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

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The penultimate chapter, “Harvest Fest,” begins with a reply from Kettricken to Bingtown about Tintaglia. It turns then to Fitz in a spyhole, observing and musing on festivities in progress, the Harvest Festival’s preliminaries. Among his observations are Hap’s performance and the conduct of Molly’s children, as well as the doings of his recent and earlier companions. And he grows somewhat maudlin as he watches others’ merriment.

Fitz determines to call on Molly and makes his way to the chambers where Lacey had noted she is quartered. She reluctantly admits him, and the two confer about Burrich and about how they will proceed in the wake of his death, the details of which Fitz relates. Fitz also accounts for his deeds and doings in the years since his death. And as Fitz makes to take his leave of Molly at her insistence, news comes that a ship from the Out Islands comes–bearing Elliania. Fitz finds himself swept up into the general assembly, shielded from easy view by Patience and Lacey, who come upon him amid the press of people eager to see what is going on. He therefore marks Elliania’s grand entrance and Dutiful’s enthusiastic response thereto, and through the Skill, Fitz prompts the Prince to action.

Celebrations commence, extending into the next days, which are marked with celebrations not only of the accelerated nuptials of Dutiful and Elliania, but the honoring of Burrich and the elevation of the Witted coterie. Fitz determines to call on Molly again and makes bold to do so, announcing himself openly to some consternation from Nettle and concern from Molly. The imminent arrival of Tintaglia and Icefyre forestalls further motion in that line, and arrangements for that arrival are swiftly concluded. The dragons alight and feast, their presence prompting Dutiful’s elevation to King-in-Waiting.

Festivities draw on for some time, until farewells become obligatory. New routines begin to emerge, with Fitz integrating more openly into Buckkeep life, and exploration of the Skill commences in earnest. Plans for the days to come are noted, as well.

I find myself feeling…hurried again as I read the present chapter, although I again note that the position of the present chapter in the novel and the trilogy conduce to hustling things along. And there are dangers in lingering too long on descriptions of festivals and the like. An old gift I received from my wife, Winkour’s The Traveling Curmudgeon, opines that “No one want to read about a halcyon voyage on glassy seas, a routine flight in first class aboard a half-empty 747, a glorious stay at a four-star hotel with sumptuous food and fabulous service. Comfort and luxury are forgettable” (viii); the comment speaks to prevailing disinterest in good times, and disinterest is anathema to a novel. Too, getting into the details of such things can easily provoke fandoms, which are far from always kind, as well as scholars, who are often even worse.

Yes, that’s my tongue in my cheek. Why do you ask?

Still, there are threads yet to tie off in the Tawny Man tapestry, and there are others to hang upon the walls yet. I continue to look forward to them.

If you could send support along, it’d be appreciated!

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

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The following chapter, “Resumption,” opens with a brief verse before turning to Fitz’s return to Buckkeep–with difficulty. Fitz makes to transit through the Skill-pillars and finds himself adrift amid the void, where a comforting voice recognizes him and helps him to reintegrate himself with himself. The voice offers a warning and ejects him out into the world, where he slumbers until dawn.

Waking, Fitz finds himself ill and reaches out through the Skill to Thick, Dutiful, and Chade, who Skill out a series of questions to him and retrieve him back to Buckkeep with some aspersion. Fitz is treated for his seeming infirmities, and he slowly returns to life in Buckkeep. Amid that, he is summoned to a meeting of Dutiful’s Skill coterie, in which Nettle is markedly displeased with him, having been made aware of his true identity and relationship to her. Fitz reports his experiences to the coterie, which does not ease matters; afterward, Dutiful and he confer, Dutiful remarking on events with Nettle.

Following Dutiful’s remarks, Chade takes his turn with Fitz, reporting on the Fool’s arrival and departure during the time Fitz spent trapped between the Skill-pillars. He also notes Hap’s circumstances; Fitz’s foster-son has lost his apprenticeship and is spending time among performing folk. Chade additionally comments on the largely stabilized political situation in the Six Duchies that has resulted from Fitz’s decisions and the actions taken based upon them. Dealings with and among the Old Blood also receive attention.

Chade leaves Fitz, and Fitz considers the gifts the Fool has left for him. One is the poem with which the chapter begins. Another is a carved Skill-stone that contains memories of Fitz, the Fool, and Nighteyes together.

