Category Archives: Books


The Republic of Wine

Actually, I bought both. “The Republic of Wine” arrived first.

It reads a bit like an alcoholic version of Alice in Wonderland. The sense of humor is hit and miss but the prose is lively and playful enough to make it quite fun to read. These are just a few quotes I enjoyed from a story “embedded” in the book.

“Dear friends, dear students, when I learned that I had been engaged as a visiting professor at the Brewer’s College, this supreme honor was like a warm spring breeze in midwinter sweeping past my loyal, red-blooded heart, my green lungs and intestines, as well as my purple liver, the seat of acquiescence and accommodation. I can stand behind this sacred podium, made of pine and cypress and decorated with colorful plastic flowers, to lecture to you primarily because of its special qualities. You all know that when alcohol enters the body, most of it is broken down in the liver…”

Diamond Jin stood at the podium in the General Education Lecture Hall of Liquorland’s Brewer’s College solemnly discharging his duties. He had chosen a broad and far-reaching topic for this, his first lecture – Liquor and Society. In the tradition of brilliant, high-ranking leaders, who steer clear of specifics when they speak in public – like God looking down from on high, invoking times ancient and modern, calling forth heaven and earth, a sweeping passage through time and space – he proved his worth as visiting professor by not allowing the details of the topic to monopolize his oration. He permitted himself to soar through the sky like a heavenly steed, yet from time to time knew he must come down to earth. The rhetoric flowed from his mouth, changing course at will, yet every sentence was anchored in his topic, directly or indirectly.
Nine hundred Liquorland college students, male and female, heads swelling, hearts and minds ready to take flight, along with their professors, instructors, teaching assistants, and college administrators, sat as one body, a galaxy of celestial small-fry gazing up at a luminous star.

[…]the lights singing, the wine surging through my veins, in the flow of time my thoughts travel upstream[…]

“Dear comrades and dear students, do not have blind faith in talent, for talent is really nothing but hard work. Of course, materialists do not categorically deny that some people are more lavishly endowed than others. But this is not an absolute determinant. I acknowledge that I possess a superior natural ability to break down alcohol, but were it not for arduous practice, attention to technique, and artistry, the splendid ability to drink as much as I want without getting drunk would have been unattainable.”

By the way, Howard Goldblatt, the translator that on the cover is called as “the foremost translator of Chinese literature in the West”, has probably butchered these books:

Goldblatt added that Mo Yan writing style is often unfamiliar with Western readers, and that publishers often demanded that he trim parts of Mo’s novels.

Mo Yan, wins the Nobel

As probably most people I never heard the name of this writer, so started looking on Amazon and Wikipedia. I ended up buying a book.

Two titles I tracked that are most interesting:
Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out
The Republic of Wine

And extrapolated comments that piqued my interest:

“there are three major features in his works: extraordinary characters; language with absurd local flavor (or somewhat black humor of the absurd); and plots with symbolic meaning.”

“Whatever the subject matter is, a torrential flow of rich, unpredictable and often lacerating words remains his trademark.”

“Today’s most revered, feared, and controversial Chinese novelist offers a tour de force in which the real, the absurd, the comical, and the tragic are blended into a fascinating read.”

“He flouts literary conformity, spiking his earthy realism with fantasy, hallucination and metafiction.”

“This “lumbering animal of a story,” as he calls it, combines the appeal of a family saga set against tumultuous events with the technical bravura of innovative fiction. Catch a ride on this wheel of transmigration.”

“use of multiple narrators”

“Much of the book is very funny, especially when the narrator is one of the animal reincarnations Of Ximen Nao (he returns as a donkey, an ox, a pig, and a dog) commenting on the foibles of humans and the many reforms of the Mao era.”

“This book is written masterfully and encompasses a half century with sorrow and wit.”

