Customer Reviews

Duncton Wood

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hi. Glad you found this. I can't help finding it really depressing that one of the greatest books of the 20th century goes unnoticed in Amazon's huge databank by all the readers out there. It's the saddest thing I've ever heard of. "The Worm Ouroborus" has more reviews under it, and it has far more reason to sink down into the depths of ignominy. This is really pathetic. Someone, anyone who has read this book and knows how good it is, please write a review. Or better yet, if you haven't read this book, go out and buy a copy, even if you have to go to Europe to get one, read it, and write the review. Whatever it takes, there have got to be more entries here.

For those of you who haven't read "Duncton Wood" and want some info, whether it has any effect or not, here it is.

This is an animal story. Anyone who has ever read and loved "Watership Down", scope this book. I am not saying the two are anything alike, but you people are likely to be more open to an adult fantasy in which the characters are all animals--moles in fact.

This is a love story. It is about two moles, Bracken and Rebecca, and the trials and tribulations they undergo to finally be together.

It is a story about a society, the venerable system of Duncton Wood, which is slowly falling into decay, becomes a dictatorship under Mandrake, a truly awesome character(in the biblical sense of the word "awesome"), is reborn as a struggling young community under Bracken, and grows to become the great system which is the focus of five more brilliant books.

Most importantly in the long run, it is the story of a quest, physically and spiritually, for a stone, the Stone of Silence.

This is a book with well realized characters, a gripping plot, beautiful lyrical passages, humour, tragedy, and a lot more.

It is the first book of a series which, if you give it a chance, will have immense implications for your future, in fact for your whole life, and I'm not just being a gushing, enthusiastic fan here. This series is quite literally of biblical importance.

Of course in all probability no one's going to listen to me as what I'm saying is so typical, which is a crying shame. Because every word is true, and few will ever know.

I haven't given away much of the plot, which may have been a mistake. Maybe it would draw some readers at the cost of the amazing experience of falling into this remarkable book without already knowing too much of the story. I leave that to the discretion of future reviewers, for whose appearance I have, regretfully, not much hope.

I draw to a close, disheartened and genuinely dubious of any effect this review may have had. This book, this entire series, is one I feel passionately about, and would rate it a 10 if I hadn't sworn to reserve that honor for the ultimate book, if such a creature exists. Hell, maybe this is it. I wouldn't be too surprised.

To any who may find this, I leave it up to you. If I haven't scared you off with this "Give one for the Gipper" speech("He's wacko--I'm getting out of here!")I'm not trying to preach. Give "Duncton Wood", give the entire Duncton series a chance. Your life may never be the same.

"Duncton Wood" is a very difficult book to describe, not because it's not about anything but because it's basically about everything. Adventure, love, hate, destiny, terror, the mechanics of how evil arises both within a society and within an individual, romance, play, disaster, the clash of species, hope, faith, mystery, abyss-deep horror, nature and character. And it's all from the perspective of moles. Not utensil-using, clothes-wearing, machine-building moles, but real, furry, tunnel-burrowing moles. There are a few unorthodox speculations - they know how to use herbs for medicinal purposes, they have stacks of bark chips whose scratches across the surface are the moles's own written history, etc. - but they are not 'little humans in mole form'. Centering around two moles in particular from their infancies onward, Bracken and Rebecca (yes, one of the main themes of this novel is a romance between two moles, and no, it's not remotely a children's book), it nonetheless has an extremely wide and diverse cast - studious, faith-rich, quietly brave scribe-mole Boswell, the devious and unspeakably evil Rune, the small, tender, and enderaingly-nervous Comfrey, the nurturing Rose, and the living darkness that is Mandrake, to name a few. The only novel that equals "Duncton Wood" in array of all-time great characters is "The Gnole".

Written with tremendous skill and heart, with surprises and not some but many of the most memorable scenes in the history of the written word, "Duncton Wood" is indispensable for fans of the novel format of storytelling. Total excellence.

I remember reading this book over fifteen years ago, but (sorry to say) I could barely remember any of the details of the story. I could only remember that it was the story of two moles, Bracken and Rebecca, and how they brought peace, prosperity, and other assorted good things to their "system", as Horwood calls it - the title, Duncton Wood. The book has long been out of print in this country, so I despaired of ever getting my hands on a copy again.

Well, a few years ago, I was on vacation in England, and was very pleasantly surprised to discover that Duncton Wood was still in print there. Not only that, but it was the first book in a series about the moles of Duncton, and all of them (according to the local reviews) were just as good as the first! Sad to say, I didn't take the opportunity to buy those books then, but I recently managed to get my hands on a copy of Duncton Wood through one of Amazon's European competitors. I'm only halfway through it now, but it's just as good the second time around.

This is as basic a story as you can get about good vs. evil, and there are very few who tell it better than Horwood. There are definite religious elements in this story (and, I assume, in the sequels as well), but who cares when the story is written this well?

