1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
vivid, November 4, 2010
The lush depiction of wild Ontario (Canada) and the characters' subjectivities create a vivid realism in THE HEALER. The main character's mourning flows as a leitmotif throughout the novel and, as in music, I anticipated and enjoyed its repetition of subtle shifts and variations. Hollingshead's use of language is rich and playful, evoking fresh descriptions that surprise me. I was dependent upon individual character's perceptions for my passage throughout the story, lost at times and never rescued, deus ex machina, by an authoritative narrator tidying things up for me -- I thought that this was brilliant as it kept me viscerally engaged in the novel's tension and mystery throughout.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Resisting Representation, October 24, 2010
"The Healer" is an intriguing work of art that takes place between language and experience. Unfinished conversations, ruptured continuities, traumatic symbiosis, obsession, and self-forgiveness are themes embedded in a non-linear narrative that is rich in emotion and intensity.
Under the guise of checking out country property, the widower embarks on a journey to a small town in search of the healer Caroline. In the process of finding Caroline, interacting with her, and experiencing a strange chain of events with her, the widower's consciousness disintegrates along with his memories. He finds himself amidst the whirlwind of long-suppressed emotions while Caroline is held hostage by incomprehensible forces of repressed memories. His psychological breakdown synchronizes with hers. Their dialogues are codified metaphors within metaphors that fiercely resist linear codification--the reader is invited to participate in an intriguing, sublime, and utterly disorienting roller coaster.
It's a paradox: the wound healer humanizes the wounded by making space for pain for him while the wounded humanizes the wound healer by making space from pain for her. The narrator is an alchemist in every sense of the word: the grim natural landscape becomes a brooding ground for magic; the widower's bleak internal landscape thunders back to life with a strange sensation that resembles hope but is not quite hope.
Greg Hollingshead is an artisan of words and a master of atmosphere. Vulnerability, cruelty, and unfathomable grief are beautifully woven into his lyrical prose. Although overwhelmingly intense at times, Hollingshead's portrayal of the characters and the surreal dreamscape they inhabit is nothing short of brilliant. An unforgettable read.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT AN EXHAUSTING READ..., September 26, 2001
Holding the book in your hand, or as closely as you can, you are suddenly, unexplicably aware of how close you can be and yet still be separated from the physicality of its existence, the glossy surface through which appears the cover design and the words, the chemical compunds which make up the ink, the paper itself produced by methods of which those outside the industry know little more than the shadow-remembrances from their social studies classes and discussions of manufacturing, the great trees cut and mulched and pulped, the paper wound onto enormous rolls and shipped to the printers, cut to size and prepared for the presses, stamped mechanically and mercilessly with the ink, bound and fitted and trimmed and glued and wrapped and boxed, the product it has become touted and promoted and sold and shipped and sold again.
I could go on...
Holligshead's style is -- how shall I say -- a BIT overly decriptive. When I read one of the editorial reviews of this novel, I thought the writer's complaint about the detailed description of the breakfast plate was a little picky. Upon reading this book, I relaize that this example was only the tip of the iceberg.
Still, it's a good story, and the main characters are interesting, if not necessarily admirable. Caroline Troyer, the healer of the title, is extraordinary -- and Tim Wakelin, the recently-widowed reporter who has come to the small town on the Canadian Shield to meet and write about her, is very believable as a man searching blindly for a way to get over the loss of his wife and find some meaning in his life. Ross Troyer, Caroline's father, is both despicable and pitiable -- he is a classic case of someone who is so ignorant of the forces that move him through life that he hasn't a clue about the damage he does. Several of the other characters seem to be little more than excuses for intermittent interaction.
I had to force myself through this novel -- although I'll admit that it got easier about 2/3 of the way through it. I suppose in the end it was worth it to follow these characters' story through to its conclusion, but I don't know how heatily I can recommend this book. The author's verbosely overburdened style made it the literary equivalent of slogging through ankle-deep mud, uphill -- reading it actually made me tired.
I've read plenty of books in my life in which sentences (and descriptions) went on for pages and pages -- Garbiel Garcia Marquez comes to mind. In the case of Garcia Marquez's writing, the passages were absolutely alive with light. In the case of THE HEALER, it only added to my ability to share with the characters the hopelessness of being lost in the Canadian woods, trudging forward out of instinct, not knowing where or when I would come out of it.
If you're appreciative of writing that can do absolute wonders with an amazing economy of words, read William Trevor or Mark Salzman.
I've got to rest now...
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