“Set in the fictional province of Liquorland, this tall tale begins with a rumor of cannibal feasts featuring children as the delectable main course. In response, Chinese officials send special investigator Ding Gou’er to look into the allegations. He arrives by coal truck at the Mount Lao Coal Mine, where he meets the legendary Diamond Jin, Vice-Minister of the Liquorland Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Bureau, a man known for an epic ability to hold his booze. Almost at once, Ding’s worst fears seem to be realized when he is invited to a special dinner, given enough alcohol to stun an ox, and then served what appears to be “a golden, incredibly fragrant little boy.” Despite his hosts’ explanation that the boy’s arms are made of lotus root, his legs of ham sausage, and his head from a silver melon, Ding remains suspicious–until he is rendered so addled by wine that he ends up eating half an arm all on his own.”

“A lesser novelist might be satisfied with just this one narrative thread; Mo Yan, however, has bigger ambitions. The correspondence between fictional character and author allows Mo Yan to wax satirical on the subject of art, politics, and the troubling point where the two intersect in a Socialist society: “One of the tenets of the communism envisioned by Marx,” the hopeful Yidou writes, “was the integration of art with the working people and of the working people with art. So when communism has been realized, everyone will be a novelist.””

“only a first-rate artist like Mo Yan could pull off such a subversive and darkly comic metafiction.”

“he waxes metafictional in this savage, hallucinatory farce.”

“The novel grows progressively more febrile in tone, with pervasive, striking imagery and wildly imaginative digressions that cumulatively reveal the tremendous scope of his vision.”

Hounded – Kevin Hearne

“The point is, Mrs MacDonagh, that the universe is exactly the size that your soul can encompass. Some people live in extremely small worlds, and some live in a world of infinite possibility.”

As mentioned in the previous post I appreciated that roundtable between Pat Rothfuss and the three other “urban fantasy” writers. The genre doesn’t appeal to me all that much but in the end they convinced me to read one that belongs to none of those participants to the roundtable, but that all seemed to agree was a fresh and worthwhile entry. Actually Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files is quite often mentioned and recommended by Malazan readers as some material to chill off and relax between those big and demanding books. A kind of “sit back and enjoy” without any heavy lifting. While these days this Iron Druid series, that’s already at volume number 5 and has one coming out every six months, on average, is often recommended in the Dresden Files forum threads. So after looking online at some of the recommended series this one was the one that sparked my interest, with its focus more on the mythical aspects than the defused horror story in urban setting.

That’s exactly what I found and I can say this is a book that is easy to recommend. After I mentioned on another forum I was going to read this book (after a careful search and selection of what the genre had to offer) a few other readers that already read it commented on it positively, and then more readers picked it up and commented favorably. That was already a nice cascading effect that tells me that this book goes down easily. Maybe you won’t think all that much of it, but you’ll hardly think it overstayed its welcome. It’s relatively unpretentious, or at least it is if you don’t count its “all in” approach that pulls out all the stops. It doesn’t have to bargain at all with reader’s expectations since it knows exactly what it is, and puts it on full display like an shameless exhibitionist. This book is like porn. But it is quality porn that is deeply self-aware, bared of pretentiousness, shrugging off all baggage and just having the best of times. This porn works because it’s positive, guilt-free and filled with pride. Maybe even a lesson on positive-thinking. And even if I could see someone feeling horrified at this description I’m making, I do think this book can only do good in the world. I am certain it’s from one of the good guys.

So I guess in the end this book worked for me because of that trust relationship it built with me. The first note I’ve written down, shortly after beginning to read, is just a word: ridiculous. And that’s precisely what I thought through the whole of it: this book is utterly ridiculous. But, oh, it works. What is to admire here is the fragile balance, the clever brilliance of genius from a side, and the complete ridiculousness from the other. It tiptoes on that thin balance line and makes it appear as it’s the easiest thing in the world. Which is the other big quality here. The sure footing of the writing. This troubles me a bit because that certainty in writing is usually a Bad Thing, but here it works out because a number of preconditions are checked. The writer is constantly smarter than what he writes, but he never underestimates or under appreciates what’s he’s writing. If there’s a recipe-for-success in this book, I think it’s that one.

“It should be clear to you that Wikipedia knows nothing about what a real druid can do.”