I look forward to finishing Duncton Wood, and to getting my hands on the sequels. Unfortunately, Amazon apparently only deals with American publishers, so they can't get their hands on any of them - so this is a very blunt hint to the American publishing establishment: get off your duffs and get the American publishing rights to these books! If the reviews here are any indication, you'll more than make your money back (and earn the grateful thanks of the American reading public besides)!

There is something unexplainable about Duncton Wood. It is quite simply and purely more "human" than any book I've read that relies on homo sapien characters.

These <i>moles</i> can make you cry and laugh and love and hate and so many subtle things in between. You will not be the same after reading this book. It won't make you a "mole lover" or anything silly like that, but it will make you look at life with a certain sense of beauty and mystery that may not have been there before. I rediscovered this book in a used book store 10 years after reading it the first time. I found my eyes watering while i was standing there in the store, just from the flood of memories that came from reading this book about <i>moles.</i>

I was amazed when I found all these reviews of Duncton Wood! I finished this book so long ago and always loved it so much. The story is superb and it is so incredibly well thought out. I always told myself that when I have a son I will name him Bracken because this book has given that name such power and depth of character. My wife at the time balked at first but now Bracken is 7 years old and starting to read novels. I want to give him his own copy of Duncton wood but since it is out of print(WHY?) I will be glad to give him my much cherished hardback copy that I have kept close by all these years. We have started to read it together and it almost brings me to tears when his eyes light up as he discovers for himself the epic struggles of Bracken and the other Duncton moles! My 5 year old daughter wants to know why we did not name her Rebecca!(her mom put her foot down on that one!) Also I have moles living in and around my place and I just leave them be. Its almost as if they know that I love this book and will not try to get rid of them! I have a feeling that I am not the only Duncton fan that this has happened with. Anyways if you love great well written stories, than this is the book to get (if you can) It has obviously had a great impact on so many peoples lives, mine included. I feel that it has enriched my life and I cant say that about too many books.

I've never read any books that moved me as much as the chronicles about the Duncton moles. For the first time when I put down a book after reading the last few pages, I didn't mind it being finished. It felt.. complete. And I was in a bliss for hours.
I know I will read these books over and over, over the years to come, and I have a feeling I'll learn something new each time

Hi. I'm a 16 year old high school sophomore. I read the Duncton Chronicles for the first time when I was ten and my family found them at a yard sale in Portugal. WHY anyone in their right minds would want to SELL this fabulous book is beyond me, and I feel the same way about Duncton Quest and Duncton Found. These books changed my life, and even at ten I was able to appreciate their mysterious beauty. IT IS A DISGRACE that these books aren't more of a success in the US. I thank God that I was fortunate enough to discover them.

Oh, about that 1 star review? Ever notice how trolls can't spell and have terrible grammer? (Hee hee)

As all the other reviews stated, this book changed my life. I have read all six in the series and each is as good as the next. I still have them all (gifts from friends overseas) and will read them again as soon as I can. I read Duncton Wood many years ago and still can picture the images in my mind that it conjured up! What an incredible story! Last I heard, William Horwood, was doing talks in England. Try and find the other books. If the first caught all your attention, the others will too.

I am disappointed in the existing reviews of this novel, a number of which say it as good as or better than Watership Down. I thought it was not nearly as good, but I wouldn't have bothered to write this if the other reviews hadn't seemed so over the top.

Watership Down has a story of simple survival that is easily understood as something that would drive a group of rabbits to heroics: the need to find a safe place to live, mate, and raise new generations of bunnies. The mythology that Adams created also seems appropriate to the setting: concrete stories of a cunning rabbit who lives by his wits and serves as a role model for the real rabbits.

In Duncton Wood, the core plot driver is the religious quest. The moles revere and pray to neolithic standing stones that have some kind of magic power to protect and heal, but it was all rather vague and banal. The central theme of the book was the need to find and understand the stones, and set to rights the spiritual balance that had been lost due to neglect and the actions of evil moles. But the stones are human artifacts, and the book raises more questions than it answers. What exactly are the moles worshipping? What is their power, and where did it come from? The story seemed to include a hodgepodge picked from different religious traditions--paganism (the standing stones), Christianity (holy scribemoles), eastern mysticism (martial arts master)--but they didn't jell into anything that made sense to me.

I guess it is this aspect that other reviewers reacted to so positively, but to me it smacked of new age spiritualism, emphasizing feeling over rational thinking and solid underpinnings of moral precepts. It is possible that I am badly misreading the author's intentions--I only skimmed the last two hundred pages, but by that time I'd had as much as I could stand and didn't care.

Another issue is the level of anthropomorphism. Any book about a society of talking animals is, by definition, an anthropomorphic fantasy, but the spectrum includes both the unapologetically almost-human animals of the Redwall series, with their clothes and swords and buildings, and the rabbits of Watership Down, living with no technology in holes in the ground. I enjoyed both of those, for different reasons.)

