Cassie McCullough

And in a literary sense, he has used place as a device that people could understand.

But that didn't really connect with me in the same way.

I'm more connected with his notions of time.

Yeah.

your neural processes are not just happening in your, in your brain, you know, it's, it's in your hands necessarily.

And that's where he takes you.

Um, you know, he takes your mind outside of your brain and even your body and like, um, you know, extends it into this object, which is also kind of lovingly crafted.

Yeah.

And his love of wood and his understanding of wood that, that pervades through the entire thing.

That's not the same as my, like, I don't know, in our way, we don't see the, the heartwood of the tree as being dead, um,

You know, that's a profoundly living thing as well.

But it's a pretty brilliant book.

He's like a woke Steinbeck.

It's like Grapes of Rafa Greenies.

Well, it's not quite.

Only because of, I don't know, the era that we're in, you can't just let a metaphor be a metaphor.

or something like it's like you have to like so he's got the characters like explaining all the literary devices throughout the book they say the thing you know whereas you know in your classics they don't say the thing it's just there and you interpret the meaning you find the meaning and it's like treasure but here it's like he's just scattering that treasure all around for you which is lovely and it's not like a reflection on his work or anything that's just a mark of the times it's like literature does that now you know you don't leave things unsaid you know

It was worth it.

It was worth it.

Yeah.