All the premises are ridiculous. A millenarian, immortal druid chilling out, off the records, in Arizona working at a book store specialized on the occult, but getting constantly pestered by invasions of fae beings (?) and gods meddling with and around him. The type is: the reluctant (anti-)hero. Skillfully thrust in modern days, hands-down in internet memes, puns and modern geek jokes that keep every page alive with laugh out loud moments. It’s that kind of book where events move at a brisk pace. It doesn’t even specialize on a mythological subset. It’s not about werewolves, vampires, faes or witches. It’s about ALL OF THEM, all in the bigger bowl of gods meddling in both the mortal and immortal world. The quote I put at the beginning pretty much sums up the canon here. Everything works (though coming at a price) and every belief is real. Malazan-like if you want.

In 300 pages the writer makes it work by introducing a number of elements that tangle rather well and deliver a proper conclusion. It picks a selection of Celtic gods playing their game, and it works out because of the druid pragmatic and unfazed attitude. It’s even quite original because you get the exact opposite of the clueless protagonist that slowly discovers a new world. Here the Iron Druid knows it all. Has essentially seen (and participated to, even if he’s more of a neutral, “stay out of my lawn” kind of character) all history and knows extremely well how to cover his ass and stay alive, considering he’s the last of these druids and was able to stay alive for so long. And it works again because the first person narration gives the reader everything that is needed to transform what is potentially a really weird and confusing story into something that couldn’t be more straightforward and traditional, at least in the patterns it follows. The plot is indeed quite conservative and same-y, but it stays fresh because it’s written well and because there’s plenty of clever invention all around it. Keeping it fresh and alive, instead of stilted and redundant.

When you write these kind of stories filled with absurd and ridiculous elements it all depends on the grasp on reality, and there’s a good one here. I think the writer is honest to his characters, and it’s part of why I said I “trusted” the book, so making it work. There’s a coat of “make believe”, but I could feel that these characters were written with respect. So I applaud to that. Is it comfort food? Yes it is, but as I said there’s sometimes more to it, even if it isn’t smashed against your face. When the writer flexes his muscles is always effortlessly and behind the scenes, not demanding attention. I enjoyed the book, have a positive opinion of it. I actually do like things that are more pretentious and elaborate. I can’t say this was a pageturner for me, if it wasn’t for the good pacing that makes it not boring. I’m not entirely interested in what this genre specifically offers. But I can give thumbs up to this entry. While I haven’t read anything else in the genre, I am at least convinced that I couldn’t have picked a better one.

The best written character ends up being the Morrigan.

Forge of Darkness and the fragmentation of PoVs

I wrote this on a forum but I might as well post it here since I think it’s relevant and I won’t have to go in the detail if I get to write some sort of review at a later point.

If we were to pick one the most important elements that may make Erikson unpalatable for a bigger public it would be the high number of PoVs within a single book. These guys here know perfectly what they are talking about, they are good exactly because they understand so well the expectations of the public and how to meet them. At 43:05 Rothfuss begins talking about PoVs and how they can kill a book for a reader. I’ll transcribe the relevant part (but suggest to watch the whole of it because it’s quite good and interesting):

Rothfuss: You are right that the first person or the narrow third-person is one of those things that you have almost as a standard in Urban Fantasy that the opposite is true in like, Traditional or Epic Fantasy, where it’s more like, well, you have like Tolkien or Martin where… I mean, you’ve got eight… I don’t know how many points of view Martin has… And Martin can pull it off, because he’s really good at his craft but I see a lot of novels sometimes, and I read them, and I’m like.. Wow… Man… You’re NOT Martin. Please don’t have eight points of view in your story because that means effectively you’re telling eight stories at once, and you have to be nigh God-like in your powers as a writer to pull it off.

Emma Bull: And with every one of those characters who gets to tell a story the reader has to invest in them and then the reader has to be prepared to let go of them, reluctantly, when you switch point of view and get invested in the new character, and then the same thing happens again at the end of the scene in which you let go of that character and… after a while the reader goes: Ahh, screw it. There are too many people at this cocktail party.

Rothfuss: That’s actually a great analogy. I hate parties. Too many people, too much noise, too much to keep track of. Whereas I really enjoy a gathering. The same thing is true with my books where if it’s a gathering of three or four, as we have here, we can have a nice conversation. But if I had eight people? It would be madness and we don’t really get to know anyone really well.

