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metaphorosis's review against another edition
3.0
First things first - because I bought Against All Things Ending essentially sight unseen, I assumed throughout that it was the final book in this nine book series. Turns out there are ten, so all my wondering about 'how can he possibly tie all this up in time?" was premature. He didn't.
Against is effectively more of the same - if you've read any book in the Thomas Covenant series, you know what's coming: excellent writing, a dash of philosophy, and selfish, frustrating anti-heroes who mostly whine and refuse to act.
I say that as a long-time fan - I read [b:Lord Foul's Bane|219205|Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #1)|Stephen R. Donaldson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333217655s/219205.jpg|958463] not long after it came out, and I've read all the rest as soon as I can get my hands on them. While Donaldson sometimes pushes the anti-hero thing too far (the Gap series was disappointing), mostly he carries it off flawlessly. I enjoyed the previous eight books in the series; the mounting frustration at the protagonists' failure to do anything useful is part of the package. It's amazing that it's stayed attractive for so long.
In Against, it at last begins to pall.It isn't so much the repetition of a somewhat tired theme - the characters have to stay their irritating selves, after all. It's the seemingly endless agonizing about it. That too, of course, is part of the series and the characters. But here it is finally overdone. I carried through because after all, it was the last book in a great series. Of course, it's not, and I await the next (last?) with some trepidation.
Covenant himself improved after the first trilogy, but Linden Avery has taken his place as angst-ridden-character-in-chief, and she more than fills his place. If anything, she got harder to bear after the second trilogy.
We do get a fair amount of interesting background in this book. While certainly many mysteries remain, some questions, at least, have been answered. There are relatively fewer sections where nothing actually happens aside from soul searching and self-doubt.
Donaldson seems to have ramped up the vocabulary as well. I appreciate the fact that he often uses unusual or archaic words - that's part of the charm. Here, though, it started to feel a little much. In particular, the word "condign" (one of Donaldson's favorites) started to wear on me. It seems like every other page, someone is saying something is condign. An "appropriate" or "meet" or "fitting" every now and then would have helped leaven the prose.
With all of that rambling - here's all you need to know. If you haven't read Donaldson or the Covenant series, please don't start here - there's very little chance you'll make any sense of it (though there is a very nice summary of books 1-8 provided). If you have read books 1-8, you're certainly going to read this one. It's not a situation like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books where you can just give up. In those books, after a point (book 7?) nothing happened at all. Here, there's actual progress, and we're learning actual mysteries. You may not enjoy it quite as much as book 1 (or even book 7), but you'll still enjoy, and still look forward to learning all the secrets (I hope) in book 10.
Against is effectively more of the same - if you've read any book in the Thomas Covenant series, you know what's coming: excellent writing, a dash of philosophy, and selfish, frustrating anti-heroes who mostly whine and refuse to act.
I say that as a long-time fan - I read [b:Lord Foul's Bane|219205|Lord Foul's Bane (The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, #1)|Stephen R. Donaldson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333217655s/219205.jpg|958463] not long after it came out, and I've read all the rest as soon as I can get my hands on them. While Donaldson sometimes pushes the anti-hero thing too far (the Gap series was disappointing), mostly he carries it off flawlessly. I enjoyed the previous eight books in the series; the mounting frustration at the protagonists' failure to do anything useful is part of the package. It's amazing that it's stayed attractive for so long.
In Against, it at last begins to pall.It isn't so much the repetition of a somewhat tired theme - the characters have to stay their irritating selves, after all. It's the seemingly endless agonizing about it. That too, of course, is part of the series and the characters. But here it is finally overdone. I carried through because after all, it was the last book in a great series. Of course, it's not, and I await the next (last?) with some trepidation.
Covenant himself improved after the first trilogy, but Linden Avery has taken his place as angst-ridden-character-in-chief, and she more than fills his place. If anything, she got harder to bear after the second trilogy.
We do get a fair amount of interesting background in this book. While certainly many mysteries remain, some questions, at least, have been answered. There are relatively fewer sections where nothing actually happens aside from soul searching and self-doubt.
