She looked at the floor, and I looked at everything and saw nothing.
“You are rather bitter for someone so young.”
“That’s easy when you’re forced for a reason you don’t know by a group that enforces unspoken rules in unsaid ways.”
There are going to be some mild spoilers. I don’t know how to write about this book without describing how I felt through the trajectory of the story. This is a book where you find out what it is about, but the element of surprise doesn’t really play a meaningful role, therefore I don’t think mild spoilers can detract from the enjoyment.
I started reading over a year ago (but as you can see, as it often happens to me I read a hundred pages, then skipped a year). While I was familiar with the author’s name, it never surfaced enough for me to look into and decide to pick up and reading. This happened around the time, last year, where in January I was looking into Ruocchio’s stuff, only to decide not bothering about it, and then pick it up instead in February. But Ruocchio’s book took a while to be delivered, and in the meantime I got this odd interest in Modesitt that I can’t even remember how it started. I just remember I had this strong desire of getting the books NOW. An important priority that surfaced all at the sudden. But I couldn’t because I had to order an used and beaten copy and had to be shipped from the US to here.
It just works that way, from complete disinterest to white hot compulsion, apparently without a good reason. Or at least a reason that can be easily extricated. But as I step out of my usual “zone,” taking interest in Modesitt isn’t so surprising. I like finding and opening doors into new expansive landscapes. Modesitt is an author who wrote more than most, and while it’s the whole Recluce saga that takes the spotlight, all the other stuff really does seem interesting. From the other big series “The Imager Portfolio”, to the more recent “The Grand Illusion”, to the various sci-fi standalones. This wide range has its own appeal, it’s like Modesitt himself is a genre box where you can find all kind of stuff, and never run out. Like an author of authors. So it was the sight of a box like this one that made my interest flare brightly. I want THAT, more than anything else. Pick up and feel every book. Not new. Creased. Nice. Good. A treasure box.
So let’s count… 22 books. It’s not even up to date. Total is currently at 24, with two more already queued up to come out this year. Reaching to 4 millions and a half words total. Sitting right next to Malazan and Michelle West’s towers. But also a weird series, because it’s shaped as a collection of different stories, often self contained trilogies, and moving wildly back and forth across a wide timeline. More of a general background than a cohesive story with a direction.
Suggested reading order follows published order, and oddly enough “The Magic of Recluce”, first to come out in 1991, also happens to be set nearly to the end of the overall timeline, with only the fifth in the series set at a later point, to conclude the whole deal. But this first book was also written and planned as a standalone. I think I read in some interview that the agent of the author really enjoyed the setting, and so persuaded him to write a sequel, which came out the year after, but set a thousand years earlier in the timeline. And so it kept going, but I think never as a sort of coherent vision. I guess Modesitt just found himself at ease writing within this context, the series was popular enough, and so he kept adding stories to it. Rather than a mad push to 20+ books, it was a leisurely stroll. Then you look back and “oh shit, we’re far from home.”
Beside the overall monster of wordcount, “The Magic of Recluce” itself is not epic-sized. A fairly comfortable 160k. The same applying for most of the other books. If you read some comments online, both about the first book and the rest of the series, you’ll notice that its main trait is “no strong feelings.” No one hates it, it has its fans showing appreciation, but it doesn’t produce fanatics. Balanced in the middle of these metaphoric extremes. Which is a significant problem because… Why should you read it? You shouldn’t. That’s the whole point. You shouldn’t read this book. And the reason why you SHOULD (or could) read this book, is because you shouldn’t. It’s an act of rebellion against the compulsion of the world. The gravitational pull of being relevant and important. Of being now. Having an opinion about what everyone else is discussing. This is a book from 1991, that just kept floating in the background noise of attention. It doesn’t call out to you. It doesn’t shine a beacon.