This is actually quite true and when I heard that part I thought it applies extremely well to Erikson in describing some readers’ reactions, so that’s one element. But as usual with these things, especially writing as an “art”, so extremely hard to pinpoint, good rules like this one are never “absolutes”. They are more like guidelines and warning signs that simply tell a writer to only cross when there’s a really good motivation to do so. As if saying: take your risks, but be wary of consequences, because there will be consequences.

It’s also worth noticing that this discussion came up after discussing the popularity of Urban Fantasy, and narrowing down to a matter of accessibility and meeting the readers’ expectations.

Yet I’m relishing the fragmentation of PoVs in The Forge of Darkness (Erikson’s latest). I’m enjoying reading this book a lot more than the five in the main Malazan series I’ve read. 85 pages in, but I continue to think this is the best Erikson I’ve read and so much better writer than the supposed apex of Deadhouse Gates and Memories of Ice. Page by page I’m simply having more fun reading, even if it’s really a different flavor of book. I have no idea where the plot is going, but I don’t care because the book holds me page by page.

Example, page 86, there’s this PoV about Faror Hend, at this point a nondescript character that appears marginal in the story, so a perfect candidate to complain about unnecessary PoVs. But it’s so great to read. She starts musing about Gallan’s poetry and how its meaning becomes a personal and suggestive thing. A moment later she talks with her cousin about some acid sea and its mysterious properties, and they mention that Mother Dark could be the answer to it. So she quotes Gallan:

“In unrelieved darkness waits every answer.”

This obviously associates Mother Dark with the theme, and the mystery of the Vitr. But the comment of the cousin is interesting:

“Even a bare handful of words from a poet, and I lose all sense of meaning. Such arts are not for me.”

The dialogue that follows just gets better and better. She says: “One learns subtlety.” And she’s then outperformed, by the cousin who was playing coy the whole time, because that obscure line of the poet isn’t anymore a comment on Mother Dark and the Vitr, but the suggestion of sex in the dark, giving in to passions that her cousin so obviously read in her.

And it all brings back to the beginning:

These were the truths that found their own flavours and made personal the taste, until it seemed that Gallan spoke directly to each and every listener, each and every reader.

This is just delicious and an example why I think it’s so good. In four pages Erikson set up a new context and environment, tied it back to previous scenes in the book, introduced great characters that feel real in an handful of pages, handed smoothly information about the setting, sprinkled with great dialogue and great scene’s closure.

So I can see that an high number of PoVs is a turn off for many readers, but for me it’s another element that makes this book so great. Only 85 pages in, but not a page was wasted or felt flat or trivial.

The Forge of Darkness – attempt at analysis

I received the book a couple of days ago and started reading, but only an handful of pages since I’m busy these days and there are the Olympic games to watch too.

The attempt at an analysis is solely about the very first page (or two), the letter that blind Gallan writes to Fisher kel Tath. You can find this letter and Erikson’s introduction on Tor.com.

This page encapsulates a lot of what I like in Erikson’s approach to writing. In just a couple of pages it packs lots of meaning and themes, it’s resolute and straight to the point, it makes you think of this but shadowy intending that, it defies rhetoric while playing with it, it’s sophisticated but honest, contains subtle but deliberate contradictions, it’s playful and defiant, it knows its place while challenging it, it’s wild but wise, and it’s also deliciously metalinguistic, playing with the frames that contain it. The very basic aspect is that it defies the kind of analysis I can make, and that’s the reason why I’ll try.

The first thing that one could notice is the fictitious writer of the letter, blind Gallan. He’s the implied writer of this prequel trilogy, like Bilbo was for The Hobbit, or Croaker, the annalist of the Black Company. The main Malazan series also had its own fictitious writer, Fisher kel Tath, and Gallan writes this letter to him, even if it’s obviously meant as a message to the reader. You can already see this play on various levels: in and out of the “frame” of the story, between Erikson the real writer and his creation, and both these points being reflected on a third one, represented by readers in general, the “audience” that makes it happen. Erikson likes this type of interplay, I LOVE it, while a writer like Martin would never use it, as it’s a violation of the sanctity of the tale. A tabu.

