Ever do I seek to simply Sit with pen in hand and page In front of me Using the former to fill the latter And get the things out of my head that well up within
A fancy took for the job Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
It is not water that comes from that spring Dripping sometimes but flooding in season Nor yet does it leach away whence it flows Or, at least, it does not so in a way anyone knows For who remarks on one more hole in A thing already spongelike?
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This one needs a content warning about suicidal ideation.
After yet another part of an exchange among bird-keepers, this one working to refine their craft as well as to trade news, “Choices” begins with resumed progress up the Rain Wild River, the straitened circumstances of the dragons, their keepers, and the crew of the Tarman detailed. Greft continues to be an annoyance to Thymara, as do the boys competing for her affections. She and Tats put themselves to work fashioning replacement oars, if awkwardly, and they talk together as they do so. Tension between the two is clear even as they reaffirm their friendship.
Meanwhile, Carson emerges from the isolation in which he has wallowed in self-pity. He steps out on the deck of the Tarman to find keepers and dragons at play in relatively clean water flowing into the Rain Wild, and he assess their situation and his own as he stalks to the galley and procures a scanty meal for himself. Alise confronts him there, and a tense conversation ensues between them regarding his earlier revelations. At her prompting, Sedric explicates some of the gay culture of Bingtown, and Alise reacts relatively poorly thereto. She determines to break off her marriage with Hest, and Sedric cautions her away from Leftrin, citing his arrangement to sell dragon parts to Chalced. Alise stalks off, and Sedric finds himself changing and comforted by Relpda after she does. Faced with the dragon’s regard, Sedric considers suicide and is halted by Carson, to whom he confesses much and with whom he proceeds to an assignation.
Thymara stalks off into the night, considering how matters have fallen out among the keepers. She considers remaining in place in solitude, but she is joined by Tats, and she allows herself to accept his physical attentions until Greft interrupts. In the wake of his interference, Thymara again rejects Tats’s suit.
I am not surprised at Alise’s reaction to Sedric’s unfolding of gay culture in Bingtown and her duping thereby; being lied to, and for years, is not a happy thing. I suppose there is some homophobia in her reactions, but I am not necessarily in a position to be able to address it in any particular way. Others with more vested interests in such things, whether from experience or from more focused scholarship, would be able to say more; there is at least a paper in such a thing, if not more, and it is partly for such reasons that I continue to return to Hobb’s writing.
Sexual politics do seem very much to be at play in the expedition up the Rain Wild, though. I suppose it is not unexpected; a small group in isolation, particularly one largely composed of teenagers and young adults, can hardly be expected not to experience sexual tensions and to act on them, in many cases foolishly. The overt sexuality and the efforts to control and constrain it–for varying reasons, some of which appear on the surface of things to be more legitimate or acceptable than others–do heavily mark the narrative. It’s another thing that invites at least a paper, if one written by a better scholar than I know myself to be as I am now.
Perhaps someday I will once again be the kind of scholar who can grapple with such ideas meaningfully and well. Perhaps.
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The carpet is getting stained again Soon after it got washed out and rinsed off Someone dropping plops of ink upon the Rising tatters and ragged edges And still it looks better than it did each day
It is getting to be that time of year, yeah. Photo by Kristina Paukshtite on Pexels.com
The stains spread each day And I pass them by Barely noticing that they have started showing up again After all The carpets are not mine And I will not be the one who cleans them
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If it were my second language, Something I had worked harder to learn– Because it is harder to learn another language later And I grew up a monoglot– Perhaps I would not be so sloppy with the words Hoard them more closely Place them more carefully Perhaps like coins As one author writes Or like jewelry Making more beautiful those who take them up and put them on
As it is I grew up with it Take it for granted Spend it all too easily Knowing I have an ever-full store Casting as if at a fan And with so much effect
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It has happened again Half of a conversation Taking place far away from any interlocutor Provoking rage at someone who Was never even there And would probably not say the things to which Response was given
I feel pretty, and witty, and wise… Photo by Jimmy Chan on Pexels.com
Bad enough To realize what should have been said Descending the staircase So how much worse To critique a party that nobody threw?
