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The Tale Of Raw Head And Bloody Bones (2013)

by Jack Wolf(Favorite Author)

3.15 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0143123823 (ISBN13: 9780143123828)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Penguin Books

review 1: This book is nearly too strange for words. I liked the idea of reading about a crazy guy in the 1700s but because it's written in first person that makes it impossible to weed out what's real and what's a hallucination. I understand that that's the point, but at the end I felt basically like it left it up to the reader whether the hallucinations were in fact real or not. On top of that, all the random capitalization for several words in the sentences kept throwing me out of the book for the first little while, and the older (though appropriate for the time) language also made it hard for me to understand a fair amount of the content. I then found out there is a love story in it, which I suppose is nearly inevitable in all books, but I didn't notice it mentioned on the back... more so that kind of irritated me(romance is the one genre where I would sooner hop over a cliff than read). I am also not a scientist by any means or religious at all, so all the religion and science garble was way over my head, meaning I skimmed nearly 10% of the book probably. Good idea; interesting in the beginning (Nathaniel's character intrigued me in the first chapter)but essentially a slow, plot-less feeling spiral to the ground.
review 2: Wolf's narrative voice is mesmerizing and engrossing! I loved it. It's so great when a character in a book takes you by the lapels and just drags you along into their crazy world. That's what this felt like. It's written in the style of the 18th Century, with thees and thous and phrases like, "mine heart pumpeth in my breast," (I'm probably paraphrasing, but you get the idea), which was only mildly challenging at first, and very well done. The protagonist, Tristan Hart, is an intense young surgeon who is obsessed with pain. The curing of it, as well as the infliction of it. And he's psychotic at times, raving about faeries, goblins, curses, changelings, and shape-shifters. There's a bat baby, gruesome operations, sadomasochism, whores, homoeroticism, and gypsies. What more could you want? Ultimately, Wolf is ruminating on the relationship between the body and the spirit, the existence of the soul, and the nature of god. When I first saw this book I wanted to read it because of the Siouxsie and the Banshees song, "Rawhead and Bloody Bones," but that's just silly. There are many more reasons to recommend it. ;) less

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