I just finished reading Brian Carter’s "A Black Fox Running", and I wish I’d known about it before I made my xenofiction video, because it is easily one of the greatest animal novels I’ve ever read. There’s a good chance I’ll end up covering it with a video of its own someday, but I thought I’d spread the word here with a little review in the meantime.
Set in rural England shortly after World War II, "A Black Fox Running" follows the life of Wulfgar (the titular black fox) and a number of others of his kind living around Dartmoor as they go about their lives, frequently coming into conflict with a local trapper. It takes the classic structure of an English “fox in foxhunting country” story, but mixes an unflinching level of realism akin to Mannix’s "The Fox and the Hound" with the mythic cultural anthropomorphizing of Adams’ "Watership Down" , and wraps it all in prose as beautiful as J.A. Baker’s "The Peregrine".
The foxes of the novel have myths and religious practices, observing omens in the natural world and receiving visions from their deity, Tod, in the stars, revering death by the local Hunt as the noble “Good Death.” But they also fight, kill, mate, groom, mark territory and relieve themselves in the manner of wild animals. Carter shifts from human to animal perspectives, and between differing species in the case of the latter, with an ease and grace that emphasizes the connected and diverse nature of all living things, tying into the eastern-inspired mysticism present in the foxes’ beliefs. And while the primary antagonist of the novel, Leonard Scoble, is portrayed as a foul-tempered, misanthropic hunter traumatized by his experiences in the First World War, even his characterization remains distinctly nuanced.
Throughout it all, Carter’s prose remains among the most beautiful I have ever read, evocative and fluid while remaining easy to digest and never overstaying its welcome—just see this passage from early on in the novel, where the sickly fox Runeheath is run down by the hounds of the Hunt:
"Numbness cancelled out the sudden flash of fear and beyond the black silence of Lancer’s jaws the country of abundant game and eternal summer moonlight opened to receive him. The crash of hound clamour ended as the beasts milled around the body Runeheath had left behind."
Apparently, the novel was originally published back in 1981, and then mostly forgotten about before being reprinted only a few years ago (with an excellent foreword by an author who was originally inspired by this novel). I highly, <highly> recommend this for anyone interested in xenofiction.
(By the way, shout out to mrspectrum, the commenter who recommended this to me.)
Cardinal West
I just finished reading Brian Carter’s "A Black Fox Running", and I wish I’d known about it before I made my xenofiction video, because it is easily one of the greatest animal novels I’ve ever read. There’s a good chance I’ll end up covering it with a video of its own someday, but I thought I’d spread the word here with a little review in the meantime.
Set in rural England shortly after World War II, "A Black Fox Running" follows the life of Wulfgar (the titular black fox) and a number of others of his kind living around Dartmoor as they go about their lives, frequently coming into conflict with a local trapper. It takes the classic structure of an English “fox in foxhunting country” story, but mixes an unflinching level of realism akin to Mannix’s "The Fox and the Hound" with the mythic cultural anthropomorphizing of Adams’ "Watership Down" , and wraps it all in prose as beautiful as J.A. Baker’s "The Peregrine".
The foxes of the novel have myths and religious practices, observing omens in the natural world and receiving visions from their deity, Tod, in the stars, revering death by the local Hunt as the noble “Good Death.” But they also fight, kill, mate, groom, mark territory and relieve themselves in the manner of wild animals. Carter shifts from human to animal perspectives, and between differing species in the case of the latter, with an ease and grace that emphasizes the connected and diverse nature of all living things, tying into the eastern-inspired mysticism present in the foxes’ beliefs. And while the primary antagonist of the novel, Leonard Scoble, is portrayed as a foul-tempered, misanthropic hunter traumatized by his experiences in the First World War, even his characterization remains distinctly nuanced.
Throughout it all, Carter’s prose remains among the most beautiful I have ever read, evocative and fluid while remaining easy to digest and never overstaying its welcome—just see this passage from early on in the novel, where the sickly fox Runeheath is run down by the hounds of the Hunt:
"Numbness cancelled out the sudden flash of fear and beyond the black silence of Lancer’s jaws the country of abundant game and eternal summer moonlight opened to receive him. The crash of hound clamour ended as the beasts milled around the body Runeheath had left behind."
Apparently, the novel was originally published back in 1981, and then mostly forgotten about before being reprinted only a few years ago (with an excellent foreword by an author who was originally inspired by this novel). I highly, <highly> recommend this for anyone interested in xenofiction.
(By the way, shout out to mrspectrum, the commenter who recommended this to me.)
3 years ago (edited) | [YT] | 99