You know, I actually liked the second chronicles a bit more than the first, for some of those same reasons.
Between the giants and the bloodguard, Donaldson created some damned interesting folks.
I see that someone already mentioned “Fantasy Bedtime Hour,” so I’ll just say that the boys atStarship Sofa did an interview with Donaldson that was quite interesting. Check around their podcasts for it.
I will say that I didn’t like the Chronicles, and I read the first series and part of the second. It just didn’t do it for me. But between FBH and SS, I’ve come to like SRD as a personality quite a bit.
As in the first Chronicles, I didn’t care for the second book again. Maybe it’s a character flaw in me, not liking middles or something - But I rush through both second books to get to the thirds.
Also, I have The Atlas of the Land by Karen Wynn Fonstad. If you’ve ever looked at the nearly worthless map that used to be printed in the front of the books and wondered what the freakin’ scale is, Ms. Fonstad has it all worked out (and more). I’d be happy to look up stuff for anyone that has questions about such things.
So, Ogre, what’s your opinion of Covenant (and his attitude) now that you’ve finished? See him as more, or less, of a Moorcockian selfish bastard antihero?
And what did you think of Lord Foul in the end? More evil or more banal than Tolkien’s Evil Overlord?
Oh, and what did you think of Hile Troy afterwards?
Well, the interpretation of The Chronicles that satisfies me the most is the one I guessed at earlier. I think I was pretty much completely spot-on (:p) about the theme of the book. The Land is Covenant’s soul. Lord Foul is his self-hatred. The Illearth Stone is his disease. The Staff of Law it his powerful, yet ultimately self-destructive unwillingness to break out of his strictly prescribed leper’s life. It seems to track pretty well. Therefore, the entire series was really about knowing himself, and forcing himself to come face to face with innate self-loathing, in order to get past his reliance on his old life (Kevin’s Lore) and allow himself to grow again. Donaldson knows that self-change is one of the most frustrating and daunting tasks any person can undertake, so in retrospect, Covenant’s maddening nature as represented in the novels is perfectly understandable.
To make a long interpretation short, I choose to see the first books as pretty much a delusion from start to finish. Covenant’s mind made up the entire thing as the ultimate survival strategy. In this way, Covenant is mentally very, very powerful, and exceptionally lucky. I mean, he essentially had his inner landscape revealed to him in concrete terms.
I must say, however, that I’m already thinking “uh oh” in The Wounded Land, because suddenly, it’s a much more conventional story. Lord Foul actually has objective reality in OUR world now, as revealed through the eyes of Linden Avery and the cultists, and Joan’s possession. This is a lot less interesting to me than the whole “man vs. himself” slant of the first trilogy. I can deal, though. I’ll just have to see what Donaldson’s angle is this time (but I suspect that it will be much more of a traditional sword n’ sorcery fantasy hero’s quest. Could be wrong. Probably am. But that’s what I’m anticipating.)
I still see him as being very Moorcockian. Possibly even more so now. Even Moorcock’s antiheroes often tried to do the right thing, but were simply fatally flawed. What can I say? Covenant is the Land’s Eternal Champion, he reached Tanelorn at the end of the first trilogy, but I reckon he’s going to be called back into service from his well-earned rest. 
Actually, I think he’s both. Sauron and Lord Foul represent different things in the minds of their respective authors.
Sauron represents the forces of industrialization and change. Tolkien saw this as pretty much an unalloyed evil. It destroys pastoral lifestyles, erases history, and generally stinks up the joint. The way he presents it, Sauron is a flaw, a product of a Fall. Of course, JRRT never would have written (or even acknowledged) that these changes may not end up being an altogether Bad Thing.
On the other hand, Lord Foul is integral to the land. He’s part of it, because he’s part of our soul. In this way, he’s both more evil (insidious, personally destructive) AND more banal (hell, we ALL have our Lord Foul, and depending on how well we control him, sometimes we give him our own versions of the Illearth Stone. Covenant’s was leprosy. Someone else’s may be heroin, or alcohol, or Cheetos. In any case, it’s just a tool we give to our self-loathing that helps destroy us. Pretty banal.)