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After a sad entry in the ongoing correspondence among bird-keepers, “The Locket” begins with Relpda exulting in having eaten Jess as she returns to the other dragons. She also notes that Sedric has drunk her blood, which occasions upset among the others. Amid the tumult, Sintara questions Relpda about events, and Mercor notes one means through which the dragons formerly created Elderlings. His comments occasion more agitated discussion among the dragons, and Sintara considers the tattered memories she holds, that all of them have. Relpda asserts herself, which comes as some surprise to the other dragons, and Mercor presses Sintara for details that are only begrudgingly given.
Of such sort are more memories than dragons’, stained and tattered and perhaps pretentious Photo by Poppy Thomas Hill on Pexels.com
Sedric, returned to the Tarman, delights in restoring some semblance of civility to himself and his situation, and he reflects on his recent experiences. The distance between him and Alise receives attention, and he notices the locket he had had from Hest as he dresses. Taking it up, he considers his relationship with the man whose image graces the locket, and his thoughts turn warmly toward Carson. Sedric also considers that Leftrin might have been in league with Jess, which gives him some concern.
Alise’s return disturbs Sedric’s reverie, and the two confer together about their respective situations, carefully avoiding some topics but lunging headlong into Hest. She voices her doubts of her husband, and Sedric affirms that Hest does not love her. She is about to press Sedric about Hest further but is distracted by the recognition that he is beginning to take on the features common to the Rain Wilds, which he denies. As Alise presses about the locket, however, he relents and admits his relationship with her husband, expecting scorn and finding only compassion from her. Alise departs, and Sedric ruminates further on what he had with Hest, and the touch of Relpda’s mind on his offers some strange comfort.
Elsewhere, Carson and Leftrin confer closely about events, the former confronting the latter about the notion of harvesting dragon parts. Leftrin admits his involvement and lays out the situation, and Carson accepts Leftrin’s remarks that he is done with such dealings.
The present chapter is surprisingly illuminating about the Elderlings and their origins, as well as about the Others–some fairly deep links back into the Elderlings corpus, such things as I tend to appreciate amid sprawling narratives. (I like things to follow the rules they set out. It’s a preference that gets me into trouble in real life, where exceptions are the norm–and I lie outside it.) I am minded of the adage that “You are what you eat,” and I note that Hobb has long established that so much is true for the dragons–they take on memories from what they consume. It is of some interest that the reverse appears also to be true, that by eating of dragons people take on something of the draconic–and that there is some peril in it for both humans and dragons.
I note, too, that Sedric begins to come out in the present chapter, although only privately and only partially. What queer theory has to say about the narrative, I do not know, not being versed in it as I perhaps ought to be. I do know that the work done on Hobb’s writing in that line has focused not on Sedric, but upon Fitz and the Fool, and I cannot help but wonder at why (except that Fitz has been out in the readers’ world longer and more abundantly). Admittedly, Sedric seems more in line with stereotypes than Fitz and the Fool, which makes for less interesting scholarship–although there may be something to gain from contrasting Hobb’s handling of the characters…
Ah, to have the time to pursue ideas about books again!
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A spore I cannot help but have inhaled
Hyphae spreading through me without notice until
The bloom breaks out and spreads its gills
Poisoning the ground from which it breaks
And while other fruits are still on offer
They are fewer and their stalks wither as they emerge
From soil being leached away
It is a metaphor, yes. Photo by Egor Kamelev on Pexels.com
Unknowing hands will reach out
Grasp what shows itself on offer
Thinking it a blessing from their native soil
In which they are deeply rooted
Mycorrhizae working to no good end
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To make a day a holiday To give a day to people By giving a day to people Seems a noble thing A high honor that endures
…pro patria… Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com
Consider Who gets the day Who loses it And how those who have it mark it
If And it is a big if As many ifs are Small though the word is The way we mark it Is the way we ought to mark it Then what honor is it Really?
Ought and is aren’t the same Of course I know it You know it I think Maybe But there are a lot of people Thinking that the way things are Is the way that they must be And I wonder if they’ve thought through what that means
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Following yet more of the exchange among bird-keepers in Bingtown and Trehaug, “Revelations” begins with Alise waking Leftrin from their sleep together after their assignation. They confer about their dreams briefly before dressing and parting, and Alise considers her situation and the experience. For his part, Leftrin questions his ship, but the Tarman gives no answer.
Downriver, Carson leads Sedric and Relpda back to the Tarman and the other dragons and keepers. Sedric chafes slightly at the situation but has no choice but to accepts it, and he reconsiders his long entanglement with Hest. Thinking about who may have supplanted him in Hest’s affections, Sedric finds himself pleased at how matters are changing.
