What I found interesting:
The description of TC as a machine. When we first meet him, he's a passionless (or perhaps passion-suppressed) suvival machine, operating primarily on the Law of Leprosy, performing his VSEs by force of habit and stubborn will.
And yet he's also a walking paradox, because what is driving him to walk mechanically into town is a burning passion to claim his humanity ... a passion which he has trouble sustaining. While his goal is noble and admirable, his trouble at sustaining his passion leads him to rely on the darker side of his emotions: rage, disdain. Those are more self-perpetuating passions, easier to maintain, but they are also "safer" than hope, love, longing, etc., which are passions that seduce him to let down his guard.On page 1, SRD wrote:... the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict.
Thomas Covenant's stride went on, as unfaltering as clockwork that had been wound to the hilt for just this purpose.
He ... let the tight machinery of his will carry him forward step by step.
He is balanced between passion and control, driven forward by his desire to claim his humanity, but restrained by his mechanical survival rituals and tight control upon seductive emotions. Yet it is an unhealthy, unstable equilibrium that threatens to become unbalanced at any moment, primarily due to the negative emotions which impel him forward. This is his crisis in a nutshell: he needs to find a more stable balance.
I think it is significant that the ocher-robed beggar makes his first appearance right after TC remembers his lost love, and then the boy who gives TC the beggar's note appears right after TC remembers his lost son. Though Covenant "strangles" his pangs of loss--lest they shake his balance (the paradox between passion and control)--he still cannot help himself: he remembers. And these lapses seem to lead directly to the confrontation with his original impetus for his Journey: The beggar, the note, the Fundamental Question of Ethics.
The end of the chapter is weird. There is a clear implication that the boy who delivers the note is unreal:
The grip on his arm came from the boy. So the boy was apparently touching him while he spoke. But the very next moment, he's gone? Is this just Donaldson adding a mysterious flavor to the narrative? An aura of the unknown surrounding the beggar? Or is it literally a disappearing boy? If the tangible reality of little boys in the real world cannot be trusted, this says a hell of a lot about Covenant's world. All is not what it seems. I don't know what to make of it, but it was clearly deliberate. We're led to question--and perhaps doubt--the nature of Covenant's reality at the very moment he's given his world-spanning warning and problematic (i.e. Fundamental Question of Ethics).On page 8, SRD wrote:"You're supposed to read it," the boy said again.
"Don't touch me," Covenant murmured to the grip on his arm. "I'm a leper."
But when he looked around, the boy was gone.
There are in fact 5 references to "boy" in this chapter. The young son playing on the sidewalk in the first paragraph, rescued by his mother just in time as TC approaches (mirroring Joan rescuing Roger). And there is the Golden Boy of the song. And then TC identifies this Golden Boy with his past self, the happy/naive Tom while he was writing, married, and a new father. Then we have a description of his son (Roger), accompanied by his story of being taken away, and TC's bewilderment at his own inability to weep. It is precisely at that moment--a recognition of his disconnect with authentic, painful, seductive emotions--that we get boy #5, the note bearer.
Clearly, the concept of "boy" is being driven home in this chapter from many different perspectives, which might explain the chapter's title. Donaldson invites us to identify various boys with each other (Roger = young son on sidewalk, Golden Boy = TC). Could the final, disappearing boy also be a symbol of either TC, Roger, or both? He could "disappear" because Roger was taken, but he could also "disappear" because the Golden Boy who was happy/naive Tom is now gone. And his disappearance amounts to a warning, and an ethical challenge to Be True (again, the fundamental question).
If the beggar is TC himself (Creator), perhaps the boy is also TC himself. These two together are the warnings within him that he can sense, but doesn't quite acknowledge. It's his subconsciousness trying to get his attention. If not literally in the story, it's certainly possible that this is figuratively true from our own perspective as readers.