Which is why, to read and appreciate this book, you need to lower the sound on the front, in order to listen to that muted background. I learned that to ENJOY reading slow books, you need to slow down even more. Perfectly counter-intuitive. Where the slowness compels acceleration, to catch up, the trick is going contrarian. Become contrarian. And it transforms into a whole new world, like a negative copy. Going against the flow so that you can perceive a different context. The same I think happens when reading Robin Hobb (likely where I’m going next/resume, even if imo she’s again surpassed by Michelle West, who will be (maybe) where I’m going then). When it feels like it slows down, you slow down further, in order to seize it.
I don’t think there’s any other way. Either you ignore this book, or accept the deal it offers and slow yourself down to its pace. But I’m exaggerating because the writing style is quite terse and to the point. Descriptive but not overly so. It’s not an indulgent book, not very long as I already said, and even has a couple of time skips. It can be easily a quick effortless read. The risk is that you can fly through it without, again, any strong feelings. Plot, characters and environments as well, are fairly muted. It’s just a quiet story, that you listen by tuning to it properly. Even then, “no strong feelings.” If your time is short, you can’t afford patience. You can’t afford wasting your time. You need to be selective. And that’s why it becomes an act of rebellion, to work against the force of the world and time running out, at the very brink of the apocalypse. Fuck that, you sit down and read a book.
I was reading Ruocchio at that time and kind of worried I developed a type of hyper-sensibility to the prose, but picking up this one immediately solved it. From the very first page it felt familiar, as if being right at home. It’s written almost completely in first person, the story of this youth and his perspective on the world. It’s almost a typical farmboy beginning, but there’s no imminent danger, or sudden raid of evil forces to disrupt daily life. In fact, it almost seem like a complete absence of friction. It’s all too quiet, to the point that, page by page, it start feeling… creepy. A number of small things feel off, and relationships between characters not entirely normal. It’s all fine, but also “askew.” It gave me an idea similar to when I was reading Donaldson (Thomas Covenant), and the fantasy world was like “matrix,” a code underneath. Here too it seems like the familiar order of things is only a layer draped over everything, returning a feeling of falseness. Characters that seem slightly hypnotized, like one of the early Herzog movies. But it’s never quite explicit.
The main character is this youth called Lerris, whose main trait seems to be boredom. Yet this boredom is never really motivated, it’s not boredom pointed at something, but more of a general bitterness or cynicism. A dissatisfaction about circumstances. The main problem, and what becomes the direction of the book, is that Lerris has no goal. He doesn’t know what he wants from his life, and is bothered by what other people seem to expect from him. If it’s a coming of age story, it’s a weird one. It’s the world to be strange. To determine those circumstance that then would cause one to have a goal. An inspiration. But to his eyes, the world doesn’t make any sense, and no one is willingly to explain him how it works. Without any connection from point A to B, he is aimless, driven by pure inertia.
A shift of responsibility, as it seems everything points to Lerris being the problem, when it’s the world itself being a problem. As I wrote in my early notes: “Too quiet and pastoral world, with ominous presence just beyond the surface. Nothing bad happens. No one dies. But if someone causes some discomfort… They get deported somewhere else.” The tone is very muted, as I said frictionless. But it almost appears as a dystopia. Lerris’ parents are all good, diligent workers. It seems all normal and justified with the tone of the book, but to the external reader it’s obvious that there’s an obsession over perfection. Even the most mundane task needs to be optimal, or not at all. As if anything less than a masterwork could be the origin of a maelstrom that could swallow the world. You can’t just do an honest job, either you become the greatest ever, or you have to give up and try something else. This perfect realm of peace, being fully intolerant.
I had better things to do with my life than worry about whether the grain patterns on two sides of a table or panel matched perfectly. Or whether a corner miter was precisely forty-five degrees.