Interesting. He didn’t turn out to be as utterly ineffectual as I thought Donaldson was going to make him. So there may actually be some redemptive power in straightforward rationalism and calculation.
I wouldn’t agree with your interpretation that “it was all in his head,” but at this point don’t really know if I’d concluded otherwise after the first trilogy, or after the second trilogy. Post back after you’re done with the second; it’ll be interesting to compare.
I do think that the inclusion of objective, real-world reality into the narrative weakens the storyline. I understand why Donaldson used Linden – after The Power That Preserves, Covenant has accepted the fantasy/reality paradox – but I actually felt that Hile Troy was the problem (for all his nebulous existence in the real world, to Covenant’s knowledge).
There was a fragment called “Gildenfire” which covered the quest to Seareach that Donaldson cut because it wasn’t from Covenant’s POV. I think that was a good thing; it would have undermined Covenant’s Unbelief. (even though the tale got told through the odd “message for you, sir” appearance of Bloodguard at random intervals)
Ah, see, I think that’s because you’re regarding Foul as Covenant’s dark side, or death-wish, as it were. I find Foul much, much worse than Sauron. All Sauron is going to do is enslave, and torment, and probably kill his victims. pft.
Foul makes people destroy themselves, while leaving them the one thing that is important to them but which is now so ruined that it just makes things all the more horrible. I think Covenant nailed what Foul does with his parable about the woman in the leprosarium with the beautiful smile – she didn’t do anything about her leprosy (= Foul, in this parable), and so had to have pieces of herself cut away again and again, until all that was left was a wreck of a human being and even that she still had her beautiful smile just made it worse to hear about.
… and Foul does that sort of stuff just because it amuses him (“Foul laughs at lepers.”) brrr.
Sauron never did anything that evil. Morgoth, his boss, came close in what he did to Húrin – but both of 'em just wanted to conquer and rule. Foul wants to do that to everyone, and his attempts at conquest are just a cover for doing that. Far better to fight evin in Middle-Earth, than the Land, IMO.
I have more to say, but I’m in the middle of a long day of teaching. BRB.
That’s a long day.
You weren’t wearing a white gold ring on the 14th, were you?
:smack: Crap. I forgot. And now I’ve forgotten what I was going to say.
However, I have a new statement:
I was convinced that Runes of the Earth and Fatal Revenant were the last hurrah. I thought it was a two-book farewell. A last adventure. So I got a little worried when I was about halfway through Fatal Revenant and nothing seemed to be coming to a head. No trips to Mount Thunder. No big series-ending denouement. Dreading what I’d find, I flipped over to the last page, and sure enough - “The story continues in book 3…”
Shit. SHIT.
Wait a sec. “Continues”? Uh oh. A little research shows that the final “trilogy” is actually FOUR books. Goddamn it. The third is supposed to come out in 2010, and the last one not until 2013!! 2013!!!
May samadhi Sheol infest your eyebrow mites, Stephen R. Donaldson. :mad:
and with the run of form I’m having with my ongoibg series, it’s even odds he’ll cark it before he completes the final novel.
Just do me a favor and tell me you haven’t read A Song of Ice and Fire yet, nor will you until it’s completely finished…
sorry, it’s on the “at danger” list.
Darn your curse-bestowing eyes…
I can finally say, now that I’ve finished as much of the story as presently exists, that I understand the draw of the story. It’s frustrating, but well told, Donaldson is not one to abide loose ends in his story. If a character appears, even for a page or two, you can be pretty darn sure that he or she is going to end up playing a larger part in the story down the road. That’s just good craftsmanship.
The downside I am seeing, however, is that it’s becoming more difficult to relate to the story on a literary level. I mean, sure, it’s a mythic heroes’ quest, and it has plenty of sword and sorcery action. Dark lore, deep magical mysteries, world-shaking theurgies. All that. But it no longer seems to have the human theme I found attractive in the first (and to some extent the second) series. In the first trilogy, the Land, and most of its magic, was more or less directly derived from Thomas Covenant’s self-conflict. Donaldson, in the first book of the second series, pretty well confirms this in no uncertain terms. Hile Troy may or may not have existed in the real world at all. This is supported by Covenant’s failed attempt to track him down at the DoD (although I’m perfectly aware that it doesn’t prove anything.)
