The Ephemerality of Humanity
This novel covers a vast expanse of time within an extremely limited scope of setting. Stories of a myriad collection of characters begin among Puritans and heathen Indians and end with Mr. Pibb and hippies. The land is developed and transformed and burned and frozen, but always remains. Meanwhile, the humans who occupy it come and go and each and every one of them believes their lives are unique and special. These special and unique lives are presented through a variety of literary forms, including letters, a newspaper column, and a medical evaluation. What is being presented is a cross-section of humanity, both good and bad, but ultimately insignificant within the epochal story of the land itself. The North Woods were there long before humans arrived and will still be there long after whatever fate meets the human race and whatever damage they cause. The thematic message is that we are here in the blink of an eye compared to the natural world we call home.
Historical Connectivity
The book is comprised of individual stories about people with no direct connection to each other in the sense of being an epic saga of a single family. It is the land itself which connects the stories. Nevertheless, what happens to one person in the past often shows up again to impact the lives of those in the future. The story reflects the way in which history tends to impact people. It is not the great big events of the past that we stumble across a connection with but rather the finer details. The key chapter to this theme is a self-explanatory one titled “An Address to the Historical Society of Western Massachusetts” which exemplifies how the visceral events which impacted the lives of those in the past eventually become fodder for entertainment in the present. Likewise, the elements of that natural world which are lost to progress often remain behind in the form of artistic expressions such as paintings or photographs or literary descriptions.
Paradise Lost
The book begins with two young lovers defying their Puritanical governance and being banished, their names crossed out from existence and never to be spoken again by remaining members of the community. Thus begins a persistent allegorical connection to the little patch of land that is the setting of this novel being an Eden which is gradually corrupted. Apples are of integral significance to the narrative to the point that one chapter title even references the memoirs of an “apple-man.” Like the Bible to which it connects, the stories are self-contained but thematically connected and follow a path from Edenic purity to corruption not just of man but of nature. The arrival of humankind on this previous pristine patch ultimately results in a blight for chestnuts and Dutch Elm disease for the trees. The thematic message warns that wherever humans go, destruction is guaranteed to follow.
