As this old month comes to its end,
And we’re encouraged not to spend,
I wonder who will buck the trend
And throw their paychecks away.
I can well guess at who’ll do so,
Can guess well where their cash will go;
It takes no genius such to know.
Might as well throw us away.
An echo of an older voice
Truer in the hearing again than in the first speaking
Called out once again
Asking for help
Just a few words of praise
To help find fulfillment
And such safety as the world offers anymore
But not where she is
Not where I am
How could I say no?
I never did before
Even when the voice doing the asking
Was not the voice that truly was
And should not the greater honesty
Now find the greater reward?
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Following more commentary about the Servants and their machinations, “The Journey” returns to Bee as she begins to recover from her illness, tended as she can be amid the demands of travel in haste. Thoughts of escape for her and Shun are quashed by vile threats from Dwalia, and her illness is ascribed to the kind of change that marks the lives of the Fool and Prilkop. Bee is urged to record her dreams again, using materials provided by her captors, and the Wolf-Father within her urges her to caution. Bee, who has dreamt prophecies, manages to dissemble.
It seems treatment of Bee has moved back to shorter chapters with the present one; in the edition I am reading, it is only five pages long, and while it is the case that I have still not done the work to examine chapter-lengths in any kind of rigorous way, there is still something striking about just how brief the present chapter is. I am still not sure what the function of the brevity is, although I am convinced there is some function, some purpose (chimerical as I know discussion of intent and purpose are). It seems to me to be too consistently the case that the Bee-centered chapters are short that it is without some reason. But uncovering it looks like it will remain a scholarly someday for now.
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Something of a content warning (torture) applies to the chapter and, to a lesser extent, the discussion following.
Following a brief note that lays out some of the Servants’ methodology, “Surprises” begins with Chade and Fitz continuing to dose and question members of the Withywoods household. The pair discuss theories about their daughters’ abduction, and Fitz determines to return to Buckkeep and confer with the Fool. Chade determines to accompany him after they finish questioning the members of the household.
Fitz stalks through the estate, musing on his failures once again, and he directs the members of the household he encounters to attend to a diversity of tasks, thinking that occupying them would help them not focus on their own sufferings. Successors to slain members of the household are named, and matters begin to be set to rights until after dinner, when the remaining members of the household are dosed and questioned, the information they provide slotted in among what Chade and Fitz already knew.
As Fitz bears witness, Skilled members of Dutiful’s court join him through that magic, and they confer along with Chade about next steps. A report of the Fool’s declining condition is made to Fitz, and Chade steels him against acting rashly once again. At Chade’s urging, Fitz retires to a fitful, fretful night, after which the pair take breakfast along with the officers of Chade’s rough unit. Preparations are made for setting out, and Chade and Fitz confer as they ride along. Unexpected members of the rough unit join them, attempting to assail them. Battle is joined, and Fitz messily and brutally dispatches of his opponents. Chade is far less kind to his own opponent, extracting information from him, before the two plunge through a standing stone towards Buckkeep.
The present chapter is a reminder, as if one was needed, that Fitz and Chade both are very, very dangerous people within the milieu. The fight, even though it left Fitz injured and Chade in a perilous position, saw the pair of them fight off superior numbers that had the element of surprise in their favor–albeit not so much as they had thought they would. That Fitz is yet capable of savagery is, perhaps, foreshadowing, something with which the Realm of the Elderlings corpus as a whole is concerned and on which the present series focuses more narrowly. If it is, however, it’s not terribly illuminating; it does not take much to guess that a trained killer, magically empowered, hunting for his daughter would resort to no small amount of violence. But then, despite its motions away from it, Hobb’s work is part of the Tolkienian tradition.
Another commonplace in Hobb’s work reemerges in the present chapter, as well: torture. That it pops up in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus is amply noted (see this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this, for examples; Selden in Chalced also offers examples). It also pops up in her non-Elderlings work; a contribution to Warriors comes to mind, and I recall it being a factor in the Soldier Son novels. That it sticks out for me is something of uncertain importance. It may well be that it sticks out for me, that my eye finds it because it is primed, for whatever reason, to search out such things. It may well be that it is part of Hobb’s work towards verisimilitude; torture is, certainly and unfortunately, part of the world her readers inhabit, and so working to create a milieu that immerses readers will necessarily involve it. It may well be, however, that there is some authorial preoccupation with it, and while I have noted more than once that biographical criticism is fraught, that it is so does not mean that it is without value, even if I’m not in a position to be able to do much to follow it.
Many are my scholarly somedays, and no few of them will never come.
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One less than a full dozen years have passed
And one full year since I’ve sat to the task
Of writing verse that will for her praise pass–
And she deserves much praise! Her smiling face,
The shining heart that underlies it, grace
In winning and in losing, all these trace
Her path thus far, her way to walk yet light.
I still confess I feel for her some fright
And worry for her in each falling night,
Yet in each day that comes that she remains,
Her presence is a balm against the pains
The world inflicts, and as she greater gains
In love and kindness, knowledge, wisdom, joy,
My world is all the better, all upbuoyed.
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It is once again the time of year in which the United States pauses to reflect upon and celebrate those who have held what is supposed to be its highest office. It is therefore once again the time of year in which I find myself wrestling with that reflection and celebration, trying not to fall into the traps of hero-worship and hero-denial, that of unthinking veneration or that of reflexively cynical denial of what good has been done in office by many of those who have held it.
I am well aware, living where I do for as long as I have, that there are many who are not pleased to see particular people in the office, now or at any of several points in the past. I am also well aware that nobody who has held the office has been a pure soul; even the greatest to have sworn the prescribed oath of office has erred, has failed, has faltered. The one in this page’s image, often held to be, indeed, the greatest of them…there are reasons that his first inaugural address is little reported, while his second is perennially republished–and there are other issues that do not take much looking to find. With even the best of them thus…nuanced…those who are less must me all the more so–which, again, does not take much looking to find.