Thymara stalks out to look for food for the group, unexpectedly accompanied by Tats. As they proceed, they discuss the possibility of return to Trehaug and the need to prove themselves. Thymara relates her experience growing up working alongside her father and the insufficiency of that in the eyes of her people. Relative risks of childbearing are also noted, and Thymara finds herself wearied by the recollection of Greft’s insistence that she pick a mate. Tats finds himself challenged on that very point, and Thymara denies both Tats and his challenger, injuring herself as she falls and flees.
Carson, Sedric, and Relpda return to the others. Alise, happy to see her friend return, is reminded by Sedric’s arrival of her responsibilities and entanglements in Bingtown, and she longs for his safe departure.
There is interesting commentary about what it takes to prove one’s self, something with which adolescents and young adults are (justly?) concerned. Given how often fantasy literature is assigned to younger readerships–even now, even in this time and after decades of serious academic treatment of the genre–this is perhaps understandable. Given Hobb’s insistence upon verisimilitude in the non-fantastical elements of her work, it is also understandable; I am not so far removed from my youth that I have forgotten the craving to prove myself, not seldom by mastering some obscure set of trivia, however useless it has been for me to do so. It might also be noted as an ongoing theme in Hobb’s Elderlings works. After all, Fitz spends a fair bit of time trying to find and assert his identity, and he wrestles with Hap’s doing the same; Althea, Brashen, and Wintrow also struggle to define who they are and oblige others to recognize the same, as do Malta and Reyn. Nor is as much restricted to Hobb; not for nothing is the Bildungsroman a commonplace.
Still, the specific questions raised about how to prove one’s self are of interest, the kind of thing I would be apt to point out to students if I had any:
Is breaking a rule a means of proving one’s worth? Is it so even if the rule is in place for good reason? What does it prove about a person to break a rule that protects others?
What does it mean to be a woman or a man? Why does it mean that, in the context of the novel and / or of the reader?
To whom is it needful to prove one’s self? Why?
I used to nurture, and I have not at this point forgotten, the idea of teaching a course on Hobb’s work. I have taught Assassin’s Apprentice, long ago, now, and it went over well. I am not as good a classroom instructor now as then, obviously, but I have gotten better at structuring lessons and developing assignments…I wonder if it might yet work.
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For a large portion of my early life, my grandma–my mother’s mother–lived with my parents. Not long after we moved to Texas, she moved in with us; we moved around in Kerrville, and she came with us. And while there were years she lived with her younger brother, she was still in town and we still saw her a lot–and, later in her life and ours, she moved back in with my parents, dying in their house from the results of decades of smoking and more decades of enthusiastic use of talcum and similar powders. She was a fixture in my life for many years, and on what would have been her ninety-fourth birthday, it is only fitting that I would take some time to remember her.
The woman in question Picture is mine
The thing is, I have trouble remembering. For all that I spent as long as I did honing my ability to remember things, for all that I still have in mind and keep in mind, I find it hard to remember the sound of her voice or the kind of jokes she liked (and hated), the taste of her cooking, or any of the things that she did. I know she wrote poetry, which she directed be destroyed rather than read by others (something that did not fall to me; I would not have been able to do it); I know well that she did as much as anyone to cultivate my love of reading, but I do not remember her doing it. Instead, I recall the stories of it, the things I have been told, but those are different than the things themselves, the representations always falling otherwise than the things being represented. And that seems to me to be a poor way to mark her birthday, even if it is all I have at this point.
Some of it, I know, is an issue of age. For a lot of what was going on, I was a child, and I was a child working through a lot of stuff. (For one thing, I did not do much to make myself liked in my youth, something that still has effects on me, decades later. I earned what I have; it sucks, but I acknowledge that I deserve it.) There are things I do not tell my daughter, things I know my parents do not say to her–or to me; it only makes sense that I would not have been told a number of things at the time, and it makes sense that the concerns of later years would mean that things would not come up again.
But I also know that I forget things as something of a defense. What I do not know cannot wound me in the memory, and I know that I am often paralyzed by recalling things. The flipside of being able to remember is having to remember, and not all recollections are happy ones, even in so easy and privileged a life as I have led. Where the line between the two lies is not at all clear to me, and I am not certain I can do the work to find it again, if ever I knew where it was.
Still, it’s not about me. It’s about her and her memory, which deserves mention even if I cannot provide the details that I should.
