Right at half a year ago, I wrote a bit about the darkest day of the year. Today is very much not that; it is, as might be expected, the opposite, being the brightest day of the year. With that different light, some of the things I note in the earlier piece might bear a bit of examination.
I noted then that the seasonal progression matters less here than in many places. It remains true as I write now, with the weather tending toward the hot and dry(ish; there’s often vexatious humidity in the morning, but less often rain, and less with each month until after August). The rich greens and grainy ambers that mark summer in no few places in the country do not feature here so much as in those places; the greens are fading to browns, and even the blue sky hazes over with the heat. The echo of Jack’s bullwhip is long faded away, and Aestas has taken up her dancing residence here again, Auxo attending and putting on her own show, Ainé and Theros kicking in the chorus as Damia beats out a rhythm that pounds behind the stretching foreheads drying out in the daytime and cooking to deeper browns under fading hat-brims.
The seasons are shallower here, I think, the troughs not so deep as, even if held higher than, in many places. I will do what I can amid such exaltation, sitting in the shade and what cool I can find, knowing I am no longer fit for doing otherwise if ever I was so. Or else I will lay in a fire outside and let it smolder while I sit and tend it and pretend I am some other thing than I am. After all, Robb Walsh has the right of it, and while some perversities are ascribed to me, that one on which he remarks will not be one of them.
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A message from Detozi to her new relation, Erek, commending him and advising him precedes “Pathways,” which begins with Thymara considering her upbringing in the Rain Wilds and the disjunction from it to her present circumstances near Kelsingra. Local geographical features, described, intrigue her. The difficulties imposed on her by inclement weather and degraded equipment are noted as she is joined by Tats. As they proceed together, the two talk about the likely permanence of their relocation, and Thymara finds herself assessing her long-time friend again. The gain and loss involved in the relocation receives attention, as well, and Thymara carefully considers the options available to her–including in terms of relationships, returning to the ideas of social sexual taboos that she had been raised to respect.
The conversation between Thymara and Tats is interrupted by her sighting game, which is described. Before the hunters can seize upon it, however, Heeby falls upon it, fouling Thymara’s shot and taking the meat. The hunters move on, getting distance from the feeding dragon and the smell of death that will drive other quarry away, and they talk about their relationships with their dragons–and hers with her family. They are interrupted again by the arrival of Rapskal, who apologizes for Heeby’s interference in their hunt before annoying Tats into stalking off. Rapskal asks Thymara to go to Kelsingra with him to show her something.
Thymara reflects on her one sojourn to the ruined city, which is described in some detail. The strange juxtaposition of desolation and preservation receives attention, and the sound of wolves drives most of the keepers away. Rapskal, however, carried by Heeby, visits frequently.
Rapskal reiterates his plea to Thymara, which she refuses, citing the need to feed Sintara. He grudgingly offers to help her hunt, and she similarly accepts his offer.
Elsewhere, Selden is rousted brusquely and in some confusion, roughly assessed by his enslaver and a potential buyer. Selden protests the treatment proposed of him, but the enslaver and the potential buyer reach an accord, and terrible proceedings begin.
The description of the game sighted by Thymara and taken by Heeby reads to me as nothing so much as a moose, which could “have slung a sleeping net between the branches of his two flat-pronged antlers….His shoulders were immense, and a large hummock of meaty flesh rode them” (49). While moose do occur in Eurasia, they are most commonly associated with the subarctic regions of North America, another suggestion that the Realm of the Elderlings is well read as borrowing more from the New World than the Old. (Someday, perhaps, I will return to the project in a more sustained way; I do not know if I have another chapter in me on the subject, but perhaps I do.)
Less fortunate a parallel is in the enslavement of Selden. The degradations and desecrations involved in slavery in the Realm of the Elderlings novels are attested early on and in detail, and matters have not improved. Indeed, Selden fares worse than his brother did, not indentured against debt but flatly treated as butcherable livestock despite the acknowledgement by his enslavers of his sentience and, indeed, humanity. I cannot help but perceive the echoes of the system of chattel slavery that marks the early history of the United States, the effects of which remain all too present in the lives of all too many. This is not to say that other times and places did not have their own barbarities; of course they did. But that others have done wrong does not excuse the wrongs one does; whataboutism is a distraction, and tu quoque is long identified as a fallacy for good reason.
