Read the previous entry in the series here.
Read the next entry in the series here.
After a letter from Fitz to Nettle that discusses Verity in Kelsingra, “The Last Chance” opens with Fitz musing on the experience of his grief at Molly’s death. Amid his grief, life at Withywoods continues, and the effects on Bee are glossed to the extent that Fitz, consumed by his own sadness, notices them. His mourning and Bee’s persist past the observances of others, who have their own lives and affairs to attend to, but Fitz and Nettle do have a conversation about his Skill-imposed health. Nettle also attempts to persuade Fitz to send Bee to Buckkeep, which he refuses, and Nettle’s misconceptions about her sister are addressed. The conversation between the two is tense, but they reach an accord between them concerning Bee.
Nettle retires after her conversation with Fitz, and he and Bee confer at some length. Fitz is somewhat uneasy at the depths of Bee’s perception and understanding, and she makes clear that she can sense him in some ways through the Skill. Fitz considers the implications as they continue to speak together, and he puts his daughter to bed for what he realizes is the first time.
The next morning sees Fitz and Bee prepare for the day and for seeing Nettle off on her way back to Buckkeep. Nettle gone, the two proceed to their daily tasks. Fitz begins to work to catch up on what he has let slip in his grief, and a new routine begins to settle in for the pair of them.
Later, near the end of autumn, Fitz receives a summons from Chade. With some difficulty, Fitz makes arrangements to answer it, and he shows Bee part of the system of hidden rooms and corridors that pervade Withywoods. She takes to it readily, and Fitz finds himself reporting the circumstances of Patience’s death years before. Further conversation grows tense, but the tension eases in time, and Bee asks what will become of her after Fitz dies. The question staggers him, and he works to put his daughter, and himself, at ease.
The current chapter is another unusually long one, running to 51 pages. There is doubtlessly some kind of commentary to read into that, some assertion that the experience of grief dilates time, and it is the case that the present chapter glosses several months. Still, it could easily be the case that the chapter be broken at the seasonal shift; there is a narrower focus on the events of a day at that point, and it would have made sense to have the division at that point both to clearly delineate the passage in time and to highlight the shift in the pace of action. Some other narrative or editorial principle has to be at work, then, and while I have an idea about it, I would have to look farther ahead in the novel to confirm that idea–something I am not willing to do quite at the moment.
That I am not willing to look ahead in the novel is not a result of not wanting to spoil things for myself. I’ve read the novel before, after all, and deeply enough to write a review of it and to use it in at least one conference paper. No, the unwillingness comes from what I know tends to happen to me when I am going through the books about which I write: I start reading again. Indeed, occasionally, when working on earlier portions of the rereading series, I’d get to reading, and it would be hours later that I would look up, realizing I hadn’t written a damned thing and that I really needed to use the restroom. It’s a good thing to do as a reader, certainly, and when reading for the pleasure of reading. It’s not entirely helpful, however, when reading for the purpose of writing. So, while it is the case that I like doing the reading I need to do to be able to do this work, it is also the case that I am trying to get something done, and I can’t get it done if I let myself read ahead too much. I’ll lose track of what I’m supposed to be doing, and that makes doing hard.
So much said, the kind of confirmation I would need would come from something as simple as a page- or chapter-count. And I recall that, when I had students, there were more than a few who were surprised that any kind of literary analysis or interpretation could actually involve such things. I think either they did not have the kind of middle- and high-school English classes that I did, which involved counting lines and syllables in poems (something that, to be fair, I did a lot of in college and graduate school, as well); they did have that kind, but they did not realize that what can be done with poems can also be done with prose; or they did have that kind but regarded it as being something done by “lesser” students. So much said, there is quantifiable data in even the most “creative” work, although the quantitative is not and cannot be the sum total of such work or interpretations of the same; it offers one useful descriptor among many, and it serves as a useful way for those who are more quantitatively minded to get into the work of interpreting text.
Or so I found, anyway. It has, admittedly, been a while, and I am no longer doing work in the classroom.
If you like the way I write, why not hire me to write for you?
Elliott RWI 