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

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The sixth chapter of Forest Mage, “A Day of Letters,” starts as Nevare tries to avoid encountering the guests in his family’s home following his elder brother’s wedding. While said brother is away on his honeymoon trip, tensions in the Burvelle home escalate, with Keft continually dissatisfied with Nevare and berating him soundly, and Nevare offering only silence in return. Conversations with his mother continue politely enough, but Nevare’s sisters suffer for their father’s dissatisfaction with Nevare, and Vanze makes his escape as soon as he can.

A series of letters arrive, including several for Nevare. One is from Caulder, reporting how matters stand with him as he has been given to his scholar uncle and asking after information about the stone that had been taken from Nevare’s body after his experience with Dewara; said uncle sends an enclosure repeating the request. Another is from Spink, noting Epiny’s affliction by the plague; it is joined by another from Epiny, reporting her recovery. The progress of plague at Bitter Springs is rehearsed, as is that of Epiny’s recovery.

Further reading is interrupted by the angry entrance of Keft into the parlor where Nevare sits reading. His anger accompanies the formal honorable medical discharge Nevare has received; it stems in part from the assertion that Nevare had had sex with one of the Dappled People, as Nevare finds when he reviews the accompanying documentation. And, as he considers the matter, Nevare realizes that the magic he had thought himself done with continues to exert influence on him and in his life. He also assigns blame for his situation on his father, with no real satisfaction, and turns his attentions to a personal letter written him by Dr. Amicas.

The next few days pass in hollow discomfort for Nevare until Selethe takes him aside to talk to him in what seems her sanctum. There, amid offerings of incense, mother and son talk of Cecile and the Porontes, as well as their mutual experience of being trapped by their bodies. She avers that she will aid him in returning to himself, and while Nevare is moved by the gesture, he knows it will not avail.

Nevare returns to his room, contemplating its severity and the desire to flee. He does not heed it, but instead goes to sleep and dreams strangely of magic working in him. Waking in the night, he stalks out through the house and contemplates his future for a time before heading to the servants’ quarters and calling on Duril. The two talk together, Nevare relating his recent experiences with magic and relating in full what he recalls of his time with Dewara. Duril affirms having heard of the Dappled People’s magic-workers, the Great Men and Great Women. The nature of magic comes up, and both men find themselves eased by the conversation between them.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 28 pages in length, approximately 3.83% of the novel. In that, it parallels the preceding chapter closely, although so much is not the case in narrative terms. It is, rather, something of Freytag’s falling action for what might be called a short narrative arc in the present novel. As I continue to reread, I find myself more and more convinced that the novels do operate as a closely connected series of novellas, even as I acknowledge that “novella” is an ambiguous term.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Bitter Springs, Bride’s Gift, Burvelle Landing, Cadet Lieutenant Tiber, Captain Maw, Carsina Grenalter, Caulder Stiet, Cecile Burvelle, Colonel Rebin, Colonel Stiet, Dancing Spindle, Daraleen Burvelle, Dark Evening, Dewara, Dr. Jakib Amicas, Dust Dance, Elisi Burvelle, Epiny Kester, Eron, Gernia, Gettys, Great Men / Great Women, Holy Writ, Incense, Jankship, Kase Remwar, Keft Burvelle, Kidona, King’s Cavalla Academy, King’s Road, Lady Poronte, Nevare Burvelle, Newton, Old Thares, Orandula, Plainsfolk, Rory Hart, Rosse Burvelle, Sefert Burvelle, Selethe Burvelle, Sergeant Erib Duril, Sirlofty, Speck plague, Spinrek “Spink” Kester, Spring water, Stone, Vanze Burvelle, Widevale, Yaril Burvelle.* There is, as might be expected, a lot going on in the chapter.

I note that the title calls back to earlier entries in the Soldier Son series; Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Letters from Home” comes to mind. Readers are once again reminded that Gernia is a largely (though not universally) literate nation, and Hobb exhibits the appropriate-for-a-writer insistence on the importance of writing in it (see for discussion Shaman’s Crossing‘s “The Academy,” among others). Seeing a theme carried forward is a good thing; consistency matters.