Donaldson seems to have ramped up the vocabulary as well. I appreciate the fact that he often uses unusual or archaic words - that's part of the charm. Here, though, it started to feel a little much. In particular, the word "condign" (one of Donaldson's favorites) started to wear on me. It seems like every other page, someone is saying something is condign. An "appropriate" or "meet" or "fitting" every now and then would have helped leaven the prose.
With all of that rambling - here's all you need to know. If you haven't read Donaldson or the Covenant series, please don't start here - there's very little chance you'll make any sense of it (though there is a very nice summary of books 1-8 provided). If you have read books 1-8, you're certainly going to read this one. It's not a situation like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time books where you can just give up. In those books, after a point (book 7?) nothing happened at all. Here, there's actual progress, and we're learning actual mysteries. You may not enjoy it quite as much as book 1 (or even book 7), but you'll still enjoy, and still look forward to learning all the secrets (I hope) in book 10.
souljaleonn's review
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
neilsef's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
This was a challenging read, both because it is very slow-paced and because the author likes to use as many words as possible, or at least that's the way it seems to me, to describe most things. An example is the following, which is used to describe multicoloured ribbons,
"a personal effluvium of cerise and incarnadine and carbuncle, ecru and ivory, turquoise and viridian and azure, blue as deep as velvet, yellows ranging from the fulvous and the sulphuric to the palest gold."
I found the characters on the whole not to be that engaging or to have much personality, except for a few of the Giants, so I was not invested in any of their fates, in fact, the only character I felt anything for was the Harrows horse.
On the plus side, the story was intriguing enough to keep me reading and it's an education in the English language and its usage.
Currently, I do not plan on reading the final instalment, but that could change as I don't like to leave things unfinished.
"a personal effluvium of cerise and incarnadine and carbuncle, ecru and ivory, turquoise and viridian and azure, blue as deep as velvet, yellows ranging from the fulvous and the sulphuric to the palest gold."
I found the characters on the whole not to be that engaging or to have much personality, except for a few of the Giants, so I was not invested in any of their fates, in fact, the only character I felt anything for was the Harrows horse.
On the plus side, the story was intriguing enough to keep me reading and it's an education in the English language and its usage.
Currently, I do not plan on reading the final instalment, but that could change as I don't like to leave things unfinished.
jknock's review
5.0
This book delivers on all the promises of the series so far. I just can't say much more than that without giving away spoilers for this or previous books.
This is definitely a series to read in order.
This is definitely a series to read in order.
angelahayes's review against another edition
4.0
Against All Things Ending (The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant #3)
by Stephen R. Donaldson
Buddy read. Review to come.
by Stephen R. Donaldson
Buddy read. Review to come.
daviddavidkatzman's review
1.0
This review is for all ten books in the series. My re-read of the first six books was colored through the lens of nostalgia. The first two trilogies affected me a great deal as a youth—I read them at some point during high school. When I saw that Donaldson had completed the story arc with The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, a four-book tetralogy, I decided to return to the originals and read them all in sequence.
I regret the decision, but now at least I’ve completed them. I do believe that because the first series in particular is so unique, Donaldson deserved to be given the chance to resolve the story. The ending brought many strands together with a feeling of near-completion, but unfortunately his style ruined the last four books for me.
The first six books affected me powerfully. They were the first fantasy novel that I had read that treated the reader like an adult (much more so than Lord of the Rings). It’s adult in several ways. First, the language. Donaldson uses advanced vocabulary unsparingly that requires most readers to keep a dictionary (app) handy. He doesn’t dumb it down for “young adults” or even for adults for that matter. He challenges you to use your brain, and as a child who joined Mensa and was constantly solving puzzles and playing complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, I ate up the challenge. I felt more mature reading it.
