TITLE: Lanny
AUTHOR: Max Porter
PUBLISHER: Faber & Faber, 2019
ISBN: 0571340288
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
I deliberately didn’t read anything about this book before plunging straight in – and I am glad I didn’t. Please be aware that this review contains one or two spoilers.
A quick glance at the first couple of pages reveals snippets of conversations overheard, all presented in artistic typography, dancing artfully across the page, and sometimes across one another. The conversations are being listened to by Dead Papa Toothwort, an ages-old creature of nature akin to the Green Man. The locals know of him; the children sing a rhyme about him: “Say your prayers and be good too, or Dead Papa Toothwort is coming for you.” Toothwort roams the village and its environs, listening to the lives of its inhabitants, overhearing everything from discussions about haemorrhoids to unwelcome hobbyists to ruthless pruning. In the midst of this chaotic clamour is five year-old Lanny, whose unique thoughts and singing are to Toothwort the favourite part of the feast. I greatly enjoyed these sections. As I tilted my head this way and that to follow the text’s undulations, my own physicality in reading them echoed Toothwort’s in hearing them: “Dead Papa Toothwort chews the noise of the place and waits for his favourite taste...” These are the sounds of a small commuter village outside London, home to Robert, an office worker and (mostly) absent father, to Jolie, a former actress now working on her first dark crime thriller, and their young son, Lanny, who is Toothwort’s “favourite taste”.
Lanny is presented as fae-like; he has many of the traits associated with “indigo” children – he’s an old soul, highly intelligent and creative, with a deep connection to the natural world. He roams the countryside, building dens, singing unusual songs and, although he is sometimes viewed askance for his oddities, it seems – at least through the eyes of his adoring mother – that everyone has a Lanny-sized space in their lives and he is generally liked and accepted.
Toothwort and Lanny’s parents narrate the first part of the book, along with Mad Pete, an ageing artist who Jolie persuades to give Lanny art lessons after school, sparking off a friendship between the two. Like Lanny, Pete follows his own path, but as an adult, rather than a five year-old boy, society looks upon his eccentricities less kindly.
Part One establishes these four main narrators and they leap from the page, each with a clearly-defined voice and world view. I had very strong feelings about two of the three human narrators, which I will not share here as I don’t want to colour other readers’ interpretations of certain actions and predilections. All three struggle with the darkness inside them and it could be argued that only one of them succeeds in achieving a partial victory.
The layout of this book is as important as the words themselves, from the visual representation of Toothwort’s eavesdropping to the empty pages at the beginning of Part Two, when Lanny disappears. After that, the layout changes again. This time, we have multiple voices as the family’s situation gradually encompasses an entire community. We can identify Robert, Jolie and Pete and a few others, and as the section progresses, more voices join in and the darker underbelly of this tiny rural community begins to show itself. The unpleasantness, the suspicion, the criticism of anyone “other”, of incomers, of parenting skills, of Lanny himself… it all surfaces and adds to the swirling confusion as the section progresses, which I found it did at some speed, in a dark and unpleasant direction. Jolie’s and Robert’s voices are swamped beneath the weight of their community’s and the media’s judgment and all of those negative voices are punctuated by longer sections of sheer desperation from Pete. At this point in the narrative, the reader takes on the voyeuristic role of Dead Papa Toothwort, who does not appear in this section. I found it a gripping, but uncomfortable read.
Part Three becomes more confused still, both in layout and in voice, echoing the experiences of Lanny’s family and Pete as the situation stretches out over days. One thought follows another in this section, with nothing to separate or, in some cases, identify the speakers. Fortunately, Porter’s character voices are distinct, so there is usually a clue – but not always.
Part of this section did not work for me, and that was the reappearance of Dead Papa Toothwort in an otherworldly encounter with Lanny’s parents and Pete. Without giving too much away, I interpreted it as a test of their worthiness as Lanny’s carers, separating the worthy from those who fall short of the mark.
The only voice we do not hear in this story is that of Lanny himself. We only see him through the eyes of others, a little ray of light projecting infectious childlike wonder into those around him and leaving them utterly bereft in his absence. Yet as well as possessing this otherworldly demeanour, Lanny is a typical child – he can frustrate, anger and amuse those around him, as well as confusing them with his unusual thoughts and abilities.
I’ll be honest – I didn’t like the ending. Having built up so much strong emotion in me throughout the story, the ending was a little flat. However, if you view it as a written representation of the mindset of a small community as it navigates a tragedy, that flatness after so much upheaval, emotion and intrusion is surely representative of real life, as well as signalling a return to the status quo – which, for some, is frustrating and undesirable after the promise of so much more…
AUTHOR: Max Porter
PUBLISHER: Faber & Faber, 2019
ISBN: 0571340288
PODCAST EPISODE: None
REVIEWER: Tracey Norman
I deliberately didn’t read anything about this book before plunging straight in – and I am glad I didn’t. Please be aware that this review contains one or two spoilers.
