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kamelda: Dear Mr. Donaldson,
Thank you again for your patient reply-- I'm sorry that I require so much patience; especially considering other things you are doing it's very good of you to be so kind. After explaining to my husband about five times what it is that I have been trying to say, he understood and told me how I could hopefully explain myself more clearly.
I can try to illustrate with these three quotes, which I think demonstrate three different levels of confronting a dilemma about reality/unreality.
1. You said, in your response: 'Covenant's final confrontation with LF in "The Power that Preserves" *does* represent an absolute commitment--with absolutely everything at stake (for himself as well as for the Land). But that commitment is not, "Yes, the Land is real," or "No, the Land is not real." His commitment might be (crudely) paraphrased as, "I don't care whether the Land is real or not. It has become desperately important to me. In fact, it *is* me whether it exists objectively or not. And I've done terrible harm to it--as I have to myself. So I'm willing to sacrifice everything and anything, including my life, in an effort to counter that harm with affirmation."'
2. Puddleglum says, in The Silver Chair: "All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one thing more to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play-world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."
3. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15: "...if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied."
Covenant's answer involves real heroism: there are times when the only heroic thing to do is to lay aside an immobilizing dilemma about reality and act to save the things that are worth fighting for -- to risk all, even finding out that something isn't real (I think Puddleglum's answer is similar but goes a step further in that he is not saying the dilemma doesn't matter; but that even if what he loves is unreal, it is the only thing that could be loved and he will go on loving it). It is certainly not Covenant's heroism or his personal risk that I find too easy, but making his provisional answer into an ultimate answer (and of course, since that is only the end of the First Chronicles that may not have been your intention at all: it was simply my reflex response). For on the ultimate level Paul is right: it is inconsistent to hold that the dilemma doesn't matter: if the very molecules are not affected by the goodness we believe in, our faith is in vain. If hope is severed from reality and we have only its fleeting illusion, whatever the heroism of our affirmations, we are the most miserable people that could be.
As for Covenant's heroism, I can only sincerely admire it.
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I'm not exactly a fan of the Apostle Paul. James is more my style ("Faith without works is dead"). But still: I realize now what has gone wrong with our discussion of Covenant's "solution" to the dilemma of the Land's reality/unreality. YOU TRICKED ME! (In the nicest possible way, of course. <grin>) Here in the GI, I've spent mumbletymumble years (not to mention pages) proclaiming that I'm not a polemicist. But way back when, you described Covenant's "solution" as "too easy"--and what did I do? Without even realizing I was doing it, I turned into a rampant polemicist, arguing with you like a man who believes he has some kind of Answer to the Big Questions. So I've expended (part of) the past six weeks asking myself why I allowed you to trick me--er, I mean, why I tricked myself--like that. The explanation, I think, has to do with the fact that I actually live my life according to the standards of Covenant's "solution". More than *he* does, really. So when you used the words "too easy," I became defensive, not on Covenant's behalf, but on my own. In the context of my (inner) life, Paul's comments quoted above are just plain silly: they miss the whole point of religion. BUT.... But.... But what I think--or even believe--on the subject is pretty much irrelevant. Irrelevant to the GI, as well as irrelevant both to my purposes in writing about these characters, and to the quests my characters undertake for their own reasons, driven by their own needs. I don't write in order to give my readers answers: I write in an effort to encourage my readers to think about questions. And by that measure, your contributions to the GI demonstrate that I've succeeded. In spades. With chocolate frosting. (Mixed metaphor there, but who cares?) Nothing more needs to be said. Certainly there was no need for me to get defensive. <rueful smile> So what I should have said in response to your first message ("too easy") was not rant rant rant, but rather THANK YOU! Am I too late? (06/11/2008) |
Anonymous: Hi Steve,
No question here! But knowing your enjoyment of Wagner, I thought you might be amused by this "summary" of the Ring Cycle (it was sourced as coming from one of The Met's Opera Quizzes in which people were challenged to summarize operas as New York Post headlines):
"Gold returned to rightful owners after daring underwater theft. Ten dead."
