The Vorrh (2007) by Brian Catling (credited as B. Catling) is a fantastically imaginative book, but also a troubling one. The language is bright and inventive, and the characters–an unstoppable hunter, a cyclops raised by wooden robots in search of wider experience, and a massive and all-consuming forest (The Vorrh of the title) will stay with you, as will many of the smaller touches.
The troubling part is the essentially colonial structure of the narrative: the Vorrh itself is taken from Raymond Roussel‘s Impressions of Africa (Roussel is a character in the book, as is photographer Eadweard Muybridge–whose name is spelled in many combinations throughout both the book and real life history–and, I believe, several other European artists of the late 19th/early 20th century), and the underlying skeleton of the book owes far too much to colonial tropes to be comfortable: the incomprehensibility of the natives, Africa itself as a dark mystery waiting to be seen and experienced by outside explorers, etc.
The book is engrossing and deeply creative, and deserving of the praise it has received for its originality and its emotional impact. But it also deserves critique and analysis, and a cautious reminder that the use of set and setting in fiction does indeed carry historical and political weight along with it.
It is worth reading.
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Catling is marvelously inventive with language, with descriptions that often make effective use of nouns as verbs and vice-versa, without ever seeming show-offy in doing so. I am envious of writers who are able to bend the rules of grammar successfully: it takes a confidence and a creativity with which I struggle.