But it’s not just a game, as this pattern has within itself one of the truths of things, so interesting to explore, but while treading very carefully. Erikson has this wildly challenging and defiant style in everything he writes. He’d go right at the edge of the chasm and dance on it, or play with the edge of the blade. Whenever he makes a statement, you get an inner voice that suggests the opposite. It’s both the bold step forward and the hesitation. Which is for me the only prerequisite: violate all rules, if you want, but do this with motive.

The first legitimate question that leaps out of the page, and then “recurs”, in a loop through this letter, is how it is possible that Gallan knows Fisher kel Tath and so can write a letter that addresses him. This prequel trilogy is set some (hundred of) thousands years BEFORE the main Malazan series. Gallan lived at that time, so Fisher kel Tath is some guy who lived thousands of years after. How do you answer this? These timeline issues are extremely deliberate and the territory that Erikson decided to play with and defy.

A first guess could be that, due to the quirky ways of the Malazan world, Fisher could have been already around at the time of Gallan, and so they knew each other. Though this hypothesis is contradicted by the direct intent at the end of the letter. Another guess could be that Fisher is like an abstract spirit of the writing that encompasses the breath of the story. A symbol more than a fixed entity. Though I’m sure that no one would like this one. A third guess could be that Gallan is a simple invention of Fisher, who “impersonated” an historical figure (since we know Gallan existed “for real” at that time) and attributed the book to him, maybe out of spite, or maybe because he needed a double.

No matter, this is not as important because what matters is how these considerations feed the true purpose. Erikson overthrew the scenario. In the “real world” Erikson, the writer, wrote first the main Malazan series. This prequel trilogy is written after. So in the real order of creation, what came before actually came after (hello Scott Bakker). Gallan is indeed a creation of Fisher/Erikson. And knowing all the discussions that happened on the internet about the timeline inconsistencies and mistakes (to which I fear I’ve contributed) Erikson boldly refers (and challenge) them:

Remember well this tale I tell, Fisher kel Tath. Should you err, the list-makers will eat you alive.

The list-makers are obviously us, the readers (but not only, Erikson is never simplistic and “singular”, and for singular I redirect you again to this letter). Readers that would eat Erikson alive if the story he writes has holes and inconsistencies when compared to the details written in the main (and preceding in order of writing) series. So Gallan’s warning to Fisher, from the past toward the future, is the warning (more than warning, an “awareness”) of today’s Erikson to himself, to the present and back in time. The main Malazan series is written, so he’s in a curious inverted situation of having to make the past “dependent” on the future. Knowing Erikson (the writer), it’s not surprising that he didn’t accept to bow his head to the rules, instead of screwing with them:

Do I look like a man who would kneel?

That for me is the arrogant, defiant claim of an incredibly humble man. I respect Erikson so much because he shows so well that humble doesn’t mean weak. The strength of all he writes comes from that. Knowing his place, but never stepping back. It’s the sure foothold you ought to give yourself, but that is not certainty. It’s the only path that is virtuous.

I see this letter like a change of grip on the story. Erikson declared his terms, and now he’ll play his game. After going through a cycle of questions and contradictory considerations, he’s now surer of himself, and ready to go:

The table is crowded, the feast unending. Join me upon it, amidst the wretched scatter and heaps. The audience is hungry and its hunger is endless. And for that, we are thankful. And if I spoke of sacrifices, I lied.

The letter opens by questioning “memory” and “invention”. All these questions about the correct “order” of things is again the recurring theme of the interplay between the main series and prequel, and the questions that this prequel is supposed to answer: the foundation myth, the cosmology (or better, the cosmoGoNy). All of this reflecting in the process of “remembering”, as the way to create the story. As if the stories are out there. As if they simply need to be lifted out of the dust that submerges them (into consciousness), and that they only arrive to a writer as gifts, a writer who’s not truly responsible of them, or less responsible than what he may believe.

So again the call from Gallan to Fisher, to “remember this tale”.

…and you ask why I love reading Erikson and why he’s unsurpassed?