The second most obvious quality that struck me as different from all the other fantasy novels that I had read, is that the main character was radically unsympathetic. Antiheroes were not unknown to me at the time—I had read quite a bit of Michael Moorcock by this point, including Elric of Melnibone and the Cornelius Chronicles. But your typical anti-hero has redeeming qualities that are appealing to read even while they behave in “anti” ways. For example, they are usually charismatic. Or clever. Or unafraid. Whatever causes them to commit questionable acts, we enjoy reading their exploits, and they end up saving the day even if only for selfish reasons. Well, here’s where Donaldson parts ways the most dramatically. The main character is not only a bad person, but he is an unlikeable person. Thomas Covenant is irritable and difficult and unfunny. He is furious at the world because it treated him harshly. He’s bony and angular and diseased and anti-cuddly. He’s a cactus of a person. And on top of that, he commits a despicable act that makes him seem unredeemable. It happens in the first novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and I don’t consider it a spoiler because I think anyone who goes into reading it should know about it in advance. It’s a central conundrum of much of the series, how do we as the reader respond to it and how do we feel about the author’s treatment of the topic. Thomas Covenant is sucked into the fantasy world known only as The Land, and he believes it is only a grand hallucination of some sort. He feels he’s gone insane. Enraged by his lack of control over himself and his situation (which is particularly acute for him because he has leprosy and his only real-world survival method is to remain in complete control of his interactions with his environment), he takes it out on a friendly young woman trying to help him by raping her.
This act brings up the ethical question of whether cruelty in a dream is real. Covenant believes (at that time) that The Land is a dream of some sort although it’s certainly not a typical dream. But if we are willing to accept that premise then how do we feel about violence toward a dream figure? How do we feel about rape in a story, if we want to look at it metafictionally? Over the course of the series, Donaldson touches on how the assault act psychologically harms the rapist. Covenant later can’t forgive himself and carries his own self-hatred with him for many years. He frequently seeks to atone for this action that he regrets. Yes, his victim suffers from the event but in what I would describe as stereotypical ways. The focus was never on her point of view. Which isn’t to say Donaldson dismisses it, but it’s not really his strong suit. He’s clearly an Existentialist of sorts, and we as a reader come to realize that whether the world is a grand hallucination or another actual dimension doesn’t matter—Covenant is defined by his choices. From a Buddhist perspective, all of existence is a dream. All is nothingness. And yet within this nothingness, our choices still matter. The act of rape degrades the actor as well as injures the victim. A contemporary feminist critique of the storyline might analyze the events from a different perspective. While personal agency and “responsibility” are not attributes to be utterly dismissed, the decentralized and abstract self is part of a social environment. And in fact, it is society/culture/civilization that permits rape to occur. Yes, we can and should punish criminal acts, but it’s our political and cultural environment that allows it to exist, and what is required to change is not “interior” but is instead social. This brings up what could be seen as a weakness of The Chronicles and Donaldson’s treatment of rape and other issues. In the world of The Land, it’s relatively devoid of politics. There is no political economy—no Capitalism to turn people, time, and materials into products. Society is relatively egalitarian between men and women with almost no patriarchy. Struggles tend to be either between evil and good—the forces of Lord Foul (the force of “despite” or despair) versus everyone else (who mean well but may unwittingly help Foul); or the struggles are between “races.” The entire story struck me as not quite racist but racialist. Tending to give each racial group common attributes in contrast with others. He’s somewhat essentialist in his creation of races. The Hurachai, the Ramen, the Giants, the Stonedowners, the Demondimspawn, the Elohim, etc. While there is disagreement between certain members of each group, Donaldson tends to emphasize similarities. At times, for example, I became uncomfortable that all the Hurachai were inscrutable, unemotional martial artists of supreme skill (and unifying telepathic abilities). It struck me as an Asian stereotype—like they were all Bruce Lee clones.
The violent sexual assault, an incestuous relationship (which isn’t portrayed as healthy but also isn’t utterly condemned), and lastly the focus on morality throughout the Chronicles are the other additional elements that made the series a truly adult story that never coddles the reader. We must wrestle with our own responses rather than simply accept the story as it is. Many readers may even just quit reading it and that is certainly a valid response. Or, just as Donaldson positions Covenant as the only man who can save The Land due to his possession of a white gold ring (the wedding band from his ex-wife) which gives him tremendous, dangerous magical powers…are we stuck with the book because it’s hard to put down? Because we grow to care about The Land too? More than we care about Covenant?
