Kevin's Watch

In the absence of comfortable alternatives, I'm going to avoid responsibility by insisting that the crucial words are "consider the possibility". If the Land is a dream/delusion, then OF COURSE Covenant is its Creator. But surely other possibilities also deserve consideration

Steve C: Stephen,

Just another one of your long time fans for decades and decades:

My questions are about the Harauchi. Obviously their senses and their defenses are superior to many peoples since they are not affected by Kevin's Dirt. Also throughout the Chronicles we've seen their ability to discern more than others.

To what extent can they assess or diagnoss the forces and banes affecting the Land? Linden was informed that the Demondim were using a Fall to gain access to the Illearth Stone thousands of years in the past. Discerning the Fall and the mechanism in which the Demondim wield their power seems like quite a feat. How far does their discernment go? We learn of the source of Kevin's Dirt from Esmer, but since the Haruchai remain unaffected, do they understand the nature of Kevin's Dirt? How and why it affects other people's of the land? Although understanding causality doesn't necessarily translate into a solution, it certain goes a long way!

Next question is about the Haruchai's sharing of minds. Stave has developed a way to silence his thoughts. In all of Haruchai society, does this set a precident? Is all that Handir thinks always always shared with the Haruchai hive? To what extent do the Master's regularly communicate with the Haruchai of their home? Perhaps these last questions are outside the scope of your story... But since I wonder if there is more going on with the Haruchai than just the keeping of secrets, I muse on these issues...

Having enjoyed your books over the decades, I've always felt the Bloodguard and Haruchai have unrequieted as well as self-imposed grief. Passion, it seems, can come in many forms. I am glad that you have been delving deeper into their culture and shared psyche. I suspect that there is a lot more to come about the inner workings of the Haruachi and that their long-standing and unresolved issues will be central to the remainder of the books...I eagerly await your next installment. And then the next...and then your next after Covenant. Just keep on writing!

Thank you,

Steve

I don't want to say too much about this, mainly because I don't want to limit my options, or--horrors!--introduce an inadvertent internal inconsistency. But I'll go this far. 1) Like the Ranyhyn, if in an entirely different form, the Haruchai are Earthpowerful beings. Hence their great strength, their longevity, and their immunity to Kevin's Dirt. But their discernment may not be as great as it can seem. Being able to perceive both the presence of a Fall and the emanations of the Illearth Stone within the Demondim horde does not imply that the Haruchai can extend their senses thousands of years into the past. It only suggests that they are able to draw rational conclusions from what they perceive in their present. On the other hand, I believe they *are* capable of discerning, say, the absence of health-sense in others. 2) Like the Ranyhyn, the Haruchai are mortal. Therefore they have limits. Specifically they are limited in *range*, both with their discernment and with their ability to communicate mind-to-mind. The "hive mind function" that they've developed over the millennia is only accessible if they're physically close enough to each other. And they've become dependent on it (another form of limitation). How else could a single Haruchai know everything that the entire race remembers?

Does Stave set a precedent? Possibly. But if enough other Haruchai make the effort to follow his example, the "hive mind function" will effectively collapse. Why would they want to do that? Wouldn't such a collapse reduce their prospects for survival?

(05/20/2009)

Michael from Santa Fe: I think it's time we started a serious, sentence by sentence breakdown of the Chronicles. So, to begin: Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 1: Golden Boy, First Sentence:

"She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict."

Hmmm...interesting beginning. The one item that has puzzled me about this is the use of the word "gray" (although I remember the "mechanical derelict" really puzzling me when I was younger - now I understand since I'm older and most mornings I wake feeling like a mechanical derelict myself). What does "gray" refer to? Covenent seems a little young to have gray hair. His clothing? His temperment? His eyes, which I believe are described as being "gray"? Can you shed any light on your use of the word "gray" to describe Covenant at this critical first sentence jucture?

Next month - Sentence Two! Just kidding...

Covenant seems a little young to have grey hair.

Demondim-spawn wrote:

Michael from Santa Fe: I think it's time we started a serious, sentence by sentence breakdown of the Chronicles. So, to begin: Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 1: Golden Boy, First Sentence:

"She came out of the store just in time to see her young son playing on the sidewalk directly in the path of the gray, gaunt man who strode down the center of the walk like a mechanical derelict."

Hmmm...interesting beginning. The one item that has puzzled me about this is the use of the word "gray" (although I remember the "mechanical derelict" really puzzling me when I was younger - now I understand since I'm older and most mornings I wake feeling like a mechanical derelict myself). What does "gray" refer to? Covenent seems a little young to have gray hair. His clothing? His temperment? His eyes, which I believe are described as being "gray"? Can you shed any light on your use of the word "gray" to describe Covenant at this critical first sentence jucture?