As I consider the matter of parallels further, I find myself somewhat stymied. If it is the case, as I have argued, that the Realm of the Elderlings should be read as a fantastical gloss on the Americas (not so much as Gernia in the Soldier Son novels, as I have had recent cause to reflect upon, but still), then I have to wonder what Kelsingra ought to be heard as echoing. Should the ruined streets and broken towers be regarded as some refiguration of X̱á:ytem, perhaps, or Cahokia? Do the cyclopean remains of Chichen Itza offer an antecedent, or does Teotihuacan, or Copán, or Tenochtitlán? Or is this, instead, a case where the fantastic emerges from the mundane, the miraculous from the quotidian?
I confess to not being adequately informed about any of them to offer any kind of useful answer to such questions–only just barely enough to be able to ask them. But perhaps others, more knowledgeable, can offer those answers.
I shall read and learn eagerly from those who do.
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It has been eight years since the first post on this website, eight years I’ve been working on Elliott RWI. As I write this, another in a series of annual reports on the state of the site, I have published 1,370 posts to the blogroll (this will be post 1,371), and I have revised individual pages, collecting 101,081 views from 32,423 visitors as of this writing. In the last year, therefore, I have made 157 posts and collected 35,804 views from 9,748 visitors (based on “Reflective Comments about the Seventh Year”). Performance is up from last year–and, in all measures other than number of posts made, higher than in any previous year.
Of the three figures below, the first displays posts by year of blogging. The second shows views by year of blogging, and the third shows visitors by year of blogging.
I remain pleased to be able to continue doing this kind of work, and I look forward not only to another year of it, but many other years of it. I’ve enjoyed doing the writing I’ve done here, and I’m gratified to have learned that at least some of it appears to have been useful and/or enjoyable to others.
She sprayed from where her tufts parted Soaking who stared up at the show And showering many with her gifts Openly displayed in the daytime no less than Shared in the evening and the night
I’m sure there’s some connection… Photo by Gareth Davies on Pexels.com
But now she suffers no touch And those who looked on are left Hot and humid amid swelling hills Damp despite the distance from the depths they would seek And that wetness they desire Is held above their heads Taunting and teasing Doing nobody a damned bit of good
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Melkor amid the Ainur’s music Striving to drown out all the others And I am but one voice among the many Not so loud as might be found Never so sonorant and rarely a soloist No soaring tenor nor throbbing bass And soprano only in distress
There is no Eru to lift up hands and fear-making face Silencing the cacophony and ending both the Song and its despite So I can but carry my tune Even if the bucket is leaky and its handle cracks While the bleating brays on beating out a tattoo unceasing In its unimaginative dissonance and guttural refrain
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Following an extended acerbic commentary from Kim in Cassarick rebutting allegations made, “Dragon Battle” begins with Sintara assessing the situation in which the dragons find themselves., pining over the loss of what she and they should have been. She muses on flight and upon mating, growing annoyed, and thinks about Thymara until interrupted by the awkwardly-landing Kalo. Kalo prods her to attempt flight again, and she reacts harshly, provoking a fight among the males present. Mercor interrupts the fight, defeating Kalo and rebuking Sintara. She stalks off, where Thymara confronts her as she begins to tend to her injuries, and Sintara begins to soften slightly toward her keeper as she returns to the other dragons, assessing events. But only slightly; their continued conversation about flight annoys the dragon, and she sends her keeper hunting as her thoughts turn again to Kelsingra.
Sedric calls to Carson as the latter faces Kalo, urging him to calm as his own keeper is retrieved. Said keeper and another, Davvie and Lecter, have been irresponsible in their affections, provoking comment from Carson about his nephew. Sedric finds himself thinking about dislocation and of his lover, and Carson extends amiable gestures that please the Bingtowner. Sedric marks the ways in which Carson is changing under the influence of his dragon, and his mind turns to Hest. Carson marks it and asks after it, praising Sedric for the ways in which he has changed in the Rain Wilds. The possibilities of the future, good and bad, ring through Sedric’s mind, and he and Carson confer as they work together. Carson notes Sedric’s increasing capabilities, sparking pride in the man.
