On the Symbolic Meaning of Forestry

Or, I go a little New Critic for an evening…

So that’s a weird title. OK, I try to come up with weird titles all the time here, but that one just sounds odd. Maybe a little pretentious? I dunno. Basically, personal background info here, I’m back home after a long time away, and if you didn’t already know, my family lives in the middle of nowhere, in Appalachia. So basically I live in the woods. Not really – there are people around here who genuinely do live in the fucking woods – as in, their front yard is full of fucking trees and bushes. But compared to the places I’ve lived and worked, yeah, woods. And it got me to thinking about the woods as a setting for fantasy and horror – and let’s talk about fantasy here. Horror’s pretty obvious and probably it’s been done to death.