Have the Covenant novels impacted your life?

[nerratt]

We all know that literary works can make major impacts on our lives, and being on this board something by SRD probably has. I am doing a speech at university about how the Covenant novels have affected my life and am looking for some quotes to use to show that it has affected many lives. So, my request is that if you feel as though the books have affected your life, I'd like to hear a little abuot how, you can post here or email me at nerratt@iupui.edu. Any help with this project is highly appreciated.

[variol son]

Well, my signiture says it all really.

When I was young, my greatest fear was that I would never amount to anything. That because of some basic flaw or lack that I would grow up destined to fail. To work a crappy job for a crappy wage in my crappy hometown before going home to my crappy house where I live alone.

But as Stephen R Donaldson said, "I took one ordinary, fallible, self-conflicted, debase-able human being and surrounded him with heroic, romantic, mythic characters--with the result that the human being eventually discovered a capacity for grandeur in himself".

Thanks to many factors, including the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant and The Gap, I have realised that I have the capacity for grandeur. I don't have to fail just because I'm a Maori, or a half-cast, or from a poor family. I can succede, not in spite of who I am, but because of who I am.

That gift is one for which I will forever be thankful to Mr Donaldson.

[Gadget nee Jemcheeta]

The covenant novels gave me access to my own ethics and beliefs about good and evil and responsibility at a very young age, and I think have been a major influence in those areas ever since.

[nerratt]

I feel as though they have impacted my life in a multitude of ways they really made me forget all my problems i spent all my life telling myself "I can't" cause of this or that and the novels made me realize that I had to just get past making excuses. There are a lot of other ways that they changed my life but some are really hard to put into words. I just thought I would share a little of my insight into what they did for me since you guys have been so open.

[duchess of malfi]

There's a huge thread about this very subject buried someplace within this forum. I will see if I can find it and bump it up for you later tonight.

[srtrout]

Here's what I sent in reply to this question:

I am a family physician in a small rural community. I first found the first trilogy lying in an empty ICU in an inner-city hospital where I was training. I was fascinated from the start, and especially fascinated by the second trilogy - waited for them impatiently and devoured them as they first were published.

I was very moved, and inspired, by the character of Thomas Covenant and by the discussions about despair and despite. My career in medicine has been very stressful for me; I am frequently very anxious about the choices and challenges before me; I often "despair" and consider quitting. Reading these books helped me stay in practice during a time when it was very worthwhile for me to stay here; I really don't know if I would have without them. I was able to recognize "despair" in some of the choices before me. I also became aware of the worthiness of sacrificing one's self for his friends, as Thomas Covenant does.

Actually, one might think I would identify more with Linden Avery, a family physician in a small town, but I never really did. She seemed more accepting of her plight, and less needing to consider whether she would continue to try to help the people around her.

I am a Christian, of the middle of the road orthodox type. I feel there is a ton of Christian imagery in this work. Donaldson sometimes downplays that, and I would surmise that he does not consider himself a Christian. Nonetheless, he was raised by Christian missionaries, and I suspect there is a great Christian influence on his personal code of ethics.

Another affect has been that of frustration - I've given away about 10 copies of the trilogies and have yet to find anyone that really liked them and few that bothered to finish them!

I have written about much of this in varied spots on Kevin's watch under my moniker "senor trout" if you really would like to read more!

Good luck with your speech!

Senor trout

[KAY1]

The novels haven't really affected me as deeply as some, by having a large impact on their values etc but I did (and still do) find the novels a great way of escapism. They recapture my interest time and time again which is something that can't be said for many literary works.

[Roynish]

I think the message of redemption is the most powerful that I have gotten from the chronicles. No matter how fragile a person may be and the inevitable mistakes and pain that life may entail, redemption is always possible.
For me its the major theme of the chronicles. The internal struggle between ones darker side and the light that one sees and sometimes fails to reach for. Yet one can bridge that gap and have some resolution albeit temporarily from despair. Covenant constantly battles this. He appreciates beauty and is moved but is also tortured by his acts. He can love and also hate. Just like us all.

[tonyz]

The thing that struck me and stuck with me, more than anything else, was the quote "Desecration can be survived or healed, but not denied."

I knew about redemption -- I'm a Christian, and hence fundamentally optimistic -- but the quote drove home the lasting reality of failure. You cannot wish evil away, or ignore it; you <i>can</i> defeat it and destroy it, but not without effort.

