Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Wilderness by Dean Koontz (Short story, introduction to Innocence)


Addison Goodheart is 8 and there is something very wrong with him.  His mother can hardly tolerate to look at him and sends him out into the wilderness until she can face his presence again.  She tells him the story of the midwife who, horrified by what she saw, would have killed him had his mother not pulled a knife to defend him.
One day, while wandering the woods during a banishment from the isolated cabin that is all the home he has ever known, Addison is spotted by a hunter.  The hunter, who is enraged by the sight of Addison, tracks him through the woods.
This short story is the prequel to a series which begins with the book Innocence and that was released in December 2013.  I will be adding it to my list the second I finish this review.
I adore Dean Koontz.  My favorite book of his is From the Corner of His Eye.  I am particularly pulled in by his treatment of good and evil.  No moral ambiguity for Koontz, which I find refreshing.

The Deer and the Woodcutter: A Korean Folktale by Kim So-Un


One day, a humble woodcutter saves the life of a hunted deer.  In gratitude, the deer tells the hunter how he might win a beautiful fairy as his wife.  Daily the fairies descend from heaven to bathe in a pool in the mountains.  If the woodcutter journeys to the pool he will find all of the feathery robes which belong to the fairies.  Should he take one robe and hide it, the fairy whose robe he has hidden will not be able to return to heaven and will become his wife.  The deer cautions that he must always keep the robe hidden, until the time that the fairy has given birth to four children else he will regret it. 
Folktales make me wonder, who is the person that first told this story?  What is the genesis of it?  What folktales will our grandchildren know?