Nostalgic, Fitz stalks out through Buckkeep, where he encounters Starling. She notes Hap’s likely whereabouts and her own situation–happily pregnant despite earlier beliefs. They part amiably, and Fitz makes his way to the tavern Starling noted Hap frequents. The two confer about their deeds and doings, Hap noting that he is becoming a minstrel, endorsed by Starling and apprenticing to an older minstrel to learn the ways of that profession in detail. They talk, too, about Hap’s lapsed romantic interest, and they part again, Fitz returning to Buckkeep to call on Patience and Lacey. The three talk together for a time, and Lacey notes where Fitz can find Molly at last.

I note, among other things, the mention of Pecksies in the current chapter. It escapes me at the moment if they have been mentioned previously–but they are real within the Six Duchies, and I’ve written somewhat about them previously, in addition to other mention. At the appropriate time, I will return to them–clearly, since the rereading series will not only treat the Elderlings novels.

The current chapter does seem to display to me some of the problem I’ve noted in Hobb’s writing at other times: the tendency to rush at the end. Admittedly, the novel is in a denouement, with the major conflict resolved; the sweep of the epic within which the novel takes place is more or less done at this point in the text. (And, yes, I am using somewhat formal definition of an epic, here; there is an underlying grand heroic conflict that determines the fates of peoples rather than of people, which was also true in both the Farseer and Liveship Traders novels. Here, though, the focus is not on the epic hero so much as what would be a foil in a more traditional epic–not quite the Wiglaf to Dutiful’s Beowulf or the Merlin to his Arthur, but still…) It makes sense that things to be wrapped up would be wrapped up, and narrative constraints do tend to call for things to be wrapped up, unlike in life where many things simply end rather than resolving. Still, I feel…hurried along, and I’m not sure I like it.

Whether because of narrative sensibilities or once-again-over-affect, I want it to last a little longer.

Your kind support is greatly appreciated!

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

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The next chamber, “Commitments,” opens with a brief in-milieu directive from an old Skillmaster before turning to Fitz considering the shift in his situation and preparing to return to the Fool and Prilkop on Aslevjal. He returns to the Witness Stones and contemplates them before passing through the Skill-pillars once again and making his way to the Fool. The two confer, exchanging news, and the Fool affirms a determination to absent himself from Fitz’s life. The risk of occasioning change is too great, and the Fool withdraws the marks of Skill-sharing from Fitz, leaving the two sundered and Fitz considering what has been given to him by those whom he has loved.

https://facelessfrey.tumblr.com/post/637352724954005504/the-pale-woman-in-fools-fate

In the wake of the loss, Fitz follows Chade’s bidding and makes to retrieve some of the purloined Skill-texts that the Pale Woman had had, aided by Prilkop. They find the corpse of the Pale Woman, and Prilkop notes that he and the Fool will return to their shared school–in Clerres–to address some concerns they have there. Prilkop also urges Fitz to remain with him for a short span before returning through the Skill-pillars, which urging Fitz, being called by Chade and Thick back to Buckkeep, politely refuses.

Some things present themselves as of interest in the present chapter. One of them is a bit of foreshadowing that I do not think will be a spoiler to point out (aside from the novel being nearly twenty years in print as I write this): Fitz refuses a polite warning from a knowledgeable figure, and that has never worked out well for him in the preceding texts. Never.

Another point is that the present chapter is, I believe, the first mention of Clerres, the center of power of the White Prophet religion. I offer some discussion of it here, in “Manifestations of Medieval Religion in Robin Hobb’s Elderlings Corpus,” and I have the idle thought that I might revisit the project at some future point, expanding the conference paper with quotations and, maybe, further analysis. It’s not like I was going to place it in a journal in any event, after all; I still do some of The Work, but I am decisively out of academe. Still, the name might well be a bit of sequel-planting for Hobb, which would not be out of line–but even if it is not, the detail is not a throwaway thing as much as it is an enrichment of the milieu. After all, people give names to places, and everybody’s from somewhere.

One more, before I close, is the discussion of responsibility and authority at work in the chapter. It does note receive much space, admittedly, but there is something of an undercurrent of the issue throughout the Six Duchies books. Much of the action in them, and certainly the bulk of the political intrigues, result from the abdication of FitzChivalry’s father, King-in-Waiting Chivalry Farseer, from that position and his self-removal from the line of succession to the throne of the Six Duchies. Would matters in the Red-Ship War have gone as they did, had Chivalry remained present in government? Certainly, Verity would not have done as he did…but I am not a fan-fiction writer, and certainly not in the Six Duchies. That way lies opprobrium, and I have faced enough such in my life already.

Send a little something my way?