Next month - Sentence Two! Just kidding...

THAT'S Entertainment!

LMAO!

Menolly wrote:For some reason I've always assumed, without doing any actual research in to Hanson's Disease, that the "gray, gaunt man" referred to his pallor. I guess I figured perhaps the affected areas didn't get as much circulation or something, and so his pallor was gray instead of a healthy pink...

I haven't been in the GI for a while. Did SRD answer zenlunatic's question?

SRD wrote: I was referring to the color of Covenant's skin: that ashen hue some people get when they're sick.

Tom: Hi, Mr. Donaldson,

I just want to thank you for answering my previous questions. Much appreciated!

But now the time has come to explain this little tidbit (from the GI 2007):

"Someday when I'm feeling mellow, and I have *lots* of free time, I'll describe how "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" changed my life."

I don't think you've described this yet (at least I couldn't find it on the GI). Maybe you were just joking?

Tom


So in the middle of a fight, one of the turtles (I forget the names) turns to another and says, "Wait a minute. We're TURTLES. The outcasts of society. How come WE have to stand alone against the forces of evil?" And the other turtle replies, "Face it, dude. It's the only job we're qualified for."

When I finished falling about, I had an epiphany (although it may not make sense to anyone else): my life is the only job I'm qualified for.

Simple insights for simple minds.... But even simple insights can be profound, under the right circumstances.

(06/03/2009)

Anonymous: Reflecting back a bit on the 1st Chronicles, one section of The Power That Preserves that felt a bit odd what was when the three Stonedowners go to seek one of the Unfettered. Like it was an out take. Don't get me wrong. I loved that section of the book, it was a great brief interlude from the main story and its conclusion was absolutely chilling. But at the time in the previous two books the reader had always been connected to the story by either Convenant or Hile Troy (I think). Later in TPTP, long sections of the book were narrated through Mhoram, but at the point he was almost as important to the story as Covenant. What was your thinking to including this section and did you or Lester ever talk about not including it? I'm very glad it was left in.

I understand your point. This chapter--even more than the sections from Mhoram's point of view--violates my general narrative stance in regard to Covenant's Unbelief. (Mhoram has been in the story for so long that he can be considered a symbolic extension of Covenant.) And in fact I did discuss it with Lester del Rey. We came to two conclusions. First, the material doesn't stray very far from things Covenant already "knows" (so, we hoped, the violation doesn't feel too profound). Second, if the reader hasn't accepted Covenant's attitude by now, he/she never will accept it anyway.

Nevertheless, in retrospect I consider this chapter a "design flaw" in TPTP. By my present standards, it *does* undermine the integrity of the reader's relationship with Covenant. I'm not the kind of guy who actually wants to go back and rewrite his old books. But if I were writing TPTP *today* (as a new book), I would struggle mightily to find a better narrative solution than the one I settled on back in the mid-70s.

(06/15/2009)

dlbpharmd wrote:

Anonymous: Reflecting back a bit on the 1st Chronicles, one section of The Power That Preserves that felt a bit odd what was when the three Stonedowners go to seek one of the Unfettered. Like it was an out take. Don't get me wrong. I loved that section of the book, it was a great brief interlude from the main story and its conclusion was absolutely chilling. But at the time in the previous two books the reader had always been connected to the story by either Convenant or Hile Troy (I think). Later in TPTP, long sections of the book were narrated through Mhoram, but at the point he was almost as important to the story as Covenant. What was your thinking to including this section and did you or Lester ever talk about not including it? I'm very glad it was left in.

I understand your point. This chapter--even more than the sections from Mhoram's point of view--violates my general narrative stance in regard to Covenant's Unbelief. (Mhoram has been in the story for so long that he can be considered a symbolic extension of Covenant.) And in fact I did discuss it with Lester del Rey. We came to two conclusions. First, the material doesn't stray very far from things Covenant already "knows" (so, we hoped, the violation doesn't feel too profound). Second, if the reader hasn't accepted Covenant's attitude by now, he/she never will accept it anyway.

Nevertheless, in retrospect I consider this chapter a "design flaw" in TPTP. By my present standards, it *does* undermine the integrity of the reader's relationship with Covenant. I'm not the kind of guy who actually wants to go back and rewrite his old books. But if I were writing TPTP *today* (as a new book), I would struggle mightily to find a better narrative solution than the one I settled on back in the mid-70s.

(06/15/2009)

This is one of the chapters that I usually skip on re-reads. Who was it that was giving me a hard time about skipping chapters? Oh yeah, Furls Fire. Take that, Furlsy!