And not without help.

[Zarathustra]

This book showed me that I will not be forever doomed to read crappy novels.

This book didn't really change my life. However, I've learned later (after going to college and studying philosophy) that the lesson learned by Covenant and the message conveyed by Donaldson is one that I've independently discovered and made my own. Specifically, those lessons are some of the basic ideas of existentialism: we are thrown into an existence that is fundamentally paradoxical, tragic, and absurd, and it is our responsibility to face this fact and chose our reaction to it. This is the fundamental question of our existence--how will we react in light of this truth? Will we ignore it in an inauthentic attempt to escape the Unattractive Truth? (Joan chose this route, running away from the mortality and repulsiveness of Covenant's explicit reminder of death). Will we despair and kill ourselves in the face of this insurmountable obstacle? (Kevin Landwaster). Will we swear an inauthentic Oath, turning ourselves into emotional lepars by sealing off our passions so we don't kill ourselves in despair? (Lords, Covenant after the Leprosarium.) Will we rebel futilely and inauthentically, thinking that we can actually defeat our own mortality through sheer physical resistance? (Hile Troy).

Or will we manage to come up with a solution that is neither denial nor surrender? Neither denying that problem exists nor surrendering to despair? Such a solution is necessarily paradoxical and absurd, yet this is not to say it is impossible. We can choose to rebel against our own futility, to refuse to let an inescapable death daunt us. We can choose to hope, to grow, to strive, to love, to preserve, to live--even if in the end it is pointless and doomed to fail. Life ends. The universe is running down. But this doesn't mean we can't enjoy the ride, or find beauty in the world. In a paradoxical way, we can transcend our own futility by chosing to not let it beat down our spirit, even though it really should.

[nerratt]

Just thought I'd post, my speech is past now, I really enjoy reading these responses they helped me see some things that may have affected me and I didn't even realize it. I got a B+ on my speech which is pretty good considering how horribly I speak in front of people haha. Thanks, again everyone, and if anyone else has somethign to add, I am definitely still interested.

[Xar]

I, too, personally believe that the message of redemption, as well as showing how everyone's choices can have an impact with long-lasting consequences, and how surrendering to despair (metaphorically or literally) can be tempting but ultimately self-destructive, is what I most gleaned out of the Chronicles.

Whenever I read them - especially the First Chronicles - I always start a catharsis of sorts; the more Covenant acts disinterested, selfish, and without considering the plight of the Land, the more any repressed anger, frustration or such come to the fore within me, and at the very moment in which the Unfettered Healer heals Covenant, in TPTP, it's suddenly as if a terrible weight is lifted off of my shoulders. Seeing Covenant finally accepting the burden of his actions and the fact that, whether the Land is real or not, the feelings it evokes and the people who live there deserve to be honored, is a real catharsis which climaxes with the confrontation in Lord Foul's Creche.

The Second Chronicles are different... they speak more of endurance, of determination, of the desire to bring back what was lost simply because it was too beautiful for it to pass utterly from the world. I still shiver with barely suppressed joy every time Covenant enters Andelain and realizes that the heart of the Land is not cursed - that it is as he remembers it, the place where Earthpower and life are strongest; I still enjoy the thrill and exhilaration of the Blood-run; the horror of the Soothsaying; the sorrow and ultimate redemption of Coercri; the eerie atmosphere of the Isle of the One Tree; the ineluctable approach of fate when Covenant's Dead talk to him for the last time; and finally, the confrontation with Foul in Mount Thunder. The last moments of the Second Chronicles are to me charged as if with the emotions and lessons of the whole Second Chronicles, and by the end of them, I feel restored.

In short, a firm belief in one's ability to triumph over the greatest challenges, the knowledge that redemption is possible, and that there are things worth fighting for, ideals which may or may not be real, but which still deserve to be held high.

[PillarofCreation]

The series made a serious impact upon my life. I remember putting down "White Gold Wielder" and staring blankly at the wall, all thought out of my mind but astonishment. Since the reading, i try not to enclose my feeling within myself and reach out to others that are in need. Because i know that if i ignore them, won't they too do the same? Thomas Covenant's leprosy was a good allusion to the emotional and physical scars of my life. I have grown up in tought times with parents that hate the living hell out each other. But i had no control. Neither did Covenant. So always i think Be True and Though he may assualt you, remember: there is still hope in the world. Those are my lines, my guide. There is probably more but writers block always gets the best of me.