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

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The fifteenth chapter of Forest Mage, “Gettys,” begins with Nevare and Hitch arriving at Gettys, Nevare contrasting the dilapidated settlement he finds with his boyhood expectations as the fort and town are described. Hitch offers some details about the local garrison as they make their way in, commenting that the continued magical work of the Specks interferes with the settlement establishing itself well.

At length, Nevare delivers Hitch to the Gettys infirmary, where he is admitted as he requests the attentions of Dr. Dowder rather than Dr. Frye, and Hitch issues a series of directives to Nevare. He also pens a hasty recommendation for Nevare that he is to take to the local commander, Colonel Haren. Nevare moves to make himself ready for an audience therewith, finding himself the butt of jokes by the local barber, and he presents himself to Haren.

Haren’s out-of-place appearance is described as he receives Nevare’s report of events and the recommendation Hitch had written him. With reservation, he accepts Nevare’s proposal of enlistment and assignes him to guard the local cemeteries; with delight, he accepts a small package that Hitch had been carrying for him, and he dismisses Nevare to fill out enlistment papers. Nevare relays as much to Haren’s attending sergeant, and the process of signing on begins.

To address the chapter-length issue: the present chapter, in the edition of the novel I’m rereading, runs 18 pages in length, approximately 2.46% of the novel. Although not the shortest chapter in the novel, it is of below-average length, and it seems to be doing more of what the previous chapter does in getting characters where they need to be, although there is a little bit more explication of the new location so that readers can get oriented along with Nevare as to that location.

Also, for indexing purposes, the following: Barrier Mountains, Brede Regiment, Captain Dr. Dowder, Captain Dr. Frye, Cavalla, Clove, Colonel “Rabbit” Haren, Colonel Lope, Croaker birds, Drawroot, Farleyton Regiment, Franner’s Bend, Gernia, Gettys, King’s Road, Nevare Burvelle, Old Thares, Renegade, Salmon, Scout Lieutenant Buel Hitch, Speck, Tobacco. As might be thought for a brief chapter, the set of indexables is limited, but that it is limited does not mean there are no points of interest.

Among those points of interest, at least for me, is something of an echo of Dances with Wolves at work in the present chapter, Nevare’s arrival at Gettys and his acceptance into its garrison calling to mind for me the scene in the 1990 film in which Costner’s Lt. Dunbar reports to Major Fambrough, finding the post at odds with expectations and the commander of a far different disposition. While Haren is far more grounded than Fambrough, he does appear to have his…difficulties in reconciling his current circumstances with his own expectations, seeming to be disconnected from the reality around him. I know that Hobb is nuancing her setting away from common expectations, as is her custom,* but I also know that making the nuance requires some reference to such expectations, which is what I read as at work here, intentionally or inadvertently (that is, Hobb may be responding to the film directly, or she may well be responding to the pool of tropes and commonplaces from which the film arises).

I am put in mind, too, of the Ghost Dance, which was enacted in the hope of throwing back colonialist encroachments. While the Ghost Dance itself was unsuccessful, one of the nuances in Hobb’s work is that the various dances the Dappled People do seem to have some overt effect, whether the Dust Dance done on Dark Evening (see Shaman’s Crossing‘s “Carnival”) or the ongoing one that hinders the establishment and development of Gettys. Admittedly, I would need to do more reading to be able to point out details that bring out the parallels, but from the perspective of general, nonspecialist reading, I see enough to invite the question; I guess it is yet another of the scholarly somedays I hope I shall be able to address.

There is another little bit of correspondence between Hobb’s work and its real-life antecedents, helping to impart the verisimilitude to the text that Hobb is concerned with fostering (see “5000 Words about Myself,” abstracted here). Both physicians available to Gettys hold the rank of captain, which appears to be the rank at which physicians are commissioned by the US Army, per this. While it might not strictly accord with historical practice (and this is another area in which I should do more reading, and I do intend to do that reading as I expand on my observations here), it is something likely to resonate with Hobb’s presumed primary audience; if it is wrong, it is usefully so, as are many borrowings from various pasts.

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* See “Moving beyond Tolkien’s Medievalism: Robin Hobb’s Farseer and Tawny Man Trilogies,” “An Update to ‘Moving beyond Tolkien’s Medievalism,'” and “Another Update to ‘Moving beyond Tolkien’s Medievalism.'”

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