Once again, I find myself reading with affect as I reread the present chapter. I’ve not made any secret of growing up in a family of tradespeople; I’ve also not made any secret of growing up and living again in the central Texas Hill Country. Both push towards physical labor as a means of making a way in the world. I, however, have always been…brainier than I am brawny. While I carry more weight than is good for me, more of it is flab than muscle-slab, and while I am a willing hand to many things, I am not as able of one as would be best. A recent experience of doing some work around my house reminded me of it, pointedly and unpleasantly. (I’m fine, thanks. Just clearly not used to doing much physical work anymore, if I ever was.) So I find that I feel for Sedric in the present chapter, not because I am a long-closeted man who is finally able to be open with an understanding, non-abusive lover, but because I am a bookish sort among hand-working folk, and I am aware of the lack in myself.
I read the section focusing on Sintara and Thymara with less affect, to be sure–I do not have much, if anything, in the way of shared experience there–but not with less attention. I find it of interest that Thymara’s choice to abstain is so poorly regarded by other characters in the text as it is; while it is the case that some of Thymara’s choice is culturally driven, some of it is wariness of likely consequences (the observance of which seems like it ought to be lauded), and, in either case, the decision on whether or not to have sex is and should be hers to make. Yes, Thymara is somewhat naïve to think that things can always remain as they once were–a naïveté to which I think many fall victim, myself not excepted–and she might well be questioned, in character and by her readers, for it. But for deciding, as her culture dictates, as her presumed readership’s culture presumably dictates (because even more than a decade after the novel’s publication, there remains an expectation of chastity on the part of young women that is not applied to other populations), to withhold her intimate affections, knowing the consequences of indulging them in an unsettled environment and as a member of a population with a low rate of successful births, she should not be.
And, really, none of her readers’ choices in that regard should be questioned, either. Just in case you think I’m more worried about the page than people.
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Why should I not delight to live In these fair lands where Aestas has long residence Working her artistry day after day? It is not to the artist’s blame that The audience shrivels and withers before the intensity of her performance Snails or slugs bestrewn with salt cast from where she prompts sweat
Though descended from hardy men I am not a hardy man Have not the stamina that I once did And even that was not so much But that fault is mine if fault it is And problem mine if it is no fault Though I confess to seeking faults and wallowing in them
Even so feeble and fast-falling as I am I take some small joy in seeing the dance she does Dwelling here so long as she does Kindly and in force here as in few other places Even if it is not for me that she will dance Or not only for me And others gyrate more fully and freely than I have ever done At her mere approach and in her long duration Taking their time as she with them until she Satisfied that she has done enough Moves on Only to come back again As those who sit before this stage of hers Bound by brush among gnarling woods upthrusting Know will happen And mostly when– Though she visits at odd times between
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Oh, I am not immune to that demand
That Stupid God has called across the land,
From stony shore to balmy beach of sand,
From water’s side to high and snow-clad peak!
I often find myself compelled to seek
Some idle pastime through which that god wreaks
The ruin of the mind. I make me numb,
An infantile sucking on the thumb
Or sitting thereupon to depths self-plumb.
Yet while too many find their joy in such,
I linger in that hateful fear: too much
Of any joy will blunt the future touch
Of better happiness that can be found–
At least as much of it as is around.
Good job, yeah! Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com
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Following an extended message between bird-keepers treating concerns of information security, the first chapter of the novel, “The Duke and the Captive,” begins with a messenger reporting to the Duke of Chalced in fear or reprisal for the ill news he carries. The messenger is escorted away, and the ducal palace is described in some detail as the Duke is tended and receives a fuller report on actions in the Rain Wilds. His own situation is described in some detail, both his failing health and dearth of legal heirs, and his anxiousness to consume dragon-blood and -flesh to assuage both. The Duke lashes out, feebly but pointedly, at those around him.
Something of an antecedent? Image from Google Maps, used for commentary
Selden Vestrit, captive, ruminates on his situation as Chalcedeans view him, an oddity among a collection of oddities. The onlookers discuss selling him, ignoring his pleas. As they leave, Selden is wracked by coughing, his situation worsening as he longs for Tintaglia and freedom both.