Best
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I like it! Somewhere on the web, there is--or was--a site that gave down-and-dirty two-sentence summaries of a number of novels, including both of the original "Covenant" trilogies. That also was a lot of fun. (06/11/2008) |
Ted O'Connor: I'm going to start with the compliments and then move to my simple question - feel free to edit, etc.
[OK. Message pruned to save space.]
I wanted you to know that I have gotten so much joy from those books, and I really feel like my life has been improved from having read them. Not for any other reason than I have been exposed to another thing of beauty and that I am thereby improved for having witnessed it. Thank you for sharing your stories with me.
OK so now on to the question. I am reading Gilden-Fire - another fruitful internet search! - and I read where the Haruchai meet Kevin for the first time. He is able to understand their language from the Staff of Law. So, why can't Linden understand the ur-viles or waynhim while holding the Staff? At first I thought it was because those creatures are not natural, as you have mentioned before, but then I remembered that the Search giants could understand the jheherrin.
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Hmm. First I have to state--again--that "Gilden-Fire" is not part of the Official Covenant Text (what we English majors like to call "the canon"). For reasons too complicated to repeat, I took it out of my wastebasket. Therefore only confusion will result if you read the rest of "The Chronicles" on the basis of "Gilden-Fire". I haven't looked at it since it was published; and I've made no effort to include it in my (doomed) quest for internal consistency. With that in mind: The Giantish "gift of tongues" is explained in "The Second Chronicles". And with the excision of "Gilden-Fire," the issue of what language the Haruchai originally spoke (when they spoke aloud) disappeared from the text, never (if memory serves) to return. It isn't an issue I actually *want* to deal with, so I was relieved when I first cut it from TIW. If we leave "Gilden-Fire" out of consideration, I don't think the text gives us any reason to believe the Staff of Law can confer a gift of tongues. In any case, that was Berek's Staff, not Linden's. And even if her Staff *can* confer a gift of tongues, Linden doesn't have all the lore that enabled the Lords to use Earthpower with more subtlety and complexity than she can manage. (06/11/2008) |
MRK: Mr. Donaldson,
Apologies for some much belated kudos on Fatal Revenant. I'm looking forward to seeing what you have up your sleeve for "Against All Things Ending".
I was just reading your wikipedia entry, specifically the sub-entry on "Mordant's Need" (which neglects to mention that one of the main themes of the story is gender dynamics; I keep meaning to add that). It suggests that the castle of Orison may have been inspired by Peake's Gormenghast. Having recently read "Titus Groan", I can understand this notion, if simply in terms of scale and appearance, since the two castles have different thematic meanings. Was this one of those "unconscious influences" or did you actively think of Gormenghast at the time of designing your own mammoth castle? (Revelstone also, retroactively, puts me in mind of Gormenghast, but again only in terms of scale).
Also, have you, redundant as it may be, read any of the Doctor Who novelizations? (one of my early introductions to the Whoniverse was reading Terrance Dicks' adaptation of "The Caves of Androzani" as an adolescent.)
thanks,
MRK
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(This is what I get for never reading wikipedia. All things considered, that's probably good.) Yes, the castle of Gormenghast was an "unconscious influence" on both Orison and Revelstone. "What a minute," you protest. "If it's 'unconscious,' how do you know it exists at all?" Well, because I read Peake's trilogy before I ever imagined the first "Covenant" books. And by the time I wrote "Mordant's Need," I had read Peake's trilogy twice. I wasn't *thinking* of Gormenghast when I created my own Big Castles (to my mind, Gormenghast is entirely different). Nevertheless Peake's writing must have influenced me *somehow*, if for no other reason than because I liked it so much. Meanwhile: I don't read novelizations at all, including those for Doctor Who. (06/11/2008) |
dhydronyc: Question?
more of a challenge--am I gonna get put on the spoilers?
