I am not some darkened lamp
Standing sullenly in the silent street
Glowering as the gloom gathers around me
Oh, no
I already burn
And there is always more fuel on which I can feast
Always more at which to flame and rage
One more spark making little difference
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Following a short excerpt from an instructional manual in one use of the Skill, “A Time of Healing” opens with Fitz, the Fool, and Riddle emerging from the Witness Stones at Buckkeep, the three in poor condition as Nettle and a retrieval party arrive. Nettle rebuke Fitz for his treatment of Riddle, and the group proceeds to Buckkeep and healing. Fitz attends to the Fool himself as keep staff under Nettle’s direction address Riddle’s needs, and he finds marks of long torture upon his old friend. Chade, Kettricken, and Dutiful enter, and some jurisdictional questions arise as Fitz quietly continues to attend to the Fool. Matters soon resolve themselves, however, with Riddle prescribed food and bedrest, and the Fool adjudged a poor candidate for Skill-healing.
Kettricken asks Fitz if the figure he attends is, indeed, the Fool, and she is shocked at the affirmative response. Reports of events begin to be made; Fitz tapped Riddle for Skill-strength, some of which powered the trip through the Skill-pillars, and some of which stabilized the Fool. Arrangements begin to be made for the Fool, and Riddle receives more attention, nodding to Fitz and humbling him with his acceptance. Chade offers some rebuke to Fitz, which he accepts, even as he accepts that Chade’s accommodations of them will have costs to come. The Fool reports a desire for Skill-healing as soon as he can withstand it, and Fitz makes to conduct him to the chambers being prepared. Nettle pulls Fitz aside briefly before letting him and the Fool proceed, and a page guides them to their destination.
There, Fitz keeps an open ear while the Fool bathes and dresses, and as they talk together afterward, the Fool identifies those who have so assailed him–the Servants–and lays out the peril they present. The Fool also lays out his history since his ragged parting from Fitz, turning to the idea of his own child being some pivotal figure in–or powerful force against–the plans of the Servants. And he asks Fitz if he will kill the Servants for him.
The present chapter is a long one–some thirty pages in the edition I am reading–and there is a lot going on in it. (Again, I long to be able to do the counting project of which I have long thought. But, alas, time and resources do not presently permit it!) Among the things happening is the confirmation of what appears to be the central conflict of the present series: between the Fool and the Servants. While there is a bit of retcon going on in the chapter (openly acknowledged as being a refiguring or adjustment to previous understandings, admittedly), and there is some annoyance in seeing it (again, and alongside some character inconsistencies), having clarification about a central focus of the books to come is useful; having a guide to reading often helps the reading that takes place, although it is also the case that such a guide can constrain readership. But then, it should be the case that the text constrains the ways in which it can be read (as opposed to should, which is a whole ‘nother thing).
If I indulge my (ongoing) affective reading, I find myself taken a bit by the exchanges between Fitz and Riddle and between Fitz and Nettle in the infirmary at Buckkeep in the present chapter. Fitz, as often throughout the novels that feature him, doubts the regard in which others hold him, always expecting to be shut out; a psychological reading (always fraught, since characters are not people and the narratives of fiction are necessarily curated) might suggest that the traumas of separation from his maternal family and the strangeness with which his paternal “accepted” him prompt such doubts and expectations, as well as the horrors wrought upon him by Regal. Both Riddle and Nettle reassure him of their inclusion of him, the latter outright rebuking him for his doubts. All ’round, it’s something I found resonant; I don’t think I am the only one, either.
Less affectively, the indications of how court at Buckkeep has changed are telling. It is clear that the court thrives from the number of people in attendance at and in service to it, the specializations on display and the clear training patterns at work within them. The relative privileging of some specializations over others is perhaps less a joy to see; in addition to moving Hobb’s work back towards more “mainstream” Tolkienian-tradition fantasy works (I am, for some reason, put in mind of Feist’s Midkemia), it speaks to hierarchical models that are often, if not always, problematic. But that issue gets toward deeper questions surrounding speculative literature, generally, such as “what is the purpose of it?” My studies suggest that one answer is “to show what can be,” hence the frequency of science-fiction dystopias–but also fantasy utopias. It’s something to consider more thoroughly, yet another scholarly someday for me; I look forward to having the time to address some of them!