In the first two trilogies, Donaldson exhibits a dramatic writing style that walks a tightrope between grand and grandiose that is not balanced by any humor. Either you accept that emotions and dangers are always turned up to 11 or you become put off by the style, and he comes across as melodramatic and bombastic. For me, it worked (mostly) through the first two trilogies. When you get to book seven, he goes off the rails.
The last four books struck me as a parody of his own style. In book nine, the word “god” is repeated 131 times. Hell gets 140 mentions. Damn gets 73. The word “mien” (you know, instead of “expression”) gets 9 mentions in book nine and 25 in book ten. Book ten finds “hell” repeated 181 times, “god” 168 times, “innominate” gets 5 mentions and “We are Giants” is spoken 14 times. Not to mention “We are Haruchai” or “We are Ramen.” Heavy handed much? Throughout the final four, Donaldson dedicates a tremendous volume of dialogue toward justifying and rationalizing the plot. He seems to complexify things in order to create barriers and challenges to raise the stakes but then feels the need to put a lot of effort into explaining them. Too many unnecessary details parsed…much like theology.
Covenant and the other main character, Linden Avery, who joins us in the second trilogy, are always plagued by self-doubt. But by book eight, the self-doubt becomes unbearable. It may authentically represent a struggle that most of us face but for fuck’s sake I don’t want to read about characters constantly doubting themselves. It’s beyond tedious. And the romance between Covenant and Linden is not epic, it’s cloying and saccharineBoth of them struggle with power and feel unworthy of it. They feel that if they accept too much power then they become dangerous. They fear responsibility and must overcome their fear of using power in order to succeed. This strikes me as a thematic concern out-of-date with our times. It feels like a meaningless abstract Existential crisis. “I have so much power I’m afraid to use it.” I keep coming back to the fact that our current struggles are about the “everyperson” being faced with a deficit of power. Corrupt figures like Trump and McConnell have no qualms about using their power. They have no inner struggle. The rest of us humanity are oppressed. So who could possibly relate to this premise of having too much power and being afraid to use it? It seems like an irrelevant out-of-date intellectual debate occurring repeatedly throughout the story.
How does Donaldson reflect on religion in The Chronicles? In general, I’d say ambiguously. I did a little research and found an interview with Donaldson where he talks about being raised as a Fundamentalist Christian and so he understands that mindset well. He said that aspects of that way of thinking remain with him, and he considers himself a “missionary for literature.” Personally, I find Biblical symbolism to be rather pompous in literature, but at the same time I find blasphemy to be generally amusing and entertaining. When fiction uses Biblical stories in some fashion to simply retell the myth (let’s say Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is Christ returned to save humanity) then I call that proselytizing and indoctrination. But what about when the story falls somewhere in between praise and blasphemy? Thomas Covenant is a Christ figure. He’s resurrected several times in various ways. He actually has leprosy and is healed (periodically) of his condition. Christ is described as curing leprosy. His very name—Covenant: a binding religious commitment to the gospel. And he’s called “The Unbeliever” due to his refusal to believe The Land is real. A facile interpretation might pose that this unlikeable rapist asshole is a representation of “atheism,” and he doesn’t become tolerable and accept his role until he admits The Land is important—even if he never quite knows if it is real. It may all be in his head, but he becomes a better person when he cares about it and acts based upon that. Christians might call this “faith.” I would quibble that Covenant never really becomes likeable. He sacrifices and risks himself repeatedly, but I never found myself on his side. I was on the side of The Land and the supporting characters pulled in his wake.
