Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock

So I know I spent the last few entries whining about the terrible novels I'm being forced to read for class, but instead of actually reading something good now that I've gotten through all the boring stuff, I decided to inflict this on myself because I'm an idiot. I think I've mentioned it on here before, but I've recently started of a quest for actually good fantasy (because, let's face it, 99.34% of fantasy novels since in 70s have been terrible Lord of the Rings rip-offs), and have found quite a few wonderful books. I picked this one up because the summary was interesting and because it won a bunch of awards, and I had a good first impression of the combination of mythical language and post-WWII England. However, it got really bad really fast, and kept getting worse and worse in exponential bounds. I honestly have no idea why I read it all the way to the end, maybe every time I was about to toss it aside some description interested me, because the writing is just interesting enough in parts to capture my attention. Basically, this book is Freud's essay 'The Uncanny' in fictional form (complete with the Oedipal Complex). For the most part, it's unbearable tacky 80s fantasy, and I hated it and now hate myself for getting all the way to the end. I hated the characters and the story frankly failed to interest me, although some of its elements were intriguing, overall, it just didn't hold together. The most glaring fault of the book (for me) is its almost stereotypical failure to make the female heroine convincing. I was actually reminded to Green Mansions (the previous book I read) in that it also has a central female character who is obviously written only to project a male fantasy onto and has no actual character or function beyond pleasing a man. I was somewhat amused and horrified when I realised upon finishing this book that Gwyneth (the said female character) is supposed to be a warrior princess, but during the entire book she does no warrior princess-ing outside to threatening the main character with a spear and killing some wild animals. Mostly she becomes domesticated and turns into a damsel in distress.