Finally, someone said something that let's me better verbalize, or actually just realized why I was upset with TROTE.
(John Clute, the well-known critic, seems to be one of these. It was Covenant's Unbelief that grabbed him in the first place; in the Second Chronicles, he says with barely concealed disdain, the Land turned into just another fantasy world.)
With the 1st chronicles, to me it was all about the narative. Here's TC, he's quite a prick, a rapist, and he just can't decide what's real, what's not and doesn't take a real stance till TPTP.
Now jump to the 2nd chronicles, and SRD can't go the same route (believe vs. unbelief) TC has come to proper terms within himself. So his second round in The Land can't be the same ol' shtick. So he gives him a totally different dilema. He's now a leper in The Land as well (no health-sense), and everything (and almost everything) points to the fact that his ring should be Linden's. Believe me, I hated when I read what a lousy position he was in.
But! SRD was able to pull me in anyway. He made me care enough about everything, and feel TC's suffering so that I was no longer upset by my hero being so messed up, and in such dire straits.
That's what's missing, for me. Like TC, in the 2nd, Linden was dropped in The Land in the Last chronicles, and while I was upset that she couldn't be Linden of the 2nd, I wasn't given reason enough to care about the whole package to really care.
Take Liand vs. Sunder. Early on, I could read Sunder's inner-conflict. I thought what summed it up best was when Sunder tried what he knew to be "poisenous" alianthia for the first time. And I'll have to quote it, so none of the richness is lost:
Aburptly, he took the berry, put it in his mouth. For a moment, his soul was naked in his face. His initial anticipation of harm became involuntary delight; his inner world struggled to alter itself. His hands quavered when he took the seed from his mouth. "Heaven and Earth!" he breathed. His awe was as exquisite as anguish. "Covenant-" His jaw worked to form words. "Is this truly the Land-- the Land of which my father dreamed?"
"Yes"
"Then he was mad." One deep spasm of grief shook Sunder before he tugged back about him the tattered garment of his self-command. "I must learn to be likewise mad."
Even though there was no narrative for Sunder, SRD made you feel everybody's pain, and self-doubt, and growth. You saw and felt what everything was about. And what people were feeling.
All I got from Liand, who I expected to be another Sunder, was "How he wanted to learn because the Masters taught him nothing." And while that's not a quote, it might as well be, ooooh shiver in anticipation. As Clute said, the Land has just become another fantasy world for me.
Again, that's just one example, the first two chronicles were filled with stuff like that. But I always remembered that scene with Sunder and the berries.
You know, I better drop this thread, the more I discuss this, the more I realize how short SRD left me in this novel. And the more disallusioned I will become.
So I end this on a postive note, his are the only books that made me ever give a hoot about something enough to join a discussion group.
Whew, sorry for the long post people. But as I said, that quote made me realize what it was that I was unhappy about. And again people, important footnote, not trying to tell people who liked it they were wrong. This was just my opinion, how it affected me, etc.
"Love is a snowmobile racing across the tundra and then suddenly it flips over, pinning you underneath. At night, the ice weasels come."