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

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The succeeding chapter, “Family,” opens with a brief and pointed message from Patience to Kettricken before picking up with Fitz and Nettle meeting in the flesh for the first time. Their exchange is strained and somewhat awkward, although they both recognize that they are acting poorly and restart their conversation–with both of them being somewhat overwhelmed by their emotions, Fitz at meeting his daughter and not being able to say as much, Nettle by grief for her father and upset at the change to her family and station. Fitz passes along Burrich’s message, and Nettle takes her leave.

Fatigued, Fitz falls asleep where he is. When he wakes, it is with Patience and Lacey present, and his appearance startles both women, so much so that Lacey passes out. Patience orders Fitz to assist her and Lacey to their rooms, and Fitz complies, barely getting the door shut behind them before Patience lights into him, demanding an account of his days and deeds since she had seen him buried. Only when Patience has finally fallen asleep does Fitz excuse himself and take a solid meal, purloining supplies to take back to Aslevjal for Prlikop and the Fool. He is sent aside by Chade’s Skilled command, though, and serves as relay between Fallstar and Kettricken as the former complains to the latter of Dutiful’s actions. Amid the task, he finds himself bidden advise Kettricken, and he does so–against Chade’s ideas. And he finds the older man ceding power to him at last.

The denouement continues in the present chapter, with Fitz belatedly “coming into his own,” although it is a partial and frustrated thing. Because he is not the true king, despite Chade’s epithet at the end of the chapter, and he is not the seniormost Farseer; that is, instead, Chade, even if Fitz was recognized as belonging to the family in a way Chade never was. So he is neither a public face for the throne nor the one most entitled to that throne, and he seems to be aware of as much, given his reluctance to assume power at this point in his life (with reference to an earlier instance of his doing the same). Again, though, Fitz’s story is not the traditionally heroic. It is, in some senses, much more as Tolkien’s legendarium operates; the traditionally heroic figure, Aragorn, is not the protagonist of the tale. And while Fitz is far removed from Frodo or Sam, he is just as far from the traditional heroic ideal as they are–closer in birth, perhaps, but far more willing to do what would never occur to either of those hobbits. But so much is to be expected from the protagonist of series that use the Tolkienian tradition even as they make decided efforts to move away from it…

Help me keep this going!

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

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The following chapter, “Through Stones,” opens with a passage from Chade’s writings about the Witness Stones and Skill-pillars before returning to Fitz’s attendance on the ill Fool and his messages through the Skill to Chade about the same. Fitz dithers about leaving his friend behind but is persuaded by Prilkop, Thick, and the Fool himself to depart in favor of the Fool’s continued convalescence and conference with Prilkop. Fitz offers to return swiftly, though Prilkop advises against rapid successive use of the Skill-pillars, and Fitz takes Thick to and through the Skill-pillar back to Buck and the Witness Stones.

The trip through the Stones is unpleasant, but Fitz gets himself and Thick to Buckkeep, even so. He leaves Thick in the company of guards, and he makes his own way to the hidden chambers in which he and Chade long worked. Shortly thereafter, he heads to Kettricken’s chambers and reports to her before being asked to relay messages to Dutiful via the Skill. Fitz serves as a conduit between the Prince and his mother for a time, until he begins to be subsumed by the Skill and has to be forced away from the magic. After some time and recovery, Fitz is released and tends to himself briefly before being encountered by Nettle unexpectedly.

Or at least unexpectedly on his part; those who have read Hobb, or are rereading her, or who have followed along my rereading (thank you, by the way!) will know that Fitz gets to “enjoy” such things on an alarmingly regular basis. But though the encounter with Nettle must be a social shock, it is at least only that; for once, Fitz is not imperiled by a chance encounter, which is something of a relief.

If I read the novel with Freytag’s structure in mind, it seems to me that the present chapter is firmly in the denouement. Certainly, it feels as if the novel is working to resolve various plot threads before it concludes, the major actions of the plot being accomplished. (I believe I’ve mentioned elsewhere, whether in this webspace or in some other place, that the story that would “normally” be told in the Realm of the Elderlings is not Fitz’s, but Verity’s in the Farseer novels and Dutiful’s in the Tawny Man. As I get further into the reread, we’ll see how much it holds–and there’s a lot of reread left: seven Elderlings novels, the Soldier Son trilogy, and various other short stories, novellas, and other pieces. I picked a hell of a project, right?) But I rather like that aspect of Hobb’s writing; it works to give the impression that her narrative world is not just what is shown in the main text, but is suggestive of a larger world outside the narrative readers get to see. That things do not all tie up neatly at once, but close off raggedly…we come back to it, as I recall–and as I believe will show up soon.

I’d really like it if you could send some support my way!