Steven Erikson, more novellas

The two at the top arrived this week and now I have to decide which one will keep me busy while I wait for The Forge of Darkness. Skimming through The Devil Delivered (containing also “Revolvo” and “Fishin’ with Grandma Matchie”) made me think it could be another of those “minor” works that amaze me even more than the main courses.

I like the cover of this one too. This slitted view of some landscape. It’s a good metaphor for writing, as a world that is filtered, remade into discrete bits, and the perception of it that creates the illusion of the whole…

The blog has been mostly dead because it’s hot where I have my computer, so I stay away most of the time and don’t feel like typing stuff. I’m also planning to start (maybe) a little side project, that will require me to read another “epic” of 1200 pages. Though it’s not what you think.

Lord Foul’s Bane – Stephen R. Donaldson

[The book] was still open to a page which had had an entirely different meaning to him just four hours ago. It said, “…modelling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task a man could undertake…” And on another page it said, “…the dreams of men belong to God…”

Reading Thomas Covenant wasn’t in my plans but back in January I decided to order the nice UK paperback that contains all three books, the first trilogy, wrapped up together in a hefty volume of 1152 pages (some 500k words), and when a package arrived at my house about a week later I was quite disappointed to discover it contained “Orb, Sceptre, Throne” (part of the Malazan queue, and so to read some time in the future) instead of the eagerly awaited Donaldson. It went from zero interest to topmost priority. This change was caused by a visit to Donaldson site, where he had announced he had just completed the first draft of “The Last Dark”, the fourth and last book in the third series. Still a year or two from actual publishing, but it changed my perspective. I took it as a sign that it was time for me to start from the very beginning. My interest is very specific, and about what Donaldson has done with the whole arc of three series. I know that each of the three had been planned separately, considered conclusive. Yet Donaldson decided to return, the second time just a few years after the first, and the third time twenty years later after the second. This makes a very interesting scenario because I’ll be able to see not only how he planned each act, but how he himself observes it, how he comes to terms with it, re-enliven it, return to it with new eyes. It is not only witnessing an arc across a writer’s activity, but a process of self-reflection on one’s own work. That self-reflection alone is the single element that made me want to embark in this epic journey (some two million words by the end of it). And very long too considering my usual pace moving through series, so it will take quite a while before I reach my goal.

“Lord Foul’s Bane” is actually the last fantasy book I read about 12+ years ago, before returning to the genre in 2007 (so I was fantasy-free for about 7 years). I didn’t manage to finish it back then, probably I couldn’t even reach page 100 because I couldn’t find anymore the book after I moved to another room, and at the time my reading pace was even slower. But I liked what I read quite enough, in particular how Thomas Covenant actively fought the typical fantasy narrative that wants the lead character as a hero. Now that I return to the same book so many years later I noticed that my approach completely changed. At the time I considered the beginning of the book set in the “modern, real world” as something to endure so I could get to the “fantasy”. The fantastical side was real to me, and the real part a “gimmick”. While today the situation is inverted. I see clearly Thomas Covenant as a character rooted in the real world, with the fantastic side to be taken as an hallucination, a product of a double, existing entirely within himself. My readings of the character followed these approaches. Back then I was silently pushing TC to accept the fantasy world, to live it because it was so obviously real. I was seeing clearly that the more he resisted it, the more time he wasted with that silly stubbornness. Now instead it is so clearly an hallucination that asserting control over it and never abandon that certainty about reality is the real priority. Both these approaches are equally sustained in the book, in a way that now reminds me directly of Awake.

“Come on, old man,” he said. “We didn’t make the world.”

“Did we not?”

I am watching Life on Mars (another TV series), reading “A Dream of Wessex”, have seen Another Earth, even the Mhybe sequence in Memories of Ice can fit (though Erikson pushes things even further than Donaldson, with the “anthropomorphic world”). This game of framing reality like a painting. It seems I’m more or less consciously following a pattern. That I find quite powerful, life and dream, reality and fantasy, representing a dualism that is at the foundation of the act of writing: an interpretation of that conflict between the inside and the outside. So, in the pattern itself, the self-reflection. Fiction and fantasy as ways to reach inside, instead to outer worlds.