The religious symbolism is profligate throughout. Lord Foul is our Satan. The Creator is God, Donaldson makes the Creator generally weak and ineffectual although he’s responsible for setting Covenant and Linden Avery on their paths into The Land. The Creator is a fairly clear embodiment of the aspect of Christian story that has Jesus crying, “Why have you forsaken me?” The Creator sets the ball rolling then poof—he gone. The Land is a fallen paradise, with much beauty yet corrupted by evil and plagued by toxins. There were actually times when the themes struck me as almost, vaguely environmental. The poisonous “Sunbane” that inflicts the land is like global warming. The Sunbane is fed by cruelty although they are tricked into believing they are doing it for the good of humanity. Much like we work to buy houses, clothes, electronics, and so on to give our families comfortable lives. And yet all that comfort comes at a price for our species. Humans were seduced into chopping down great swathes of the “One Forest” which subsequently allowed Lord Foul’s forces to increase their strength. There is no technology anywhere in the land, only magic and physical prowess, and so that which “pollutes” the land is driven by our Satan figure. These implications are never stated directly, but they begin to chip away at the too-obvious metaphor of Covenant “saving” humanity. The battle in his soul to avoid despair is what permits him to act and attempt to save the natural world. There is one particular scene that problematizes a simple Christian view of the story. Covenant returns to the “real world” and stumbles into a Christian revival service under a tent. Due to his leprosy, the church rejects him as diseased and literally throws him out. He finds no solace from the Earthly church, only eventually by returning to the fantasy realm and overcoming self-doubt does he find purpose. In the end, Covenant’s covenant is not religious, but it’s a commitment to action in pursuit of Good. His quest is Existential not religious. The Biblical elements seemed to me more stylistic attributes. The framework for a morality play that is about love and friendship and self-sacrifice and overcoming despair for the good of others.
I will comment briefly on the ending in a spoiler tag.
In total, The Chronicles is a groundbreaking series that confronts us with a plethora of moral questions. The adventure story that goes along with it was compelling through the first six books at least, but fell apart for me in the last four. It’s not completely true that I regret reading them all. The OCD in me is pleased to know how Donaldson wanted it all to end.
I regret the decision, but now at least I’ve completed them. I do believe that because the first series in particular is so unique, Donaldson deserved to be given the chance to resolve the story. The ending brought many strands together with a feeling of near-completion, but unfortunately his style ruined the last four books for me.
The first six books affected me powerfully. They were the first fantasy novel that I had read that treated the reader like an adult (much more so than Lord of the Rings). It’s adult in several ways. First, the language. Donaldson uses advanced vocabulary unsparingly that requires most readers to keep a dictionary (app) handy. He doesn’t dumb it down for “young adults” or even for adults for that matter. He challenges you to use your brain, and as a child who joined Mensa and was constantly solving puzzles and playing complex games like Dungeons & Dragons, I ate up the challenge. I felt more mature reading it.
The second most obvious quality that struck me as different from all the other fantasy novels that I had read, is that the main character was radically unsympathetic. Antiheroes were not unknown to me at the time—I had read quite a bit of Michael Moorcock by this point, including Elric of Melnibone and the Cornelius Chronicles. But your typical anti-hero has redeeming qualities that are appealing to read even while they behave in “anti” ways. For example, they are usually charismatic. Or clever. Or unafraid. Whatever causes them to commit questionable acts, we enjoy reading their exploits, and they end up saving the day even if only for selfish reasons. Well, here’s where Donaldson parts ways the most dramatically. The main character is not only a bad person, but he is an unlikeable person. Thomas Covenant is irritable and difficult and unfunny. He is furious at the world because it treated him harshly. He’s bony and angular and diseased and anti-cuddly. He’s a cactus of a person. And on top of that, he commits a despicable act that makes him seem unredeemable. It happens in the first novel, Lord Foul’s Bane, and I don’t consider it a spoiler because I think anyone who goes into reading it should know about it in advance. It’s a central conundrum of much of the series, how do we as the reader respond to it and how do we feel about the author’s treatment of the topic. Thomas Covenant is sucked into the fantasy world known only as The Land, and he believes it is only a grand hallucination of some sort. He feels he’s gone insane. Enraged by his lack of control over himself and his situation (which is particularly acute for him because he has leprosy and his only real-world survival method is to remain in complete control of his interactions with his environment), he takes it out on a friendly young woman trying to help him by raping her.