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So much of so many lives
Exist only in the ether anymore
The exchange of bits across fiber optic lines and
Through radio waves pervading the spaces
Between ourselves and between our ears
And when those lives end
Their echoes resound in that same ether
Not only the GNU for PTerry but also
Prosaically
The words of others left behind
Posts to social media sites and
Tributes and the like on obituary pages
I’ve written no few of them
Some for people I never met but
Whose works mattered for me
Giving them my own works in meager exchange for
What I had from them
Some for people I knew more or less well
Whose lives had been part of my own
Offering for them some small part of what I have left
Knowing that it was not enough
That it never is enough
Because there is no such thing as Enough
In such matters
And it often takes a death to remind people of it
Some of them
Not necessarily the most recent ones
Remain where I can find them
Without too much effort
Those tombstones well tended
But some
Take some more work to find again
Either in the archives that the courts have let
Something like hatchets hack away at
Or in other searching through
Message boards decaying into decrepitude
More quickly than my body has been failing me
As all bodies eventually do
Hence the need for such things as this
And some
Not necessarily the oldest among them
Falter and fail
Links breaking with the passage of time
Not always much of it
Even measured against the brevity of
One person’s life
Even knowing that
Every echo fades into silence
Given long enough
I worry that
Someday
Someone will press
Delete
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Nigh on twenty years ago
A squalling infant threw her tantrum
Tearing at the baubles and silks one grand old lady wore
Leaving them scattered and shattered and tattered
Never to be made whole again
Because the skills that sewed such things together are not to be found anymore
There’s not enough profit in it
More recently
Another tantrum raged–
Uglier for being close to beauty–
Echoed through the hollers on high
And the older ladies there were not as well prepared
Nor yet so richly appointed, though not less good
Not less worthy of love or of support
But there’s probably still not enough profit in helping them
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All joking aside, following an excerpt from Fitz’s journals, “Collision” begins with Fitz moving to find Bee, whose absence he had had pointed out to him. Riddle advises Fitz as he accompanies him that his care for Bee had not been successful, that he would have to remove Bee from Fitz’s care for her own safety. Shun and Lant attempt to intervene and are decisively rebuffed as Fitz looks out, sees Bee and the beggar, and reacts violently.
Riddle scoops up Bee and affirms her safety as the victim of Fitz’s violence looks to him, revealing himself as the Fool. Fitz recognizes his error and the depths thereof and begins to attempt to address it, entrusting Bee to Riddle’s care as he plies his Skill on his old friend. Realizing the extent of the Fool’s injuries and illness, not all of which is the result of his own knife, Fitz pleads for assistance and purposes to take the Fool to Buckkeep via the Skill-pillars, sending ahead through the Skill to Nettle that he is coming; she reluctantly agrees to assist.
A frantic rush to the nearest Skill-pillars ensues, Fitz trying to get information from the Fool along the way. At Lant’s query, he offers some indication of his own plans, and final preparations for the magical transit are made. Taking one last look at Bee, and with Riddle’s assistance, Fitz takes himself, Riddle, and the Fool into the pillars.
The excerpt from Fitz’s journal comments on his inability to fully immerse himself in the now as Nighteyes had done. There is some commentary on mindfulness to be taken from the excerpt, I am certain, although I’ll readily note that mindfulness is not something at which I excel. I focus on things that need to be done, sometimes to the neglect of what I am doing, or I lose perspective on larger goals while attempting to take steps that I think conduce to them. It’s one of no few things that call for explication by others than me, others who are better suited to the specific tasks; I acknowledge there is much that lies outside my expertise.
The present chapter pretty clearly is the inflection point towards which the novel had been progressing increasingly quickly in the most recent several chapters–and it is quite an inflection, with Fitz potentially fatally wounding someone whose life he had restored and for whose company he had often longed after ragged parting. The irony, operating at several levels, is not lost on me. The chapter opens with opining on not acting in the moment, only to punish Fitz for acting in the moment without gathering additional information. The chapter brings back to Fitz someone he has wanted to see again, only to have him inflict injuries apt to be fatal. The chapter exposes more of Fitz than he would care to have shown, pushing him into reliance on official power structures he had often sought to escape. It also forces him to leave his daughter despite his ongoing efforts to keep her with him. And, as is easily inferred, it removes from Bee perhaps the best teacher that she could have, just as Fitz had removed her from others’ instruction due to perceived insufficiencies in them. So, yes, a lot going on.