I know I end up being a contrarian much of the time, rising to take an oppositional view regardless of the notion voiced. It is not one of my more charming character traits, and I wonder as I look back now how I developed it; the practice has certainly not done me much, if any, good during my life, and it has occasioned no small amount of harm to me, physically and socially. I have been working on it, albeit not with as much success as I would like to have had–but then, I never do do as well as I hope to do. I wonder if, in keeping with that work, I ought to set aside my ruminations, raise a flag, and let it wave in the winds that are blowing through my part of the Texas Hill Country even now, standing to face it with my hand over my heart–for I have never had the right to salute it, as no few have reminded me, and with varying degrees of distaste for me in their voices as they have done so–and simply join along in the celebrations I know are ongoing. How much of a coward and a liar would it make me to do so? How much wiser a man would I be if I did?
Holidays and observances, for me, are more often invitations to reflection and consideration than for celebration. I am not a happy man, as those who know me know, and as those who read me have had ample opportunity to find out. Joy does not come easily to me, and revelry is not much more commonly my guest. I think that much is clear from my writing, as well. Even on so relatively restricted and minor a holiday as this–and it is restricted and minor, even in the mythos of the place it is celebrated–I find myself responding to the invitation once again, turning inward rather than looking outward for what I can praise. I wonder if it would be better for me to do so or if it would be better for me to have more company as a guest.
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Should I rise to the bait laid out long ago,
Make myself some fishy thing,
Mouth groping after a dangling worm
Left wet and limp in the world?
That I am not the catch then sought,
Not what should be shown struggling in net,
I’m well aware, as all those are
Who see me and think for a moment.
Yet somehow, still, I’ve been tickled out,
Drawn from under hanging banks
Into the sun and gasping air
By gentle hands, ineptly kissing.
I am not done. I speak not well
Forbidding mourning and weeping alike,
But I am brought to a good end,
Being laid where I now am.
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Now turgid grows the Stupid God once more.
It bloats, and seeks to make the world its whore.
Who prostitute themselves thus, I abhor.
Now, if they wish to sell themselves, they may,
And peddle themselves for their pimp each day,
For otherwise, of course, I would not say.
What I will rail against is how their deeds
Force me to bend to their cult leader’s needs,
Force me the citrus avatar to heed
Whose hands are far too small to hold to all
That Stupid God through sphinct’ring lips will call
Into its own domain. I’m not its thrall,
Not yet; I hope that I will never be,
Despite the legions of such thralls I see.
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Following an excerpt from an in-milieu herbal, “Elfbark” begins with Fitz walking Withywoods again, now aware of the Skilled nature of the ensorcellment that has afflicted it. Steeled against it, he surveys the damage and loss again, and how he addresses the feelings that survey occasions is noted. He and Chade brew elfbark and other herbal concoctions, purposing first to dose Perseverance against the ongoing pain of his injuries and then to administer elfbark to those at Withywods who have been affected by the ensorcellment. Lant is the first of the latter, and the memories breaking upon him once the compulsion to forget is blocked stun him, though Chade questions him despite the shocks.
Lant reports events leading up to the raid on Withywoods and of the event itself. Chade continues to prod, and Fitz quashes bitterness within himself. As Lant completes his report, Fitz and Chade confer together about the implications thereof, determining the power involved in enacting such work. Others are summoned and dosed with elfbark, and more reports are made, clarifying events surrounding Bee’s abduction. Fitz continues to puzzle over the idea of the Unexpected Son, and Perseverance lets out that Fitz is himself. How to proceed thence is discussed.
The present chapter is not the first one to bear the title, of course; one such prior chapter is here, with another here. Both such chapters focus on the deleterious effects of the drug, something the preface to the present chapter reinforces. And some of the negative effects of elfbark, particularly for those being introduced to it for the first time, do show up in the present chapter, although how much of the despair evidenced by characters in the text is a result of the drug and how much is a result of being forced to confront their trauma and victimization is not entirely clear; what the text presents could easily be taken either way. So much said, having the consistency in depiction across the milieu and across decades of writing is a good thing to see; while there may be some argument made against the insistence of late twentieth and early twenty-first century fan communities on internal alignment, such insistence does inform the context in which Hobb writes and in which I read and reread the work, so it is something worth pointing out, at least for now.
With the contexts of composition and initial reception in mind, I suppose some note about the moralizing in the prefatory materials is in order. It is, as I believe I’ve noted and as I know no few people have remarked, not the case that an author of fiction will believe everything that is presented in a text; the perspectives of characters, even unnamed ones not appearing directly, may reflect the author’s informed understanding, but they do not necessarily reflect the author’s opinions or beliefs. As such, I do not think it is the case that Hobb opposes recreational use of mild intoxicants; I think it would be too much of a stretch to read the text in such a way. I do think it would also be too much of a stretch to read the text as a full-throated endorsement of such use, however; as with many things in Hobb’s work, there’s more nuance than that–and, frankly, even the worst drugs used in the Realm of the Elderlings corpus seem to have a time and a place. So maybe that’s the “message” to take from this, if there is one.
It is, after all, “just a story.”
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That time of year
Is nearly here
When folks do things
For those held dear,
And every year,
It’s long been clear,
Some will struggle,
Wracked with fear
That they, through sheer
Folly, near
Will miss their mark
And bring forth tears.
I know it well,
And I can tell
Who find themselves
In that small hell;
I hear them yell
In fear. I sell
At least one way
To ring the bell,
Escape that hell
And the death-knell
Relationship’s;
I do it well.
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Elliott RWI 