That pattern is the cypher I used to read this book, that made me enjoy it and find in it plenty of things I would have completely missed if I kept my old approach. Already David Foster Wallace in his own “epic”, “Infinite Jest”, played with self-reflection in all its possible forms, including the curious constructs of “double-binds” (themselves a variation of the “strange loops” within “Gödel, Escher, Bach”). And here the interpretative foundation of the reality/dream duality is also expressed and summarized in a sort of double-bind:

His survival depended on his refusal to accept the impossible.

Reiterated then in the refusal to accept his role as the savior of the fantasy world, and refusal of the possibilities within that world, including the hopes that all the people he meets have in him. His condition (leprosy) is his cage, but also his possibility to survive as long he faces it as an inescapable reality. The only Truth.

He could not afford to have an imagination, a faculty which could envision Joan, joy, health. If he tormented himself with unattainable desires, he would cripple his grasp on the law which enabled him to survive. His imagination could kill him, lead or seduce or trick him into suicide: seeing all the things he could not have would make him despair.

An illness that entirely gets to represents his only identity (left), and the truth of the impossibility of hope. In that condition he viscerally knows his harsh reality, and he knows that delusions come in the form of fantastic narratives. Fantasy landscapes where all illnesses can be healed, a natural world manifesting itself as pure beauty. With his feet in these two radically different and opposite worlds, he is lacerated. Torn from the inside. And he leashes out with pure anger because he’s painfully aware of how these delusions of hope and health are mocking his true condition. If you, the reader, go into the story, then it’s the fantasy world coming alive and being real. But if you instead take this story out and make it true, then you feel how powerful it is, and how much unsustainable pain it delivers.

Reading the book I thought that TC reminded me of Felisin in Deadhouse Gates. Despite being completely different characters in different situations, they have in common the fact that when they appear in the story they are already broken. The point of no-return is reached and passed before you get to the first page. No redemption, no hope, no healing granted. They are both shattered characters whose pieces can only get broken further, hurting whoever comes close. Both filled with spite and anger, lashing out at everyone and everything, struggling to keep themselves away, secluded from the world. The most famous scene in this book is probably the controversial one some 80 pages into the book. The rape. For many readers this is the breaking point, where TC is fully recognizable as an unlikeable character that has none of the typical qualities and narratives that belong to the hero, or even the main character of a story. But through my different approach to the book that scene felt the most “truthful” and fitting. Plausible for what the character is and why. The way he behaves. TC had just made the transition to this fantasy world, went through a literal reawakening of the senses, previously deadened because of leprosy and lack of hope, that inward retreat. He viscerally knows that this consolatory narrative he’s dreaming about, this fantasy world, is a delusion. And so the promise of hope, of health, even of sexual attraction, all become a form of taunt to him. A torture borne by his brain. The rape is the moment TC loses control of himself and succumbs to instincts. In his perception he’s not being violent to another human being, as he firmly believes that he’s trapped in a hallucination. He’s lashing out with rage once again, this time by losing control of his desires. It becomes a pivotal scene because it strengthens TC “belief” that he’s no hero, and whenever he becomes the repository of hope he knows he’ll only corrupt it. He himself is the threat to the beauty of the land, its antithesis. Ill and broken in a world beautiful and whole. Hence the inward retreat that can upset some readers. TC doesn’t become a more likeable character through the novel as long you can’t connect with what he is and why.

He endures his journey through The Land as torture. He desperately clings to the only thing that makes sense to him, his illness. Think about hurtloam. It’s a type of loam that can be found naturally (the term isn’t even capitalized it’s so common) within the fantastic world that, rubbed on a wound, no matter how severe, can heal it overnight. Think about having it, the hope of curing all diseases right there in your hands. Then consider being consciously aware that it’s a delusion fed through a dream, that when you wake up you’ll know nothing of this exists. From THERE originates the pain, the unsustainable condition, that then turns in TC into rage and hate. And it is by facing those consolatory delusions and refusing them that you can live. Yet the more vehemently TC rejects all this, the stronger the Land impels him to commit by not giving him other choices (he can’t escape the dream in any way). It’s a siren’s song that persists even when refused, that TC is forced to listen, defenseless. It’s torture. A man forcefully thrust further down the pit of madness and pain.