As soon as Lord Foul was able to cross over and have some sort of effect on our world, and Linden Avery was able to go to the Land, the whole thing became less effective to me. I still - although, believe me, Donaldson’s writing still gives me hives at times (“unhermeneuticalistic”? Really?) - like it. It’s just not quite as deep to me now.
Can’t do that, because they won’t.
I read the first three and quit. I’m surprised that I finished the first. I kept thinking that he’s got a good concept here, sooner or later he’s bound to hit his stride and make it work.
He never did.
One quick thought: what is Donaldson’s deal with eyes and perception, and the removal thereof? Stave loses an eye. Mahrtiir loses BOTH his eyes. The Harrow has eyes black and flat as basalt, and the Humbled tried to remove them. The ur-viles and Waynhim don’t have eyes. Neither do the Sandgorgons. Hile Troy? No eyes. I can see how a lot of the story revolves around perception, with the Land and its native “percipience,” and then you have Kevin’s Dirt, and the inability of anyone except Avery to “see” during the whole Sunbane thing. But why all the eyeless characters, and loss of eyes all around?
As well ask what the significance of the halfhand stuff is. Yes, it is there to link Covenant to Berek, and so that the three Bloodguard can be maimed likewise to show Foul’s contempt… but, why the halfhand? Some sort of meta-comment on Covenant’s lack of skill and inaptness?
As with the eyes thing, Donaldson probably had some meta-reason for doing it, but too obscure for me to wriggle out. I suspect the no-eyes thing was to emphasize how out-of-touch with human contact those characters were, actually, given how important eye contact is to human interaction.
I’m glad you returned to this thread, Lightray. I hope you don’t think I’m still bagging on the series. I can definitely state that I’m very much into the books.
I went from “God I hate this. Every page is hard to get through.” to “OK. Lots of people think this is a fantasy classic. Keep reading.” to “Hmmm…that was kind of cool. Didn’t see that coming.” to “Ooooooh. I see what’s going on here.” to “Pietten?! Awesome. I completely forgot about that guy.” to “I can’t wait to read the rest of this!”
So yeah, I’ve become a fanboi. I’m just trying to kick off a discussion among any interested parties. It’s been slow going.
So you can probably appreciate now why I can’t recall if I stopped viewing Foul and the Land as wholly within Covenant’s mind before or after the original trilogy. Donaldson dropping Linden in kind of messes with that premise of the original trilogy – I actually think that he retconned his own work to get the second trilogy in.
I do have to say that I liked Runes of the Earth. Things were actually happening, and Linden in particular was doing stuff for a change. Unlike the usual wherein Covenant and/or Linden are observers and commentators on what is going on, but maddeningly passive, each because of their own issues. Fatal Revenant, alas, was mostly back to passivity, with Linden unwilling to act even though she obviously knows that the situation is hinky.
I’ll also add that each successive series has caused the haruchai to annoy me more and more. I understand why Donaldson is using them – continuity for the Land with all the long time passage – but they way they’re written they’re damned annoying and unsympathetic. To borrow a comparison, they’re like the Guardians of Oa of the Green Lantern comics… stubbornly stupid. And I used to like the Bloodguard…
ah, curse! stupid hamsters took too long updating, and the edit timeout closed on me. to add:
really, I’ve nothing against when people are down on the Covenant books – they’re pretty much written to annoy fantasy readers, after all. so… success, I guess. what is irritating is people dismissing or “bagging” on them out of hand. e.g., “Covenant is a rapist and therefore the books can have no redeeming value and anyone who likes them is likewise unredeemable.”
which crops up quite often in online discussions of the books, from my experience.
I’m actually surprised when someone who starts out not liking the books actually finishes them, whether or not their opinion turns. guess I’m just not that patient and forgiving of stuff I don’t like.