John Pipkin, Woodsburner
John Pipkin’s first novel, Woodsburner, is not only a good story that is beautifully written, but it is also a fictional account of an actual historical event that in fact may provide new insights into an important American writer. A year before Henry David Thoreau went off to live in the woods at Walden Pond, he accidentally started a fire that destroyed three hundred acres of forest near Concord, Massachusetts. The novel is wholly centered on that fateful day—30 April 1844—and Pipkin weaves the facts known about the fire and its destruction with the lives of fictional characters who were involved in one way or another in that conflagration. In uniting these facts with the supposed impact of the fire on a select group of the citizens of Concord, Pipkin not only adds to the myth of the father of American environmentalism, but also tells the story of a young nation in a unique and memorable way.
Thoreau himself is perhaps of necessity the main character of Woodsburner, but he shares the stage with fascinating characters whose stories are in and of themselves compelling and give a panoramic picture of the life in one town in antebellum America. There is a bookseller who most of all wants to be a playwright, who spends his entire life on a melodramatic piece that he can never bring to fruition, who supplements his income by adding a line of pornographic pictures to his wares. There is a fire-and-brimstone Unitarian preacher whose secret vice is opium—as well as the fear that faith is a sham and that nothing awaits after death. There are two Bohemian lesbians who have escaped incarceration for their love in the old world to begin life anew together in the new world. And, most endearingly of all, there is Oddmund Hus, a Norwegian immigrant whose father accidentally burned up the ship that had brought him and his family to the new world as it sat in Boston Harbor waiting to dock, forcing young Odd to face the new world alone.
Throughout it all is Thoreau, who starts the fire, watches in fascination as it burns, tries to put it out himself, sends for help to Concord, and fears retribution for his deed. Alternately, throughout the day, as he studies the fire, muses on the fire in his own philosophical way, and attempts to extinguish it, Thoreau frets about his future and wonders if life has nothing more in store for him than work in his father’s pencil factory. It was several years later that Thoreau wrote some of the most famous words in American literature: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." To read Woodsburner is to invite speculation on the accuracy of Thoreau’s words explaining his two years at Walden Pond. Was there something else—the memory of the conflagration—that necessitated ongoing expiation by this exile?
Woodsburner is thus not only a fresh, new insight into one of America’s important writers but also a fine novel that you will not want to end and an introduction to characters who will stay with you long after the novel is put aside.
John Pipkin’s first novel, Woodsburner, is not only a good story that is beautifully written, but it is also a fictional account of an actual historical event that in fact may provide new insights into an important American writer. A year before Henry David Thoreau went off to live in the woods at Walden Pond, he accidentally started a fire that destroyed three hundred acres of forest near Concord, Massachusetts. The novel is wholly centered on that fateful day—30 April 1844—and Pipkin weaves the facts known about the fire and its destruction with the lives of fictional characters who were involved in one way or another in that conflagration. In uniting these facts with the supposed impact of the fire on a select group of the citizens of Concord, Pipkin not only adds to the myth of the father of American environmentalism, but also tells the story of a young nation in a unique and memorable way.
Thoreau himself is perhaps of necessity the main character of Woodsburner, but he shares the stage with fascinating characters whose stories are in and of themselves compelling and give a panoramic picture of the life in one town in antebellum America. There is a bookseller who most of all wants to be a playwright, who spends his entire life on a melodramatic piece that he can never bring to fruition, who supplements his income by adding a line of pornographic pictures to his wares. There is a fire-and-brimstone Unitarian preacher whose secret vice is opium—as well as the fear that faith is a sham and that nothing awaits after death. There are two Bohemian lesbians who have escaped incarceration for their love in the old world to begin life anew together in the new world. And, most endearingly of all, there is Oddmund Hus, a Norwegian immigrant whose father accidentally burned up the ship that had brought him and his family to the new world as it sat in Boston Harbor waiting to dock, forcing young Odd to face the new world alone.
Throughout it all is Thoreau, who starts the fire, watches in fascination as it burns, tries to put it out himself, sends for help to Concord, and fears retribution for his deed. Alternately, throughout the day, as he studies the fire, muses on the fire in his own philosophical way, and attempts to extinguish it, Thoreau frets about his future and wonders if life has nothing more in store for him than work in his father’s pencil factory. It was several years later that Thoreau wrote some of the most famous words in American literature: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." To read Woodsburner is to invite speculation on the accuracy of Thoreau’s words explaining his two years at Walden Pond. Was there something else—the memory of the conflagration—that necessitated ongoing expiation by this exile?
Woodsburner is thus not only a fresh, new insight into one of America’s important writers but also a fine novel that you will not want to end and an introduction to characters who will stay with you long after the novel is put aside.
1 comment:
Great review! Makes me want to read it. Thanks.
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