A quick glance at the first couple of pages reveals snippets of conversations overheard, all presented in artistic typography, dancing artfully across the page, and sometimes across one another. The conversations are being listened to by Dead Papa Toothwort, an ages-old creature of nature akin to the Green Man. The locals know of him; the children sing a rhyme about him: “Say your prayers and be good too, or Dead Papa Toothwort is coming for you.” Toothwort roams the village and its environs, listening to the lives of its inhabitants, overhearing everything from discussions about haemorrhoids to unwelcome hobbyists to ruthless pruning. In the midst of this chaotic clamour is five year-old Lanny, whose unique thoughts and singing are to Toothwort the favourite part of the feast. I greatly enjoyed these sections. As I tilted my head this way and that to follow the text’s undulations, my own physicality in reading them echoed Toothwort’s in hearing them: “Dead Papa Toothwort chews the noise of the place and waits for his favourite taste...” These are the sounds of a small commuter village outside London, home to Robert, an office worker and (mostly) absent father, to Jolie, a former actress now working on her first dark crime thriller, and their young son, Lanny, who is Toothwort’s “favourite taste”.
Lanny is presented as fae-like; he has many of the traits associated with “indigo” children – he’s an old soul, highly intelligent and creative, with a deep connection to the natural world. He roams the countryside, building dens, singing unusual songs and, although he is sometimes viewed askance for his oddities, it seems – at least through the eyes of his adoring mother – that everyone has a Lanny-sized space in their lives and he is generally liked and accepted.
Toothwort and Lanny’s parents narrate the first part of the book, along with Mad Pete, an ageing artist who Jolie persuades to give Lanny art lessons after school, sparking off a friendship between the two. Like Lanny, Pete follows his own path, but as an adult, rather than a five year-old boy, society looks upon his eccentricities less kindly.
Part One establishes these four main narrators and they leap from the page, each with a clearly-defined voice and world view. I had very strong feelings about two of the three human narrators, which I will not share here as I don’t want to colour other readers’ interpretations of certain actions and predilections. All three struggle with the darkness inside them and it could be argued that only one of them succeeds in achieving a partial victory.
The layout of this book is as important as the words themselves, from the visual representation of Toothwort’s eavesdropping to the empty pages at the beginning of Part Two, when Lanny disappears. After that, the layout changes again. This time, we have multiple voices as the family’s situation gradually encompasses an entire community. We can identify Robert, Jolie and Pete and a few others, and as the section progresses, more voices join in and the darker underbelly of this tiny rural community begins to show itself. The unpleasantness, the suspicion, the criticism of anyone “other”, of incomers, of parenting skills, of Lanny himself… it all surfaces and adds to the swirling confusion as the section progresses, which I found it did at some speed, in a dark and unpleasant direction. Jolie’s and Robert’s voices are swamped beneath the weight of their community’s and the media’s judgment and all of those negative voices are punctuated by longer sections of sheer desperation from Pete. At this point in the narrative, the reader takes on the voyeuristic role of Dead Papa Toothwort, who does not appear in this section. I found it a gripping, but uncomfortable read.
Part Three becomes more confused still, both in layout and in voice, echoing the experiences of Lanny’s family and Pete as the situation stretches out over days. One thought follows another in this section, with nothing to separate or, in some cases, identify the speakers. Fortunately, Porter’s character voices are distinct, so there is usually a clue – but not always.
Part of this section did not work for me, and that was the reappearance of Dead Papa Toothwort in an otherworldly encounter with Lanny’s parents and Pete. Without giving too much away, I interpreted it as a test of their worthiness as Lanny’s carers, separating the worthy from those who fall short of the mark.
The only voice we do not hear in this story is that of Lanny himself. We only see him through the eyes of others, a little ray of light projecting infectious childlike wonder into those around him and leaving them utterly bereft in his absence. Yet as well as possessing this otherworldly demeanour, Lanny is a typical child – he can frustrate, anger and amuse those around him, as well as confusing them with his unusual thoughts and abilities.
I’ll be honest – I didn’t like the ending. Having built up so much strong emotion in me throughout the story, the ending was a little flat. However, if you view it as a written representation of the mindset of a small community as it navigates a tragedy, that flatness after so much upheaval, emotion and intrusion is surely representative of real life, as well as signalling a return to the status quo – which, for some, is frustrating and undesirable after the promise of so much more…