Title: The Enchanted Author: Rene Denfeld
Published: March 4, 2014
Genre(s): Literary Fiction
Page Count: 233
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:The enchanted place is an ancient stone prison, viewed through the eyes of a death row inmate who finds escape in his books and in re-imagining life around him, weaving a fantastical story of the people he observes and the world he inhabits. Fearful and reclusive, he senses what others cannot. Though bars confine him every minute of every day, he marries magical visions of golden horses running beneath the prison, heat flowing like molten metal from their backs, with the devastating violence of prison life.
Two outsiders venture here: a fallen priest, and the Lady, an investigator who searches for buried information from prisoners' pasts that can save those soon-to-be-executed. Digging into the background of a killer named York, she uncovers wrenching truths that challenge familiar notions of victim and criminal, innocence and guilt, honour and corruption-ultimately revealing shocking secrets of her own.
If I were to describe The Enchanted as a book about a death row inmate, you’d probably think about how horridly morbid that is. But that’s not the book Rene Denfeld wrote. Wonderfully imaginative and brutally honest, this story is, really, beautiful.
The Enchanted is narrated by a man whose name and crimes the reader does not know. Slowly, the author reveals bits and pieces of his past, but never the full picture. And that’s not a bad thing; what’s important in this book is the way the narrator has built up an imagined fantasy to live in. His mind has furnished the prison with mythic creatures and strange events, all of which seem to reveal truth in spite of their nonsensical nature.
I suppose that underneath it all, Denfeld is writing about the justice system and the death penalty more specifically. She doesn’t take a preachy approach, and there is no blatant soapbox, which I appreciated. There is, however, a definite sense of realism that pervades the book, and that does point the reader toward a certain conclusion. Not, however, that The Enchanted attempts to romanticize murder or rape, etc. Not at all. But the situation, all in all, does appear too be fairly bleak.
Denfeld’s prose is amazing, though. It perfectly highlights the narrator’s fantasy world while still accurately portraying to the reader what the prison is actually like to the average observer. The imagery and syntax here are poetic and lyrical, but not to the point of purple prose. I think Goldilocks would find the writing in this book to be “just right”.
I really think that The Enchanted is a book that cannot be adequately explained and must instead be personally experienced. Rene Denfeld’s talent is evident here, in this flawless examination of humanity and time and the mind. To label this as “the death row book” would be so limiting, as this novel is much more.
