Month: May 2024

Closing the Door behind Me

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The heavy oaken slab used to
Bandage the wound pierced through the ivory walls–
And it is a wound through which the vital bits
Carrying sustenance throughout the boundaried body
Leak out into the greater world and
Drain the life away from what was never as healthy as was declared
If the pustules filled with voracious white cells are any indication–
Beckons one last time from the edge of the lobby
The foyer that is all the further I fare anymore

Not too far off, no.
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I lingered here too long
Even if only ghosting about the edges
Not much more than wallpaper at the best of times
And the best of times are long behind me that I spent in these halls
Thinking that I would have a place among them and deserved one
But I was caught in some of the many cuts
Or one of the sores that rubbed raw and oozed
And dripped out away from that body inside which
I had sought to thrust myself
Expending what I had within me until fatigue caught up
And I could slumber heavily, spent

The disease was already in its bones then
That recently has shown in force
Herpetic outbreak erupting redly across the face and other places
And I have one last set of rounds to make before
I leave behind the doctoring for which I trained so many years
Knowing my bedside manner was not the best
And the success rates for my treatments less than could be hoped
Residency long concluded and fill-in work set aside
So that I could find other ways to pay my debts–
Slowly, slowly, they progress
Terminal conditions spreading leprous and twisting parts before they rot away–
But these last few faces demand my medication
And my prescription pad is already filled out for them

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A Robin Hobb Rereading Series, Entry 396: Fool’s Assassin, Chapter 6

geoffreybelliott3 Comments

Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.

After an admonishment for Masters of the Skill to observe solo practitioners closely against the possibility of destruction, “The Secret Child” begins with Fitz considering his newborn child and thinking ahead to glorious futures for her. Fitz laughs at himself for his doubts as he pictures how matters will unfold around his second daughter, but his laughter soon dies as he considers further implications; his daughter is another Farseer, and that begins to raise uneasy possibilities in his mind.

Well, yes, of course.
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The next morning sees Withywoods begin to adjust to the presence of a new child, however strange to many people’s eyes, among them. Fitz’s Wit-borne instincts see threats, but more of his attention is given over to marvel at his daughter and his wife who bore her. In a dream, he recalls his youth in Buckkeep, seeing the Fool made sport by the other children in the castle, and he is unable or unwilling to intervene as the other children assail him.

Fitz wakes from his dream and is afraid he has harmed his small child, against which Molly soothes him. He considers the reality of his treatment of the Fool in his childhood, as well as that of the other children in the area, and he realizes that his daughter will be as alone as the Fool was, possibly abused as he was, if he does not act to hinder such a thing.

The opening commentary on Skillmaster Clarity and the Cowshell Village Tragedy points, for one, to a possible horror story set in the Six Duchies. Whether or not Hobb will write such a thing, fleshing out an incident originally mentioned in passing as with the Piebald Prince, I do not know. I can hope for such a thing, however; I am not normally a horror reader, but the kind of deconstructive exploration that the commentary suggests possible is very much the kind of thing I enjoy seeing in those properties for which I can still be said, in some ways, to be a fan.

That same commentary also bespeaks the United States-ness from which Hobb writes. Perhaps it is another of my affective readings, but I cannot help but see a parallel between what is suggested–not only in the current chapter, but elsewhere in the corpus–about the developed community of Skill users and the US Judiciary. I also cannot help but note that there is, in the present chapter as elsewhere in the corpus, an explicit check on political power. The monarch of the Six Duchies loses the ability to appoint a major court and governmental functionary, and the body undertakes to police itself by adopting policies that explicitly constrain its highest member. The dangers of autocracy, growing greater as the power to enforce autocratic dicta and views of morality and ethics increases, are clear; how much of a comment on the world of the novel’s composition, or on the ongoing world of its reception, is to be found is an open question, but that there is one to be found is certain.

And as far as affective reading goes…my own daughter was born small, though she was born early (rather than after a two-year gestation, as Fitz and Molly’s second daughter is). I recall, and I read in my own journals, thoughts about my daughter not unlike Fitz’s about his. I still have some of them; I worry about how the other children in our part of the world do and will regard my girl. But I think it’s not something that needs forgiving that I do. There’s much in my life as does beg forgiving, but that’s not part of it.

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On a Coming Local Election

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My daughter, Ms. 8, has recently decided that she would like to run for student council at her elementary school. She’s noted to both of her parents her reasons for doing so, and they make sense enough; I’m glad she wants to take on more formal leadership roles, and I’m glad that she is confident enough in herself and in the regard her classmates have for her that she feels she has a chance of being elected by them. Too, she is willing to do the work to make that kind of thing happen, or at least to position herself where such a thing can happen, and I endorse my daughter pushing herself by actually getting out and doing the work to get something she wants and that is fit for her to have.

Sure, why not?
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One of the requirements to run for office is for each candidate to submit to school administration an essay that articulates the candidate’s reasons for running and qualifications for office. It’s not a bad idea, in itself; any candidate for any position ought to know why they are running and why they deserve to have the position, and it’s hard to convince others of either without being able to state it clearly and convincingly. (Yes, I know well that much electoral politicking moves entirely aside from that ideal. There’s a reason I use “ought,” here. I’ll also note that there are decided restrictions on the kind of campaigning that can happen at my daughter’s school; while I’m certain that there’s more as goes on than the staff realizes, I’m also certain I’m glad that what rises to the level of official attention gets regulated. The kids don’t need to be sniping at each other, with words or otherwise.) And, as someone who has been solidly invested in being able to put together essays, I found myself pleased that there was suddenly a call for such skill-set as I can reasonably claim to have.

Ms. 8, being young and having the educational background she has, was not entirely sure what to do in her essay–or even what an essay is. So that was a point of discussion for us, but she seemed to take in the information well enough, and we structured her argument together. Doing so, I walked her through something very much like my processes in putting together a formal essay (something I’m amid doing, given an upcoming presentation for me), and the two of us got a fair bit of text (for an elementary school student) roughed in. She still, as of this writing, has work to do on the essay; there’s more material to develop in the argument, proper, and both introduction and conclusion need to be drafted. I’ve already offered to review and proofread the work for her, and I hope she’ll avail herself of my services in those regards.

It’s a small thing, of course, the composition of a one-page essay for an elementary school student council application. I don’t know how the election will go, but even if it goes against her, it will not have much effect in the world–certainly not as compared to the many other things going on on campuses and outside them. But it has been a joy to share a bit of what I trained for many years to do with someone whom I value and who actually stands to see some good from the exercise of that training, and I am reminded in at least a tiny way of what it was that drew me to my field of study to start with. For so much, as for many other things, I thank Ms. 8.

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In Response to a Comment Made about Other Poems I Wrote

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What delight I found in
Baring something I had done to her
And reading in reply that
She felt just as seen as
I felt myself to be
Just then
!

An image after my own heart…
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Who could fail to find pleasure in
Writing words such as
Provoke such words in return
Or
Better yet
To take away the words that would form
Leaving speechless panting in their wake?

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