Meredith N: Dear Stephen,

I've been a fan for the last 5 years, having read all of the Thomas Covenant books up to date, Mordant's Need, and just now the first two books of The Gap Series. I suppose my question will be considered typically female, but my concern drives me to ask it.

Why all the rape and victimization of women? Why are you driven to destroy both soul and flesh of nearly every woman in your novels, especially those who play a lead role? I realize that these women also demonstrate a sort of primal strength in survival, but I am still left wondering why you depict so many women as living their lives in subjugation...fighting, but entirely hopeless.

I know that I cannot really say what motivates you personally to write these things. I've read your commentary about Angus and how you feared that he was truly a public revelation of your own hidden darkness, but that doesn't really tell the whole story does it?

I appreciate your desire to keep your personal life just that, personal. But could you please give me some indication that you know women who are more than survivors, who are able to live their lives with joy, sense of purpose and wholeness?

My apologies if I have offended, but I am one of the many women who feel personally pained at your depiction of women, even while I immensely enjoy your literary talent and ability to weave tales.

I've been procrastinating here. Similar questions have come up (and have been answered, here and elsewhere) fairly often, and now I find that I'm tired of them. (Please don't take this personally.) Or maybe I'm just tired in general. So I'm going to approach your question indirectly. Bear with me. And forgive me if I sound exasperated. That's the fatigue talking.

First, I grant that my protagonists (men as well as women) lead very difficult lives: in some cases raped (metaphorically and/or physically), in most cases victimized in one form or another. Neither Terisa Morgan nor Linden Avery has been raped (physically). Both Thomas Covenant and Angus Thermopyle have been dramatically brutalized, if in very different ways. [Brief digression. Without pausing for thought, I could come up with a list as long as your arm of important female characters in my books who have been neither raped nor victimized. If I did so, I could start with Giants, Ramen, or Lords in "Covenant," Min Donner or Mikka Vasaczk in the GAP books, all three of King Joyse's daughters in "Mordant's need," or Ginny Fistoulari in my mystery novels.] Certainly the rape of Lena in "Lord Foul's Bane," and Morn Hyland's experiences in the first two GAP books, stand out. As they should. But they are not thematically unique. Indeed, they are thematically universal. What happens to Angus in the GAP books is not less of a violation than what he does to Morn. What Covenant endures is not less hurtful than what he does to Lena.

This is WHAT I DO. It isn't optional for me. I write about the damaged and the maimed, the violated and the bereft. And I seek in them the seeds of regeneration, healing, salvation, honesty, integrity, forgiveness, love. Broadly speaking, I don't have anything else to write about. And anyway, who else *needs* to have these kinds of stories happen to them? Who else could benefit from the possibilities which my stories provide? Certainly not the healthy and the happy, the whole and the unharmed.

But still: why rape? From my perspective (which is exclusively my own), that's the same as asking: why leprosy? Why zone implants and gap sickness? Why...fantasy and science fiction? Because I'm a writer who works best when he has access to physical metaphors for emotional states, psychological conflicts, spiritual quests. I use "the external"--as well as every other resource I can think of--in an attempt to shed light on "the internal". (Why else does Mick Axbrewder take SUCH a beating book after book?)

On this subject, I want to paraphrase former US Poet Laureate Billy Collins. Among other things, he says that he writes a poem to express an emotion for which we have no name, no direct language. In effect (he says), the poem *becomes* the name of that emotion. So it is with rape in my stories. And maiming. And sickness. And abuse. And possession. They are part of the "language" by which I'm trying to express emotions/needs/conflicts/yearnings that have no other name; that cannot be conveyed by simpler means. (I also want to cite Edgar Allen Poe at this point; but I'll spare you.) I could argue--if I have to--that the whole of the first "Covenant" trilogy is an attempt to *say* what the rape of Lena MEANS.

One example (from a work of fiction, admittedly, but not from my fiction). A woman is locked involuntarily in a box and abandoned. Later a man finds and rescues her. He asks, "What was it like?" She replies, "It was like being locked in a box and abandoned." OK, it was a light-hearted work of fiction. But what else *can* the woman say? ("It was like being buried alive." I'm sorry: that doesn't help. Analogies are only useful when they refer to shared bodies of experience.) Her only meaningful alternative is to tell the story of her life (of herself) up to, during, and after the experience.

So I write stories that include rape. And leprosy. And child abuse. And zone implants. If I want that "meaningful alternative," what else *can* I do?

(06/16/2009)

StevieG wrote:That seems to be the way he is. A lot of his responses don't come across that well, but having seen the videos (and of course you have met him, so would have a better idea of his real personality) I would say that his persona is different to what he writes - similar but different! Words can't always convey what the real person is trying to express (just look at my post now ).