Lavie Tidhar’s British history/mythology/fantasy mashup The Hood, out now from Head of Zeus, is quite frankly batshit crazy. The second book (following By Force Alone) of his ‘Anti-Matter of Britain Quartet’, it’s a wild reinterpretation of the legends of Robin Hood by way of the Knights Templar, the Murder Ballads, fairy tales, fantasy and a shitload of narcotic fungi – it’s totally bizarre, but weirdly compelling. Set across a strangely distended span of decades and taking in everywhere from the city of Nottingham and the surrounding Sherwood Forest to York, London, the Holy Land and Faerie, it begins with the ill-fated kidnapping of Maid Marian and goes on to feature traumatised veteran Will Scarlett, perma-baffled knight Richard at the Lee, the harpist Alan-a-dale, a Jewish drug mastermind named Rebecca, a succession of Sheriffs of Nottingham, and all manner of other weird and wonderful hoods in the woods.
Despite the title, while the character of Robin Hood is there in the background it’s various other characters in his orbit who form the focus of this tale. Blending all manner of influences into a single bizarre, hallucinatory whole, Tidhar populates this mind-bending story with a host of messed-up characters set to the backdrop of a blur of historical names and events, a creepy depiction of Nottingham (particularly its murky grey light known as Gloomph) and the sinister Sherwood Forest, strangely dilated time and the overlapping boundaries between the human world and Faerie. If anything it’s arguably Maid Marian who holds the real power, ancient and terrifying in the depths of Sherwood Forest, while the Merry Men are largely haunted veterans of the Crusades hopped up on hallucinogens with Robin as the vague, nebulous figurehead. The actual viewpoint characters are largely on the fringes of both worlds, caught up in a never ending cycle of fairytale magic and misery.
Will, Richard, Alan and Rebecca (and, briefly, a Sheriff of Nottingham) provide a series of varyingly reliable perspectives on events, with Richard’s chapters told by way of drug-fuelled and heavily redacted letters to his employer, the Bishop of York. These changing POVs, with their different voices and stylistic approaches, give the book a slightly disjointed air that somehow suits the narrative, going off on frequently bizarre tangents but always coming back to questions of power and freedom, with a healthy side order of revenge and an unhealthy amount of drug-fuelled benders. It’s a lot of fun following these characters through their strange adventures and exploring 12th/13th century Britain – where else would you ever read about the Crusades, the practical difficulties of Christian relic hunting, the economics of the medieval drug trade, and the nature of British magic, all in one place?
Tidhar remains resolutely irreverent throughout, having fun with juxtaposing modern language against historical events and characters, and cheerfully borrowing from anything and everything to make up this crazy but highly entertaining melange of ideas and influences. It’s not always easy to keep track of exactly what’s going on or keep up a sense of momentum with so many ideas all over the place, and some sentences, paragraphs or even whole chapters might require a second reading to fully comprehend. There’s just such lovely use of language here though, and such a fascinating blend of traditional cyclical storytelling with modern sensibilities, that somehow the whole thing hangs together despite all the oddities. If you’re at all interested in British history, in the myths and legends that surround Robin Hood, Nottingham and Sherwood Forest, in the blending of fantasy and fairytales with history and mythology, this deviously imaginative, foul-mouthed, violent, funny, downright strange but strangely captivating novel is well worth checking out.
Many thanks to Head of Zeus and Lavie Tidhar for sending me a review copy of The Hood, in exchange for my honest review!
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