pain, her struggles, her isolation, her intense love of Canada's western forests and shores, the book simply soars. Had she focused on Carr's inner life throughout the book rather than inventing (badly) ludicrous fictitious love affairs for her protagonist, I think she might have given us an intense, dreamy and poetic novel and one that was, in the end, far more romantic as well.

Rating:
Summary: An Entertaining and Beautifully Written Story
Review: Susan Vreeland's THE FOREST LOVER is the magnificent story of a woman who has a burning desire to be recognized in her field. The trouble is that she lives in Victoria, British Columbia at the turn of the twentieth century. Females in business are maligned, especially one who would make a living at painting. Emily Carr is such a woman, a woman far ahead of her time.

Vreeland examines the emotional makeup of a woman who goes against the protocol of decency for a well-bred girl in Victoria. She embarrasses her three sisters by her repeated forays into the wilderness north of Vancouver to paint native Indian tribal people and their totems. She is obsessed with the idea of picturing them on canvas to preserve a dying heritage. None are interested in her venture, and her sisters are defiant in their resolve against her work.

Despite their objections, Carr ventures forth into the Canadian wilderness to paint trees, totems and the people she learns to love. Her best friend and soul mate is an Indian mother, Sophie Frank. Sophie is an artist in her own right; she makes baskets to sell in Victoria. A Christian, she uses her proceeds to purchase gravestone markers for her dead children. who have fallen to "white men's diseases."

Carr obtains family trust fund money from her sister Dede to travel to France to study with the great painters of her day. She has become discouraged by her inability to paint the totems with the passion that will tell a tale, and so she studies the works of Van Gogh, Matisse, Modigliani and Picasso, imitating their techniques. However, she is unsatisfied with her results and leaves for home. Carr again will go to the wooded islands and splash color on canvas to leave a totem's legacy for future generations. She fears the poles will be gone to collectors before she can paint them and returns with impassioned frenzy to her first love, the native tribes she adores.

THE FOREST LOVER is Carr's story, though the friends she makes are fictionalized by the author. However, her paintings are placed throughout the book and are real. In addition to Sophie, Carr befriends a French fur trader, Claude, and a crippled misfit, Harold. She has a penchant for the unusual in people as well as in art. She longs to earn recognition as an artist, but the recognition escapes her until late in her career, when she's about to give up. Vreeland has researched Carr's life extensively and paints her own word picture of the struggling artist with compassion. Credits are listed at the end of the book.

I highly recommend THE FOREST LOVER for its educational value as well as for its entertaining story. Carr is a study in obstinacy, persistence and passion. Vreeland should receive kudos for her extensive research and beautifully written story. The New York Times bestselling author of GIRL IN HYACINTH BLUE has produced another fine piece of writing.

--- Reviewed by Judy Gigstad