I note, too, that the prescription of men’s occupations noted early in the Soldier Son series–see my comments on Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Harbinger“–reinforces a workaround discussed in Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Vindication.” In “Vindication,” sons can be “promoted” if their elder brothers die. In it, as in the present chapter, sons can also be adopted out and put to other work; Caulder has been “given to [Colonel Stiet’s] younger brother, to raise as a scholar instead of a soldier” (114). While Nevare sees this as undesirable, he is also aware of others who have undertaken lives other than those to which they were born–notably Duril, whom he esteems (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Sword and Pen“); whether the distaste comes from the persons involved or from a perception of some decline in status, scholar sons being fifth in birth order,** is unclear.

I additionally note the properties of Bitter Springs, the waters of which seem to help with recovery from the Speck plague. It’s not an uncommon concept; Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Mineral Wells, Texas, come to mind as antecedents, though more the latter than the former. Having grown up in the Texas Hill Country (see this and this, for example), I’m familiar with the notion of relocating to otherwise somewhat inhospitable areas† in the interest of improving health, especially after disease; Kerrville, where I grew up, hosted facilities with such a purpose, as witness this and this. It’s easy, within the context, to assert that magic may be at work, but given historical precedent, it need not be so; there’s enough verisimilitude that it’s not needed.

I further note that there is a bit more explication of Gernian religious practice in the present chapter. Incense-burning as a devotional practice is a commonplace, of course, and Nevare’s questioning of it (126) is not at all inappropriate. Having the additional detail, however, is a good thing, giving a more complete picture of the faith’s ways than is common in mainstream fantasy literature. (Again, see “Unchurched: On the Relative Lack of Religion in Tolkienan-Tradition Fantasy Literature” and “Manifestations of Medieval Religion in Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Corpus” for discussion.) That details of other practices are provided, and somewhat evenhandedly, adds to that, to some appreciation.

Yet further, I note some extension of the feminist critique at work in the series (and in other parts of Hobb’s work, it must be noted) in Selethe’s conversation with Nevare. Her reflections on the costs and obligations of motherhood struck me as, again, unusual and good to see. I’ll readily concede, however, that such reflects my ongoing affective reading; I read from where I am and can hardly do otherwise.

Among the critical readings in the Fedwren Project (as of this writing; there may be more later), I think those of Carroll and of (again) Metsäpelto most relevant. I do not know that I need gloss them any more than I have in my abstracts of them, at least not at the moment.

Again, the present chapter is falling action. Matters are moving towards a significant inflection point, one that will come up in the next few chapters. As is usual for Hobb, things do not look like they will go well for her protagonist. But that is part of why Hobb’s readers read on, to see what will happen and how it will resolve.

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* The present chapter expands on a name or two. I’ve corrected indexing entries in previous chapters to suit.

** Given the relative rarity of fifth sons, there cannot be many new scholarly lines coming into being in Gernia. So much implies a perceivedly lesser need for scholarship in that nation-state. And as far as the relative rarity, an older paper by Michael R. Haines, “NBER Working Paper Series on Historical Factors in Long Run Growth: The Population of the United States, 1790-1920,” posits that average women in the late nineteenth-century United States could expect to have between 3.87 and 7.58 children (with allowances for incomplete record-keeping and -survival noted). Assuming a roughly even distribution of sons and daughters (and applying then-current standards), while it might well be common that a family would have five children, there is only a 1/32 chance that all five would be sons, and it would not be common among even those families with more than five children. Too, all this discounts infant mortality, which is known to be a concern in Gernia, per Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Bessom Gord”; the number of surviving and not “promoted” scholar sons would be even lower.

† I don’t find the climate inhospitable, certainly, but I did grow up in it and so am used to it. It does tend to take people a bit aback on first encounter, however.

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