And it’s Hobb, which means there’s more such to come…
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Snap to attention
Horns to the ready
Follow the cadence
The drummers beat steady
Draw a deep breath
The atmosphere heady
Step onto the field once again
The minutes will pass
As you stride on the field
Turning and blowing
As you deftly wield
Your horns and your flags
For this, you are steeled
Step off of the field once again
The waiting is worse
The results are told
The fires that burned
Begin to grow cold
But their embers will linger
Give warmth to the old
Who would step on the field once again
March on to victory
And may Is await!
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Read the previous entry in the series here.
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Following an excerpt from Bee’s journals, “Mist and Light” begins with Bee musing on the disruption of her peace with her father and Riddle as Shun and FitzVigilant arrive and join them. She excuses herself from the table, wandering outside and enjoying the festive crowd. While there, she encounters again the particular beggar in whom she had had some interest before, and she helps him away from locals who accost him.
Nursing her annoyance at Shun, Bee works to assist the beggar, and as she does, he exults in what he claims is the return of his sight as she is embraced by prophetic insights. The beggar warns Bee against acting on the insights that break upon her, and she becomes aware of sharing thoughts with him. The beggar voices a prophecy of his own, and Bee is left stricken in a world suddenly dulled and muted around her, aware now of the implications of any and every action she might take.
The present chapter is a scant six pages in the edition of the novel I am reading again, and while I do not (yet) have the set of information I need to do the kind of formal study I would (very much) like to do, I have the sensation that it is among the briefest “regular” chapters in the Elderlings corpus. The effect of acceleration continues; matters in the novel rush towards an ending, now, and, given the vantages of rereading, familiarity with Hobb’s corpus, and narrative structures more generally, that ending does not look to be a happy one. It could hardly be so for the first book in a trilogy, and it could hardly be so and be the work of Robin Hobb. (As to the rereading, well, that is something like cheating; I’ll get where I need to get with it in plenty of time.)
If I indulge myself in reading affectively (as opposed to being compelled into it by my own predilections), I find that I wonder how my own daughter, about whom I have made no few (and overwhelmingly appreciative) comments in this webspace, would react. I would like to think that my child would move to help those who present themselves as being in need; she’s expressed sympathies in that line no few times in the past, even if her cynical father has hurried her along more often than not, but that her heart is good is not a blameworthy thing. And I do note that she does get jealous about the focus of her caregivers on others, which is flattering as her caregiver even if it is sometimes…difficult to address. Of course, any comparison between a fictional character and a real person is fraught, and there is something to be said against spending as much time immured in studying writing as I have.
Less affectively, however, and more towards “looking for a moral” in the work (which is, after all, something that a lot of literary study and “literary study” attends to), the strong implication of Bee’s foresight presents itself to me. At the beggar’s insistence–and who the beggar is will become clear if it is not already so–Bee considers a variety of futures her potential actions would make available and begins to recognize that having her foresight does not guarantee that anything she foresees will necessarily occur, or that things she does not foresee will not. That there are so many possibilities as present themselves to her is not more true for her than for others in the text–or among the readership. Awareness of them imposes more responsibility for them, to be sure, but the lack of awareness of them does not mean they are unavailable to others–and that might be the lesson to take from the present chapter.
Maybe.
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I‘ve opined once or twice on the observance made publicly today, which a bit of recent reading I’ve done tells me was only fully institutionalized in the late 1960s, despite less-formal observances in and by the United States prior to it. I’m minded that such is younger than my parents (and, if memory serves, even some of my cousins), and it’s not a hell of a lot older than my wife. She’s not (at the time I write this; who knows when you’re reading it?) an old woman, to be sure, so something less than a decade her senior is not, to my mind, especially ancient or to be revered on account of its age alone. (Indeed, there’re many things younger more deserving of laud and honor.) And my feelings on the matter have not changed overly much from a year ago or from four years ago (again, as I write this); I don’t think I’ve been obscure about them, truly.
The thing is, I’m not opposed to taking time off, as such. (I might not want to take a specific day off, and it may well be the case that I don’t do as well as I might with other days off, but that’s me and not necessarily a guide for others.) I’m not opposed to a formalization of time off, even if it is the case that those most likely to be in need of an extra paid day off are among the least likely to receive such a thing (something else about which I’ve opined at times in this webspace). I’m not opposed to the commemoration of historical events, although I am opposed to the lionzation of things that ought not to be lionized even as they ought well to be remembered across years. This year, given the timing and the work that I do as my day-job, I’m a bit more vexed by the specific observance than might be the case in other years, but I readily admit that so much is a personal concern, and while I value my personal circumstances, I know that few others will do so or should be expected to do so.