He enters this world within, if we accept the thesis that he’s dreaming, through a transition that is clearly an inversion:

And now the background asserted itself, reached in and bore him down. Blackness radiated through the sunlight like a cold beam of night.

Maybe it’s because I come to this book with that strong bias I explained above, but the meaning of this inversion (black sunlight) appears to me very clearly as subconscious “taking over” consciousness. That blackness of thought that happens outside the light of awareness. Those lines precede TC entrance into the fantasy realm, and his dream. The inversion is about projecting the inward world, what he has within himself, outside. Make it Real.

Enter the Matrix.

The Land, a so generic name as if a placeholder for whatever fantasy realm a man could conceive, evoking an archetype, is made of a substance different than reality. The health of the environment and of the people is visible and tangible. TC notices how his senses adapt to these new perceptions and he’s able directly to feel nature around himself. At one point a giant he meets begins to sing, and this is how it is described:

A song with a wave-breaking, salty timbre like the taste of the sea.

Now, can you imagine how a “salty” timbre would sound like? Is TC on acid that he confuses one sense with the other? This happens so much, especially in natural descriptions, that it’s not a writing quirk, but very deliberate. I interpret it as a Matrix-like breach. Do you remember when in the movie the fabric of the matrix tears apart and shows itself for what it truly is? The columns of characters and numbers coming down, as the true fabric of that world revealed. This is the same. You see the inward/dreamworld working the way it does: through symbolic representations. Metaphoric in perception the way every dream is. Meaning-full, as every anthropomorphic world is.

At the very beginning of book 2 he’s back in the real world, and we have:

Futility is the defining characteristic of life.

Let’s make it “of reality”. But while he was still trapped in the dream, we have this:

He felt that he was the lodestone.

And, deliciously metalinguistic (the way I love it), the giant who sang above also proclaims:

“But you must understand, Unbeliever, that selecting a tale is usually a matter for deliberation.”

You can take it out of the story, and apply it to Donaldson, since this is the real deal. This is the story he selected, and that comes out, at least in part, of his deliberation. What does he want to tell us?

I think that an important part of its purpose lies in message that TC is given by a mysterious man before he enters The Land. And since I have not grasped the whole of it, I suspect that this theme will develop across the three books instead of just one. So I’ll have to wait. The message is a bit long, so I’ll quote just the relevant part:

The man refuses to believe that what he is told is true. He asserts that he is either dreaming or hallucinating, and declines to be put in the false position of fighting to the death where no “real” danger exists. He is implacable in his determination to disbelieve his apparent situation, and does not defend himself when he is attacked by the champion of the other world.

Question: is the man’s behaviour courageous or cowardly? This is the fundamental question of ethics.

As explicit as it gets.

That I was able to catch a so rich subtext filled with so many ideas is a testament to this book’s modernity. I was not only surprised to find this type of story in a book that is an old classic of fantasy, but also that Donaldson wrote this before his thirties. Ahead of his times in more ways than one. Every page is permeated with TC’s internal struggle, as well this anthropomorphic projection of The Land. It’s filled to the brim. Yet the weakness is in the straight plot, or classic fantasy narrative, if you take it out of the very specific context (like as I read it the first time I got the book many years ago). This appears as a very standard “quest”, that has the finding of a magical artifact as its goal, after going down into a black mountain. This plot, throughout the book, follows the trope as closely as possible. It’s obvious that on this level the book has none of the maturity of modern fantasy, and it is where it feels a bit dated. It’s formulaic and convoluted, not particularly exciting or surprising.

Quite the inverse of what one could expect. You come to a classic of fantasy thinking it would have a good adventure, but weak on subtext and themes. Instead I find an extraordinary work that plays competently with its big ideas, while it gets predictable and plain when leaning on the basic conventions of the genre. At the time the book sold a lot, and it was sold mostly as one of those clones in the trail of LotR, like The Sword of Shannara. I have no idea what all those readers thought when they read it, but it was still quite successful. I wonder if today I’m reading a different book, and if mine or theirs is the right one…