This act brings up the ethical question of whether cruelty in a dream is real. Covenant believes (at that time) that The Land is a dream of some sort although it’s certainly not a typical dream. But if we are willing to accept that premise then how do we feel about violence toward a dream figure? How do we feel about rape in a story, if we want to look at it metafictionally? Over the course of the series, Donaldson touches on how the assault act psychologically harms the rapist. Covenant later can’t forgive himself and carries his own self-hatred with him for many years. He frequently seeks to atone for this action that he regrets. Yes, his victim suffers from the event but in what I would describe as stereotypical ways. The focus was never on her point of view. Which isn’t to say Donaldson dismisses it, but it’s not really his strong suit. He’s clearly an Existentialist of sorts, and we as a reader come to realize that whether the world is a grand hallucination or another actual dimension doesn’t matter—Covenant is defined by his choices. From a Buddhist perspective, all of existence is a dream. All is nothingness. And yet within this nothingness, our choices still matter. The act of rape degrades the actor as well as injures the victim. A contemporary feminist critique of the storyline might analyze the events from a different perspective. While personal agency and “responsibility” are not attributes to be utterly dismissed, the decentralized and abstract self is part of a social environment. And in fact, it is society/culture/civilization that permits rape to occur. Yes, we can and should punish criminal acts, but it’s our political and cultural environment that allows it to exist, and what is required to change is not “interior” but is instead social. This brings up what could be seen as a weakness of The Chronicles and Donaldson’s treatment of rape and other issues. In the world of The Land, it’s relatively devoid of politics. There is no political economy—no Capitalism to turn people, time, and materials into products. Society is relatively egalitarian between men and women with almost no patriarchy. Struggles tend to be either between evil and good—the forces of Lord Foul (the force of “despite” or despair) versus everyone else (who mean well but may unwittingly help Foul); or the struggles are between “races.” The entire story struck me as not quite racist but racialist. Tending to give each racial group common attributes in contrast with others. He’s somewhat essentialist in his creation of races. The Hurachai, the Ramen, the Giants, the Stonedowners, the Demondimspawn, the Elohim, etc. While there is disagreement between certain members of each group, Donaldson tends to emphasize similarities. At times, for example, I became uncomfortable that all the Hurachai were inscrutable, unemotional martial artists of supreme skill (and unifying telepathic abilities). It struck me as an Asian stereotype—like they were all Bruce Lee clones.
The violent sexual assault, an incestuous relationship (which isn’t portrayed as healthy but also isn’t utterly condemned), and lastly the focus on morality throughout the Chronicles are the other additional elements that made the series a truly adult story that never coddles the reader. We must wrestle with our own responses rather than simply accept the story as it is. Many readers may even just quit reading it and that is certainly a valid response. Or, just as Donaldson positions Covenant as the only man who can save The Land due to his possession of a white gold ring (the wedding band from his ex-wife) which gives him tremendous, dangerous magical powers…are we stuck with the book because it’s hard to put down? Because we grow to care about The Land too? More than we care about Covenant?
In the first two trilogies, Donaldson exhibits a dramatic writing style that walks a tightrope between grand and grandiose that is not balanced by any humor. Either you accept that emotions and dangers are always turned up to 11 or you become put off by the style, and he comes across as melodramatic and bombastic. For me, it worked (mostly) through the first two trilogies. When you get to book seven, he goes off the rails.
The last four books struck me as a parody of his own style. In book nine, the word “god” is repeated 131 times. Hell gets 140 mentions. Damn gets 73. The word “mien” (you know, instead of “expression”) gets 9 mentions in book nine and 25 in book ten. Book ten finds “hell” repeated 181 times, “god” 168 times, “innominate” gets 5 mentions and “We are Giants” is spoken 14 times. Not to mention “We are Haruchai” or “We are Ramen.” Heavy handed much? Throughout the final four, Donaldson dedicates a tremendous volume of dialogue toward justifying and rationalizing the plot. He seems to complexify things in order to create barriers and challenges to raise the stakes but then feels the need to put a lot of effort into explaining them. Too many unnecessary details parsed…much like theology.
