This is an absolutely recommendable book. The narration is clean and clear but full of subtextual, symbolic meaning. It digs into depth as you sail freely and easily along its course. One of those books that seems too short once you reach the end, leaving you wanting to stay with it just a bit longer, like any meaningful life… but that would have to be, for this work is an allegory of the meaningful life.
The story drifts languidly and nostalgicly, immersing us in a timeless world. It begins bright and green, although even that naive start is already fogged by an ever present melancholy. Innocence is greyed as we drift through tremendous hope and promise and the journey is a movement away from the little tragedies of the past into the intuition of much greater future disaster. Nevertheless, The Tree Singer is always a hopeful book: full of magic and miracles, describing a reality bathed in the wonder of supernatural essences.
Ecletic in its roots: old world universal myths; myths of quests; of initiation; European, Norse and Celtic, Ancient Mediterranean, Biblical at times, with a nice dash of aboriginal songline and Dreamtime culture. A parallel with Christian myth seems sometimes strong, but Danny Fahey’s miracle maker is a more earthly figure, closer to Dionysius than Christ. Nothing can be given without suffering the draining loss that real giving causes. Ecletic yes, but everything is woven into its own universal, timeless state. In the world and time of The Tree Singer.
The book is moral, but it never preaches. As another reader commented, it reminds one of Tolkein. But it is not Tolkein, it is Danny Fahey. And we are looking forward to reading much more of this great writers work.
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