As you have been going through the history ofthe land, there is 1 character that is necessary, and was not put in the ending of fatal revenant.
high lord mhoram
a basic part of the second trilogy was the
"na mhoram" and if that is to mean he was the secondary character against despite you should "na" leave him out
by the way, what style of martial arts have you studied, if I may.
Tae Kwon Do is what I studied ?[if you feel like answering a personal question]
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I think I've answered this question, although in a different form. Of *course* Mhoram is absolutely essential to the overall story of the Land. Broadly speaking, however, when people like, say, Linden enter Andelain, they tend to evoke the Dead who are most appropriate or necessary to them. Even Covenant didn't evoke EVERYONE. That would be a disaster--not to mention impossible to write. And since Linden never met Mhoram.... I study Shotokan--although I've had the benefit of exposure to a *wide* variety of other martial arts, including Tae Kwon Do. Incidentally, your question leads me to wonder if you've ever read "The Man Who Fought Alone". (06/18/2008) |
J C Bronsted: What is “archetypal evil”?
The most common example of “archetypal evil” I’ve come across is Sauron. Tolkien himself denied that Sauron’s evil was “archetypal” (in Letters). Sauron’s evil was a will to domination and usurpation of God, a desire to be worshiped. His means were to this end and not out of blind “evil” (evil purely for evil’s sake).
Lord Foul seems closer to the mark, of course, and I’m fairly certain you designed him with an “archetypal” ideal in mind. His evil is spiteful, hate and evil because he can. But does he harbor a hope* that destroying the world will free him? Does this give purpose to his evil? Has he shifted from being an archetype in the First Chronicles to something else in the latter?
I think I’m caught up on “archetypal evil” being purposeless, and any time reason can be ascribed to “evil” action (regardless of its self-serving nature), it seems to me it then strays from an “archetype.”
Thank you for this forum and your incredible attendance to it.
*if “hope” can be ascribed to anything the Despiser might “feel”.
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I certainly had something "archetypal" in mind when I imagined Lord Foul. But if your definition of "archetypal evil" implies motiveless evil-for-its-own-sake, LF doesn't qualify (although he surely does get off on other people's pain). Neither, for that matter, does Satan in "Paradise Lost". Even Iago had a reason or two for tearing down Othello. Restricting myself exclusively to my own work, the only character I can think of who might fit your definition is Master Eremis in "Mordant's Need". And even his evil might be considered contextual. He loves sowing chaos "because he can". But if his world had already degenerated to chaos, he might equally enjoy imposing order. In any case, from the beginning of LFB it was always my intention that LF had reasons for what he was doing. If that disqualifies him as "archetypal evil," so be it. (06/18/2008) |
John: It is now six months since the release of Fatal Revenant. Hopefully you are well rested and charged up for the monumental task ahead.
Reading the Non-blog of another epic fantasy author (GRRM), it appears that he does not write his novels sequentially. The Song of Ice and Fire is a POV narrative like the Gap books. Mr. Martin appears got follow a character along a line then, moves on to another. He also seems to flit around the characters as well.
When writing the Gap books did you write each characters story line in its entirety then go back to the beginning and write the next?
When writing the original daft of a novel do you normally go from beginning to end or write certain parts that are more clear in your head and fill in the details sound them later?
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No, I did not "write each character's story line in its entirety then go back to the beginning" in the GAP books. (Or anywhere else, for that matter.) Where POV is concerned, I write with two distinct but inseparable priorities: to experience the story as the characters experience it; and to experience the story as the reader experiences it. So I always write from beginning to end; I change POV when the story requires it; and I NEVER skip ahead. In fact, I couldn't write any other way. Part of what I'm doing when I write is discovering how the characters serve as catalysts for each other; and that I can't do without exploring their story lines simultaneously (or as simultaneously as a linear narrative permits). (06/18/2008) |