Again, I know I give more thought to this kind of thing than many people do. I give more thought to it than many people would think is good. They may be right who have told me, time and again over years, that I need to loosen up and lighten up about things. (Of course, it’s only the things about which they are loose and light that they think it’s okay for me to be so; the things I don’t care much about seem to occasion annoyance or more that I do not ascribe them the same importance…and there’re several observances that fall into that category, certainly.) But I cannot be the person I am and not do as I do, and there are enough people who show me they’re fond of who I am that I’m not entirely eager to change much of it. Some, sure, but not a whole lot, and certainly not at this point.
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A murder descended on the young woman
Plumage bleached badly and out of symmetry
And I had no interest in seeing a spill after
I had already drunk my Earl Grey
Such carnage as I am certain befell after I left is
All too familiar to me
No rounds’ whistles so shrill as demands to
Speak to a manager who isn’t on site
And my tinnitus is too damned loud as it is
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I haven’t made any secret of the fact that, for some years now, I’ve done a fair bit of freelance work developing instructional materials, contracting for a company that offers a subscription service to month-long lesson plans and their associated activity and essay prompts, short-answer questions, and multiple-choice items. (Before that, I spent a lot of time and earned less money writing summaries and study guides. Both have their attractions and their drawbacks.) What I haven’t necessarily shared is a lot about how I generally go about doing that work–and for what I think is good reason; while my work is my work and takes me to do it, I don’t know that waxing loquacious about my methods is helpful for me staying in business. But a recent project has suggested to me that there are a few things I can share, such as are likely to be of help not so much to my competitors (because there are other people who do this kind of work, even if I think I do it better than they do), but to those who will still read and study, whether for the pleasure of it or because they justly oppose the outsourcing of their thinking work to the plagiaristic algorithms of putative machine intelligences.
Normally, when I do the work of drafting a month-long lesson plan (and its associated activities, essay prompts, short-answer questions, and multiple choice items), I start by reading, and I most commonly read for this purpose in electronic copy. I do so almost entirely due to concerns of portability; I’m able to take more materials to more places and engage with greater ease, even if it is still the case that I do not read as well from a screen as I do from a physical page. (Your results may vary; I’m discussing my practice and nobody else’s.) And when I read for such purposes, I do slide it in alongside other activities; I’ve reviewed a lot of text while walking on a treadmill at one gym or another, and a lot more while seated at odd intervals as nature bids me do. (Truly, some of what I’ve been paid to read and write about has deserved no better setting than surrounded by foul odors of one sort or another.) I do what I can to take advantage of the features of my e-readers (and, yes, it’s plural for a reason; I prefer to use one program, but I am often constrained or encouraged to use another, entirely, client demands and publishing disparities being what they are), marking up the text to the extent allowed, but even after years of doing such work in such ways, I find the electronic apparatus…unwieldy.
Recently, though, I took on a project that prompted me to pull down a physical copy of the subject text. (It was cheaper to get it in hardback than to get it electronically, if such a thing can be believed, and I had it in hand the next day.) Consequently, I did not read it in quite so many places as I am accustomed to reading my freelance-work texts, but did so with a pencil in hand, as if it were once again a text I was studying for my English classes a decade and more ago. Doing so, I found it easier to connect with the work as I was doing with the book as I was reading it; I had to repeat things fewer times (although distractions did ensure that there was still some repetition), and I was able to see things in the text and connections within it that I do not think would have occurred to me had I been dealing with an electronic version of the text. There is something faster about thumbing through pages, at least for me, than swiping left and right on the screen, and the added tactility of an actual page, the increased sensory presentation of it, do something to ease my reading admirably.
Perhaps it is merely an issue of my Millennial rearing reasserting itself. I am, after all, old enough that I was taught to read from books rather than tablets and telephones, and even as a graduate student in the 2010s, I worked with materials that had not yet been made available digitally in a way I could access them. (How much of that has changed, I am not sure at the moment. I could look, but that would mean I am not doing this, and this is what I want to do at the moment.) Perhaps it is the training I received in graduate school and which I practiced at some length in the years afterwards telling on me, even now. The habits developed over several decades would be expected to carry more cognitive force than those inculcated over one and a bit more, after all. So I am not suggesting that reading a physical text is some sort of intellectual panacea, nor yet am I decrying the use of electronic texts. (Again, I do make common and consistent use of them.) I am, however, saying that, for my reading for this purpose, it has been good to get back to the physical page for a bit, and, if it is the case that the opportunity to do so presents itself again, I think I might well take it.
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Elliott RWI 