Book Review: Wolf Hollow
Dec. 30th, 2017 03:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI found Lauren Wolk’s Wolf Hollow such a page turner that I took it to work with me so I could finish reading it on my breaks (and then stretched my lunch just a bit for that purpose), but now that I’ve finished and gotten a bit more distance from it, I’m starting to see more flaws, which I cannot discuss without spoilers so…
Now that she was gone, Betty reminded me of the April cold snaps that kept my father up all night, feeding bonfires in the peach orchard to save the tender blossoms from freezing... It seemed to me that Betty had been both the flower and the frost.
So our heroine Annabelle muses at Betty Glengarry’s funeral. It’s a beautiful eulogy, and absolutely breathtaking in how utterly poorly it describes Betty Glengarry, who was a horrible bully and never displayed one single redeeming peach-blossom-like feature over the course of the entire story.
She threatens Annabelle in order to steal from her and then hits her with a stick when Annabelle didn’t give her enough money. She threatens to hurt Annabelle’s little brothers and then breaks a quail’s neck to show she was in good earnest. She throws a rock that puts a girl’s eye out.
Now admittedly, that was an accident: she was trying to throw a rock to hurt a kindly local German farmer because it’s World War II and Betty patriotically loathes the Germans. So basically she attempted to commit a hate crime and accidentally maimed someone instead.
And then - then! - she blames the rock-throwing on Toby, the odd but harmless drifter who has been suffering from terrible PTSD ever since World War I.
Then Betty sharpens a wire and strings it across the path so it might have sliced someone’s neck open (but don’t worry, Annabelle’s little brother runs into it first, and he’s short enough that it only gives him a nasty cut to the forehead). After that, Betty heads out to set Toby’s cabin on fire, and is only prevented when she falls into a well that was covered by leaves.
After she’s rescued, two days later, she blames Toby for throwing her down the well. This kicks off a statewide manhunt for Toby, which results in his death.
She gives every indication of being a budding psychopath. The bullying, the violence, the cruelty to animals, the attempted arson, the constant lying! And there’s no even a hint of any redeeming features the might counterbalance all that. The fact that her evil plan to commit arson ended in an accident that killed her instead seems like poetic justice. Why should I be sorry that she’s dead?
You could perhaps argue that all human beings have an inherent worth that makes their deaths worth grieving even they are lying murderous bullies who are cruel to animals. But you absolutely cannot make an argument that likens Betty Glengarry to a peach blossom.
On the flip side. Although Betty Glengarry’s death is a clear win for everyone except her poor deluded grandparents who have not yet realized that she is hellspawn, that does not mean that the community is doing something evil when they investigate her accusations against Toby. Even hellspawn have the right to protection by the law. “I have no proof, but she’s a bad girl and Toby’s a nice man and therefore she must be lying when she says he hurt her” is a despicable message.
The book would have been stronger, and might have actually deserved that To Kill a Mockingbird comparison excerpted from a review, if someone - it doesn’t need to be Toby, but someone - had thrown Betty down that well. If Annabelle had to grapple with the fact that Betty, whom she loathed (with enormous justification! I am right there with Annabelle in that loathing!) was telling the truth, just this once.
Or if someone had at least pointed out that it would be unjust not to investigate Betty’s accusation, even though Betty is awful, even though Toby wouldn’t hurt a fly - and pointed out, also, that it’s impossible to know that someone would never commit a crime. You simply cannot know that. Not all criminals are as obviously evil as Betty Glengarry. And even she had her grandparents fooled! They thought she would never tell a lie.
And once you’ve started saying “We’re not going to investigate your accusation, not because we have proof that it is untrue, but because we don’t like you” - that’s injustice. Where does that end? How do you decide who deserves legal protection and who doesn’t?
I think the book thinks it’s striking a blow against injustice against homeless mentally ill transients, but actually what it ends up doing is reifying rape culture. Bad girls who make accusations ought to be ignored!
