This is the sequel to the book Duncton Wood, where William Horwood first introduced the idea of moles and told us the tale of Rebecca and Bracken. Here we pick up the story with their son, Tryfan. We journey with him as he learns his task for the Stone; as he watches the rise of the Word and evil Henbane; and as he loves and loses the one mole he's destined for.As the title suggests, this novel concerns a quest - ultimately for the Stone Mole, who is prophesied to be coming to aid moledom and the Stone in their darkest hour. Tryfan is heavily involved in this coming of the Stone Mole, as he travels firstly to the Wen and meets sweet Feverfew, then goes north to Whern, the dark heart of the Word.Horwood's strength is the characters he introduces in this book. We have a large cast of extremely characterful and colourful moles, from the scribes Boswell and Tryfan to the ex-grikes Alder and Marram. I particularly love Mayweed - he, alone, grants this book an extra star above what it might have received from me. His loquacious language and wonderful vulnerability are lovely to read about. Considering the massive cast, each receives enough screentime to be well-developed and take their rightful place in the story.The same issues I had with Duncton Wood raise their heads here - there are some problems with pacing, mainly with the passage into the Wen which is both dreary in description and slow to read through. In this book a new side to this is added with the extremely loooooong monologues by Tryfan about the nature of faith and how to worship the Stone properly. I understand that his character is meant to preach the coming of the Stone Mole and lead moles to accept the Stone, but it is very dull - especially if you don't feel faith for a religion yourself.The internal consistency is all over the place, for a number of reasons. The first is that this book was clearly written when the first ended up being successful, since it seems tacked onto Duncton Wood by the most tenuous of links. The rise of the Word, the prophecies about the Stone Mole, the history of Scirpus, Rune's true nature - none of these were even hinted at in the first book, so here the information is rather thrown at the reader with large sections of exposition.I just do not get how moledays, molemonths and moleyears fit into human terms of time. Horwood had a brief go at explaining the way the moleyears are actually months for humans, but then trampled all over that logic by having Boswell and Rune survive for a ridiculous length of time.Thirdly, in the original book, it seemed very much as though Stone worship was a simple allegory for paganism, what with using standing stones as a focus and Avebury being an important system. The importance of Midsummer and Longest Night as the times that moles came out to worship in strength also lent impetus to this idea. However, in this book, I'm not entirely sure that the Stone is paganism, what with the coming of the Stone Mole, which has a huge parallel with the coming of Christ. The snoutings performed by the mole of the Word could be seen as similar to crucifictions. Basically, I'm confused! At least it is easy to tell that we need to be rooting for the moles of the Stone to succeed!Another couple of issues with the prose is that using terms such as 'somemole' and 'nomole' really jar you out of the flow of the words. Plus I had no appreciation for the simplistic and folksy rhymes that accompany healing and worship.Lastly, I had a terrible time reading some of the descriptions of the woundings done in the name of the Word, especially the graphic snoutings and the attack on Tryfan. Deeply uncomfortable. We avoided explicit sex scenes this time round, but the sighings and ecstacy and other choices of words Horwood used were just wrong!I enjoyed the book overall and will complete my read of the trilogy (the third book being Duncton Found), but I certainly don't agree with the review emblazoned on the back of my paperback copy that states this novel bears comparison with the Lord of the Rings. It most certainly doesn't, and isn't the enchanting read suggested, but it is just interesting enough.
Overall I enjoyed this book s much as the first one; it had the same feel to it, magical and enchanting yet dark and serious, with a healthy touch of comedy (mostly from the magnificent Mayweed, who is one of my favourite characters of any book). I very much look forward to getting my hands on Duncton Found.Whilst I disagree with some of the criticism on here regarding the graphic nature of some scenes, which I think helps establish the series, I do agree that there were parts where the philosophy/teachings felt a bit long-winded and perhaps could have been cut down a little bit. I also agree that it was hard to believe that two certain moles went on to live to an incredibly old age when another much younger apparently passed away from old age beforehand. I just told myself to go along with it and think that they had to hold on to life until their purpose was fulfilled or something like that!Anyway, all in all I continue to love this series that I only discovered a year or so ago and look forward to the next one. I'd give this 4.5 stars if they did halves on here.
What do You think about Duncton Quest (1989)?
Where Horwood left off with Bracken and Rebecca we pick up with Tryfan and Spindle. Mayweed may be my favorite character ever. I don't want to write much for my review, it's a slow story but ever engaging and I truly, truly loved it. I think Horwood trips himself up though when he discusses mole months and mole years, some of his moles live ridiculously long lives while others age at a more reasonable pace. However, that aside (Rune and Boswell seem to live three times as long as anyone else?) the book is terrific, the moles are full of character and love and life. The only thing I would have changed would have been some of the carrying on in the Wen. There was a lot to that part of the book that could have been done away with, unless it somehow comes back in the third book, because it wasn't necessary in the second book.
—Jennifer
Oh my, have the Duncton moles changed since Duncton Wood which was clearly intended as a stand-alone work. But since I enjoyed it so much, reading the rest of the chronicles was a given.The reader is introduced to a whole organized group of villains which call themselves followers of The Word. The graphic violence increases a whole chunk, there are many twisted nasty villains to chose from now. This is the beginning of a religious conflict between Stone followers and moles from The Word. We get oppression, persecution and genocide in graphic detail. They battle, torture, fight and kill each other a whole lot. If you do not like violence, you surely will not enjoy this book. Please to not hand it out to your children because it features cute moles or something.The rather subtle religious allegories from the first book are becoming increasingly direct. A very "human" seeming Word versus the Stone and its Silence, not quite accidentally total opposites, I might assume. I interpreted it as a more nature-drawn, primitive pagan belief as represented by the Stone VS a highly organized, preachy belief such as pretty much any monotheism represented by The Word. Well for God's sake, they SNOUT their opponents by hanging them up on barbed wire on their snouts - we even get to read a whole chapter of two characters being snouted in disturbing detail. The Christian allegory is high in this one. However, the Stone followers start talking about the coming of the ominous Stone Mole, which basically translates into Mole Jesus, and all theories collapse. I am still not sure what Horwood intended. It seemed all very inconsistent. Or maybe I am just missing his lesson in religious tolerance?Still, although these premises made me raise my eyebrow more than once, I really enjoyed this book as a great adventure tale, and less as a great allegory. Although main character Tryfan suffers from the same Mary Sue-syndrome that seems to be a passed down trait from his mother Rebecca in part one, there are Boswell, Spindle and especially Mayweed, which are interesting, flawed(!) characters.The part about evacuating the Duncton system seemed to drag along forever even for my patience with Horwood's intricate writing style, but exploring dreadful Wen, a human city from the underground mole view, was my favourite part of the book. The Slopeside labor camp was nasty and in parts sickening, but at least it gave us Mayweed, the best character of the whole trilogy. Plus, I can tell you out of reading experience, if it's a Horwood, there will be at least one character forced to cross some kind of big pile of bodies. It is as sure as the villain being involved in some kind of incest. Seems to be some kind of Horwoodian writing rule.Alas the ending is not as subtle and beautiful as in part one. Instead it features (view spoiler)[an uncomfortable sex scene whose whole point wasn't convincing to me at all. (hide spoiler)]
—Azalea