Covenant and the other main character, Linden Avery, who joins us in the second trilogy, are always plagued by self-doubt. But by book eight, the self-doubt becomes unbearable. It may authentically represent a struggle that most of us face but for fuck’s sake I don’t want to read about characters constantly doubting themselves. It’s beyond tedious. And the romance between Covenant and Linden is not epic, it’s cloying and saccharineBoth of them struggle with power and feel unworthy of it. They feel that if they accept too much power then they become dangerous. They fear responsibility and must overcome their fear of using power in order to succeed. This strikes me as a thematic concern out-of-date with our times. It feels like a meaningless abstract Existential crisis. “I have so much power I’m afraid to use it.” I keep coming back to the fact that our current struggles are about the “everyperson” being faced with a deficit of power. Corrupt figures like Trump and McConnell have no qualms about using their power. They have no inner struggle. The rest of us humanity are oppressed. So who could possibly relate to this premise of having too much power and being afraid to use it? It seems like an irrelevant out-of-date intellectual debate occurring repeatedly throughout the story.
How does Donaldson reflect on religion in The Chronicles? In general, I’d say ambiguously. I did a little research and found an interview with Donaldson where he talks about being raised as a Fundamentalist Christian and so he understands that mindset well. He said that aspects of that way of thinking remain with him, and he considers himself a “missionary for literature.” Personally, I find Biblical symbolism to be rather pompous in literature, but at the same time I find blasphemy to be generally amusing and entertaining. When fiction uses Biblical stories in some fashion to simply retell the myth (let’s say Aslan in the Narnia Chronicles is Christ returned to save humanity) then I call that proselytizing and indoctrination. But what about when the story falls somewhere in between praise and blasphemy? Thomas Covenant is a Christ figure. He’s resurrected several times in various ways. He actually has leprosy and is healed (periodically) of his condition. Christ is described as curing leprosy. His very name—Covenant: a binding religious commitment to the gospel. And he’s called “The Unbeliever” due to his refusal to believe The Land is real. A facile interpretation might pose that this unlikeable rapist asshole is a representation of “atheism,” and he doesn’t become tolerable and accept his role until he admits The Land is important—even if he never quite knows if it is real. It may all be in his head, but he becomes a better person when he cares about it and acts based upon that. Christians might call this “faith.” I would quibble that Covenant never really becomes likeable. He sacrifices and risks himself repeatedly, but I never found myself on his side. I was on the side of The Land and the supporting characters pulled in his wake.
The religious symbolism is profligate throughout. Lord Foul is our Satan. The Creator is God, Donaldson makes the Creator generally weak and ineffectual although he’s responsible for setting Covenant and Linden Avery on their paths into The Land. The Creator is a fairly clear embodiment of the aspect of Christian story that has Jesus crying, “Why have you forsaken me?” The Creator sets the ball rolling then poof—he gone. The Land is a fallen paradise, with much beauty yet corrupted by evil and plagued by toxins. There were actually times when the themes struck me as almost, vaguely environmental. The poisonous “Sunbane” that inflicts the land is like global warming. The Sunbane is fed by cruelty although they are tricked into believing they are doing it for the good of humanity. Much like we work to buy houses, clothes, electronics, and so on to give our families comfortable lives. And yet all that comfort comes at a price for our species. Humans were seduced into chopping down great swathes of the “One Forest” which subsequently allowed Lord Foul’s forces to increase their strength. There is no technology anywhere in the land, only magic and physical prowess, and so that which “pollutes” the land is driven by our Satan figure. These implications are never stated directly, but they begin to chip away at the too-obvious metaphor of Covenant “saving” humanity. The battle in his soul to avoid despair is what permits him to act and attempt to save the natural world. There is one particular scene that problematizes a simple Christian view of the story. Covenant returns to the “real world” and stumbles into a Christian revival service under a tent. Due to his leprosy, the church rejects him as diseased and literally throws him out. He finds no solace from the Earthly church, only eventually by returning to the fantasy realm and overcoming self-doubt does he find purpose. In the end, Covenant’s covenant is not religious, but it’s a commitment to action in pursuit of Good. His quest is Existential not religious. The Biblical elements seemed to me more stylistic attributes. The framework for a morality play that is about love and friendship and self-sacrifice and overcoming despair for the good of others.