Since Lerris isn’t able to develop an honest (and unnatural) passion for anything, he’s eventually sent away by his family. First to a sort of magic school, even if in this book anything resembling something else would be misleading. He gets some companions, he has teachers, but do not expect Harry Potter. The same general inertia drives the main character on, teachers never quite explain what they are supposed to teach. From the outside it’s as if Lerris is looked at with a fatalistic resignation. It is what it is. He is what he is. But he doesn’t know what he is, so what?
A small amount of warmth comes from his companions, and even start what is an harem-like side plot (all the girls are after him, who will he choose?). Thankfully this is also very subdued and even if it surfaces again at different points through the book, it’s never really annoying and easily digestible within the context. There is some romance, but it’s light, understated. Totally fine.
After the first hundred of pages the context shifts because Lerris is sent out to the “main world”, his companions also exit the scene all at once. From this point he’s mostly alone and there’s lots of travel by horse (or pony). This section of the book feels like the central part of the first book in the Wheel of Time, but even more lonely. A frightful journey, moving through unwelcoming, desolate places. Where the threat is always at the margins. Always incumbent but never quite manifesting. Or, when it does, you only realize the danger after it’s already over. Again, the main theme is the aimlessness. Lerris is trying to figure out his place in the greater world, but the greater would isn’t especially friendly or forthcoming.
Toward the middle of the book the story warms up again. From lonely, confusing journeys (and it would have been much better if there was a map), the main character settles down in a random small town for some humble work as a woodworker, the job he had to quit early on for the reason of being not good enough. Here he finds new friends, or at least acquaintances, as no one is usually quite friendly and welcoming to him. Despite all his efforts, he never quite belongs. But again, the description of quiet, mundane life is the best part of the book. Despite of the understated style, characters come through. Then from one page to the next, things get emotional again, and it works because of how down to earth the book has always been. Honest simple.
So we move to the last hundred of pages, where the main character is driven away once again, in a sort of fatalistic way, but this time with a final goal. I was less than 25 pages from the end, and no idea how the story could wrap up with so little space left. It was meant as a standalone, after all. And wrap up it did, with a tiny bit of exposition, and linearly so. Probably the weakest part of the book is these last 50 or 100 pages. Nothing especially bad, but it seemed to me a little simplistic. Rather than solve its core theme that was dragged along the whole book, it simply restates it in its original form. It does work, there’s nothing truly inconsistent about it. The story finds its end, and Lerris definitely figures out his place. The final resolution is even too effortless. Only the implications and consequences do matter, but even those seem still very remote.
After I closed the book there was some confusion left. It seems like the possibility of order, Lerris starting point at the beginning of the book, could only be achieved and maintained through denial. But as it is then seen through Lerris perspective, order also compels truth. He finds himself unable to lie again and again. And I guess that’s why at the start no one is willingly to answer his questions exhaustively. Given the impossibility to lie, it seems that the only alternative left is… avoidance.
This book is about being, and then staying earnest. Even when the world tries putting a label or you, or even when you ask for it, at least to find some purpose or direction.
Reading Modesitt in 2025 is probably no one’s priority. So you should. Go read and join the aimless rebellion. It’s the perfect a-political book from a political author.
P.S.
As it often happens I have a number of notes left out that I’m not able to incorporate in what I’ve written without making a worse mess. So I’ll append them here. One says “Twin Peaks” but it’s merely a reference to the eerie place hinting at something hidden underneath. The false sense of normalcy. Apparent calm, sense of staticity. Almost like an horror movie. Then, some scenes here and there are a bit “gratuitous,” in the sense that they feel not entirely justified and a bit too convenient. There’s also a frequent use of noises (onomatopoeia) on the page, it’s quite jarring and sometimes even confusing, but I think it gives the text its sense of staying “analogical.” It seems to be quite reduced in the following book, and it’s then completely gone in the third. And one reason why I picked this up, is because from other opinions I read, it gets better. When you look at an huge saga like this one, the idea of an upward trend is a major encouragement, because you know that if you’re able to adjust to a rougher start, then the rest has good chances of paying off…