On the bright side, finishing this book means that I have finished all my reading challenges for 2017! I read a book for each of the twelve challenges in the 2017 Reading Challenge, and I finished all the unread books that were sitting on my shelves (...and acquired some new ones; the cycle is endless), and now I’ve finished reading the 2017 Newbery Honor books. Hurrah for me!
Now that she was gone, Betty reminded me of the April cold snaps that kept my father up all night, feeding bonfires in the peach orchard to save the tender blossoms from freezing... It seemed to me that Betty had been both the flower and the frost.
So our heroine Annabelle muses at Betty Glengarry’s funeral. It’s a beautiful eulogy, and absolutely breathtaking in how utterly poorly it describes Betty Glengarry, who was a horrible bully and never displayed one single redeeming peach-blossom-like feature over the course of the entire story.
She threatens Annabelle in order to steal from her and then hits her with a stick when Annabelle didn’t give her enough money. She threatens to hurt Annabelle’s little brothers and then breaks a quail’s neck to show she was in good earnest. She throws a rock that puts a girl’s eye out.
Now admittedly, that was an accident: she was trying to throw a rock to hurt a kindly local German farmer because it’s World War II and Betty patriotically loathes the Germans. So basically she attempted to commit a hate crime and accidentally maimed someone instead.
And then - then! - she blames the rock-throwing on Toby, the odd but harmless drifter who has been suffering from terrible PTSD ever since World War I.
Then Betty sharpens a wire and strings it across the path so it might have sliced someone’s neck open (but don’t worry, Annabelle’s little brother runs into it first, and he’s short enough that it only gives him a nasty cut to the forehead). After that, Betty heads out to set Toby’s cabin on fire, and is only prevented when she falls into a well that was covered by leaves.
After she’s rescued, two days later, she blames Toby for throwing her down the well. This kicks off a statewide manhunt for Toby, which results in his death.
She gives every indication of being a budding psychopath. The bullying, the violence, the cruelty to animals, the attempted arson, the constant lying! And there’s no even a hint of any redeeming features the might counterbalance all that. The fact that her evil plan to commit arson ended in an accident that killed her instead seems like poetic justice. Why should I be sorry that she’s dead?
You could perhaps argue that all human beings have an inherent worth that makes their deaths worth grieving even they are lying murderous bullies who are cruel to animals. But you absolutely cannot make an argument that likens Betty Glengarry to a peach blossom.
On the flip side. Although Betty Glengarry’s death is a clear win for everyone except her poor deluded grandparents who have not yet realized that she is hellspawn, that does not mean that the community is doing something evil when they investigate her accusations against Toby. Even hellspawn have the right to protection by the law. “I have no proof, but she’s a bad girl and Toby’s a nice man and therefore she must be lying when she says he hurt her” is a despicable message.
The book would have been stronger, and might have actually deserved that To Kill a Mockingbird comparison excerpted from a review, if someone - it doesn’t need to be Toby, but someone - had thrown Betty down that well. If Annabelle had to grapple with the fact that Betty, whom she loathed (with enormous justification! I am right there with Annabelle in that loathing!) was telling the truth, just this once.
Or if someone had at least pointed out that it would be unjust not to investigate Betty’s accusation, even though Betty is awful, even though Toby wouldn’t hurt a fly - and pointed out, also, that it’s impossible to know that someone would never commit a crime. You simply cannot know that. Not all criminals are as obviously evil as Betty Glengarry. And even she had her grandparents fooled! They thought she would never tell a lie.
And once you’ve started saying “We’re not going to investigate your accusation, not because we have proof that it is untrue, but because we don’t like you” - that’s injustice. Where does that end? How do you decide who deserves legal protection and who doesn’t?
I think the book thinks it’s striking a blow against injustice against homeless mentally ill transients, but actually what it ends up doing is reifying rape culture. Bad girls who make accusations ought to be ignored!
On the bright side, finishing this book means that I have finished all my reading challenges for 2017! I read a book for each of the twelve challenges in the 2017 Reading Challenge, and I finished all the unread books that were sitting on my shelves (...and acquired some new ones; the cycle is endless), and now I’ve finished reading the 2017 Newbery Honor books. Hurrah for me!