I will comment briefly on the ending in a spoiler tag.
Spoiler
Covenant finally rids the land of the Despiser by taking Lord Foul into himself—by absorbing him. This strikes me as one of Donaldson more blatant in-your-face religious metaphors. “Evil” or “Satan,” like Original Sin lives in each of us. Especially in men, though—because Covenant is our rapist. That power to be evil or to rape is something we must resist in each of us (especially men). This is a truly Existentialist type of philosophy that shows the failure of Donaldson to address “evil” as a social or cultural issue and not a personal one. It’s perhaps his Fundamentalist mindset showing through. I believe that evil—however that word is defined—is something that needs to be addressed culturally and politically. The personal follows the political. Global warming won’t be solved by each of us driving less. But by an industrial strength Green New Deal. Culture must evolve and the individual identity will follow.In total, The Chronicles is a groundbreaking series that confronts us with a plethora of moral questions. The adventure story that goes along with it was compelling through the first six books at least, but fell apart for me in the last four. It’s not completely true that I regret reading them all. The OCD in me is pleased to know how Donaldson wanted it all to end.
mw2k's review
Completely unreadable. Every sentence is convoluted, every piece of dialogue sounds as if uttered by the amateur dramatics club of your local school, or worse - a LARP session out on the fields. Once upon a time Donaldson wrote page-turning and compelling stories. God, he's seemingly forgotten how. I could finish the second book and perhaps I foolishly moved on to this one, with identical results. Who was I kidding?
Do yourself a favour and re-read the first Covenant trilogy or the Mordant's Need duo and revel in what was then sublime writing.
Now...it's just tragic.
Do yourself a favour and re-read the first Covenant trilogy or the Mordant's Need duo and revel in what was then sublime writing.
Now...it's just tragic.
ilanderz's review
4.0
A gloomy masterpiece, though it took me a few pages to come to that conclusion.
I have always been impressed by Donaldson's craft. Few bring to life such vivid protagonists as Donaldson. Few invoke such a sense of reality. This book didn't disappoint.
Near the beginning I was slightly put off by what I perceived as a staggering display of writerly self-indulgence -- a minute-by-minute play-by-play of characters thoughts and emotions.
But once I figured out what this book was actually about -- for me, at least -- an intense, unflinching look at despair (which shouldn't have come as a surprise, considering it's been a running theme throughout the entire series) I was hooked.
As others have said, not for everyone. But definitely for me.
I have always been impressed by Donaldson's craft. Few bring to life such vivid protagonists as Donaldson. Few invoke such a sense of reality. This book didn't disappoint.
Near the beginning I was slightly put off by what I perceived as a staggering display of writerly self-indulgence -- a minute-by-minute play-by-play of characters thoughts and emotions.
But once I figured out what this book was actually about -- for me, at least -- an intense, unflinching look at despair (which shouldn't have come as a surprise, considering it's been a running theme throughout the entire series) I was hooked.
As others have said, not for everyone. But definitely for me.
hteph's review
2.0
Did not like the first two books, I'm really not a fan of time-travel and sceptic to the concept of authors writing books to holistically explain their earlier writing ... this series hit both and combined with Donaldsons unforgiving prose
it.just.got.to.frakking.much
When I learned that the ending is also a big letdown I'm just lost the will to continue, it has been sitting on the shelf for ages and mocking me. Now it goes away from my toReadPile (it got marginally lower in height) and probably be donated to charity or something.
it.just.got.to.frakking.much
When I learned that the ending is also a big letdown I'm just lost the will to continue, it has been sitting on the shelf for ages and mocking me. Now it goes away from my toReadPile (it got marginally lower in height) and probably be donated to charity or something.