The question occurs to me again as I reread the present chapter: To what, if anything, is Chalced an analogy? As I’ve remarked, there are analogues for other nation-states in the Realm of the Elderlings series. Bingtown and the Rain Wilds echo the United States, making Jamaillia something like Hanoverian England. The Six Duchies and the Out Islands are not unlike the indigenous American peoples, if with other influences visible and at play, so that “parallel” would be too strong a term. It is the case that the Duchies and Bingtown are or have been in position to ally against Chalced, being both vexed thereby; the analogue of Chalced would therefore be some state vexatious to multiple populations, heavily autocratic, and with a (relatively) poor human rights record.
I admit to getting somewhat outside my remaining areas of expertise, here, but colonial Spain somehow comes to mind. I am not a Hispanist; I did grow up in an area marked by Spanish colonialism, and there is something of that in even popular and public-school accounts of the local and regional histories, but I am far from a specialist in such things. I do, however, think there might be something to investigate in that line for an intrepid student who is more attuned to such concerns than I can be. (Please be sure to cite me if your papers take you in such a direction; I shall thank you.)
Similarly outside my expertise but similarly suggestive is the parallel of the names. Chalced seems to work from Chalcedon, an ancient town of Classical Asia Minor now part of the Istanbul district in Turkey. Site of some important early Christian councils and the namesake of chalcedony, it exerts some historical and religious influence…but, again, my noting that there is some interest to follow does not mean I am equipped to follow that interest in what has to be a short(ish) blog post such as this one. Again, a student of more related concerns looking at this might well have more to say. (Again, too, kindly throw me a citation if you investigate that way; I shall still thank you.)
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Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The one at which you mean to draw a line
And sever yourself from the greater godly body
In which you were raised
To which you pledged yourself
And not the lie that you enact by
Pushing yourself away from it
And it from you?
Is it not a sin to lie?
Yet you expect to be forgiven
And to remain among the body of the elect
While working so very, very hard
To keep others out of it
I think it’s pretty. Photo by Alexander Grey on Pexels.com
Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The forbidden deed among forbidden deeds
The unpardonable event that must be set aside
Or must be set aside.
Because it is commanded that it not be done
And that those who do it find opprobrium
And not the marks made in flesh and marring of it
And not keeping the gleanings of the harvest
Or the fruits from the edges of the fields
And not the mistreatment of strangers in the land
And not adultery
Which is one of the larger among
Thou shalt not
Set in stone on courthouse steps as a movie’s marketing maneuver
A politician’s campaign ploy?
Are they less forbidden?
Yet they who do them
Again and again
And gladly
Those get welcomed in and celebrated
While others would be left to languish
Why is this the thing that shocks you so
The one you claim cannot be forgiven
That merits castigation, condemnation
And not the killing of another person
Something many claim that they would do again
Given similar circumstances
And not when someone else is creeping into their home at night
Which might well be excused
But in the homes of others
Unwelcome on their lands
And for no real purpose save to be there?
Is it not a sin to kill?
And yet many do more than fail to repent
Who are kept among the congregation gladly
Why is this the thing that shocks you so
Demands of you that you rise up in anger
Giving voice to hatred
Giving hands to violence all too often
You who claim to hold as your lord and teacher
One who often abjured violence
Who said who lives by the sword will die by it
Who said who calls another a fool is in danger of damnation
Who said not to resist evil
Who said to turn the other cheek
Who said to give more to those who ask of you than they ask
Who said to take the beam from your own eye before worrying what is in another’s
Who said to cut yourself down to keep yourself from sinning rather than to cut another down
When you will welcome back among you
Even praise
Who flout the two true commandments
Proudly
Who offer up not even a mumbled apology
Let alone burnt gifts of atonement
Or efforts to make real change in themselves
And whose actions bespeak praise for Mammon?
It doesn’t seem right, does it?
It shouldn’t
But you still do it
Over and over and over again
Unrepentantly
And demanding to have a house that is not yours
Be as you would have it
Shutting out those who have too often been in the cold
Who harming none have suffered harm
Why is
This
The thing that shocks you so?
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Elliott RWI 