But Duncton Wood can't seem to decide where on the spectrum it wants to be. The moles live in holes in the ground and eat worms and have mating fights like real moles, but also use sophisticated technology (writing). They have other human-like attributes, such as marking the passage of time with rituals on the solstices. We aren't given any explanations, we are just asked to engage in willing suspension of disbelief and accept that moles living in tunnels in the ground would read and care for books (on pieces of bark, yes, but still books.)

That alone might have been OK, but there were too many other things that called for similar suspensions of disbelief. Language, in particular, was a constant irritant. It makes sense that moles in systems separated by long distance and time would develop different dialects, but the "strange, harsh tongue, the language of Siabod" turned out to be Welsh. Welsh? And did the mole from the marsh have to sound like a Cockney dockhand (bloody 'ell)? The use of human names (Sarah, Rebecca, Boswell, etc.) scattered in among the nature-based names was also jarring.

There were other problems; this is just a sample: The purported romance was not compelling. The incest made my skin crawl. There was far too much text telling us how brave or loving or resourceful this or that mole was (particularly how wonderful Rebecca was), rather than showing us so we could make up our own minds. Moles are practically blind, yet there were long passages about moles seeing--the beauty of the flowers, etc. The worst, however, was the description of Bracken seeing (and recognizing) a carving of an owl's face. UNDERGROUND. Yeah, sure.

I don't want to give the impression that this is a bad book. It's not. I've encountered many that were much worse. It's flabby, but not badly written. It was the author's first novel, and it shows, but there are some beautiful passages in it. But it's not a very good book, either, and just not worth the time.

Duncton Wood is home to one of the seven great systems of the mole world. Many years before the book opens, the system was based at the highest point of the wood, in the shadows of the wood's standing Stone. The Stone was of vital importance at the time, with the system's religious beliefs centred on it. However, in time, the system slowly migrated down the hill - to the point where, now, nomole now lives in the Ancient System. Traditionally, the system's moles travel up the slopes to pray to the Stone on the Longest and Shortest Nights, though few now hold the Stone in any real regard.

Within the modern system, there are a few different districts - each with its own distinct personality. The Westside is home to the biggest, strongest moles while the moles who live on the Eastside are less aggressive, though stockier and better burrowers. The Marshenders, somewhat unfairly, are considered a suspicious, untrustworthy and unhealthy grouping - though the damp soil doesn't make it an ideal area for the average mole. Where the Stone was the natural centre of the Ancient System, Barrow Vale is considered the centre of the modern system. Close to the Elder Burrows, it's free from predators and is considered `neutral' territory.

Life takes a turn for the worse when Mandrake arrives. Originally from Siabod, he arrives from over the Pastures and makes straight for Barrow Vale. Big, strong and vicious, he kills any mole that stands in his way and - when he disposes of one of the Elders - quickly appoints himself as the replacement. Having effectively installed himself as Duncton Wood's leader, the mood of the system becomes a becomes tinged with fear and suspicion. Mandrake more or less operates a system of `divide and conquer' - any contact between the system's different wings is discouraged and movement to the surface is restricted. While some of the elders pledge their support - most notably the malignant, poisonous Rune and the aggressive bully Burrhead - Mandrake doesn't receive full support from the Elders. The ban on the Midsummer and Midwinter pilgrimages to the Stone meets with open opposition from Hulver - an aged mole who is very loyal to the old traditions. Mandrake's constant attacks on the Marshenders, on the other hand, leaves Mekkins unsettled - although he proves to be a little more circumspect than Hulver, he later has a significant role to play.

Things aren't entirely hopeless, though - two moles emerge who may be capable of restoring some light to the system. However, it's maybe a little surprising which two moles provide the hope. One is Bracken, the son of Burrhead. Although physically a little weak, Bracken proves to be not only brave and intelligent, but also a natural explorer - and, from his earliest days, has a great deal of curiosity about the Ancient System. When he eventually leaves the home burrow, he naturally makes his way up the slopes towards the Stone - where he meets Hulver for the first time. Hulver teaches him a great deal about the Stone, the Ancient System and the Holy Burrows at Uffington. The other mole to bring some hope is Rebecca - amazingly, she is Mandrake's favourite daughter. Initially, she isn't entirely popular - many resent her honoured position, and there are those who suffer at Mandrake's claws to make her life a little easier. However, in time, her kindness, patience and love win over all who meet her. Naturally, the pair can't make it alone - and they receive a great deal of help from others - most notably Hulver, Mekkins, Rose the Healer and Boswell, a Scribemole from Uffington.

While the comparison with "Watership Down" is maybe a little obvious, it's certainly a worthwhile comparison - there are certain similarities between some of the characters. Mandrake and General Woundwort have quite a bit in common - as do Comfrey and Fiver, Stonecrop and Bigwig while there's possibly even a touch of both Hazel and Fiver about Bracken. Although a pretty long book, it is an easily read and enjoyable book at the same time.