Kevin's Watch

I think it may be an indication that she's living (again) too much in her past, (although considering the incredibleness of the recent past, what with visiting the Land and all, it may not be surprising), but I don't see it as arrogant. That, I see as...well...perhaps sad.

The point where I do think she shows arrogance of a sort will have to wait 'til we reach the relevant chapter.

--A

Of course, I agree with MM. But I would add: if Linden's life was not fulfilling to her, the author would have wrote that into the story somewhere. He didn't. Some claim that he did, in making her single and caring for a speechless child and thinking about TC a lot, but, as MM (and I) suggest, that's us applying our values. It's not SRD saying it. I can't see SRD making that kind of value judgement.

As a point of order, I think we should refrain from discussing text from future chapters; save it for when the chapter comes around.

Woops. I saw this a couple times while scrolling and didn't realize you were talking about me until I started reading Runes again today. The chapter divisions in this book should be more pronounced. Or maybe I should pay closer attention. Sorry.

I can't see SRD making that kind of value judgement.

You can't see him stressing that people need each other, need love, need relationships, need the healing that comes from giving and experiencing love? Then what was the whole point of having Linden "hook up" with Covenant in the first place? Was SRD making a value judgement then? Wasn't he saying something about her life being empty, an emptiness which was filled by a man?

There's nothing demeaning or derogatory about wondering if Linden is happy without a man. It's not a measure of our prejudices, but a measure that we care about this character and we want her to be happy. We want her to have the kind of happiness she had when she was with Covenant.

And yes, there is evidence in the book that her life is not as fulfilling or grand as it was when she was in the Land with TC:

At times the contrast between her experiences with Thomas Covenant and her years at Berenford Memorial discouraged her. Surely her contest with the madness of her patients could not compare with the sheer glory of Thomas Covenant's struggle to redeem the Land? Nevertheless she closed her throat and continued guiding Roger toward Joan's room. The ache he elicited was familiar to her, and she knew how to bear it.

So she's familiar with an ache, an ache for TC, for lost love, for a--dare I say it--a man! This ache is elicited by TC's son because he reminds her of TC.

So why don't we leave this pseudo-feminist, politically correct, guessing at SRD's value judgements out of this discussion and just talk about the book? There's way too much using this reading as a platform for preaching one's personal values and not enough supporting one's points by the text. This is a dissection, isn't it? One's opinions on social matters should be saved for the Tank, shouldn't it?

I disagree with that kind of view (if that wasn't obvious). Yes, I know, you're all probably going to say (as SRD likes to) that all this blather goes far beyond the text and is irrelevant to the story.

Yes, that's exactly what I was going to say. WAY beyond the text.

Malik23 wrote:You can't see him stressing that people need each other, need love, need relationships, need the healing that comes from giving and experiencing love?

Yes, I can. But "you ain't nuthin without a man" is FAR from the same thing. I cannot see him saying that.

I can refute you with one word: Unfettered.

A life of solitude is a respectable choice.

One thing's for sure; Torrent will think twice before posting in Runes again......

Well, this discussion has been divisive, and I'm sorry if my comments have degenerated the talk further. I leave in peace.

Malik23 wrote:

As a point of order, I think we should refrain from discussing text from future chapters; save it for when the chapter comes around.

Woops. I saw this a couple times while scrolling and didn't realize you were talking about me until I started reading Runes again today. The chapter divisions in this book should be more pronounced. Or maybe I should pay closer attention. Sorry.

My bad, too. In replying to Malik's post I did the same thing.

At times the contrast between her experiences with Thomas Covenant and her years at Berenford Memorial discouraged her. Surely her contest with the madness of her patients could not compare with the sheer glory of Thomas Covenant's struggle to redeem the Land? Nevertheless she closed her throat and continued guiding Roger toward Joan's room. The ache he elicited was familiar to her, and she knew how to bear it.

Malik23 wrote:So she's familiar with an ache, an ache for TC, for lost love, for a--dare I say it--a man! This ache is elicited by TC's son because he reminds her of TC.

I agree, though I don't think of it as being about "a man" in any generic sense... she longs for Thomas Covenant, and for the glory of the Land (or the glory of being who she was in the Land). To me it seems like she's been *trying* to make her life at the hospital and w/ Jeremiah fill the hole that she doesn't really want to admit exists, but not quite successfully. I don't have the direct quote, but Megan says to her:

Megan Roman, Esq. wrote: You don't talk about it but everytime Thomas Covenant's name comes up, your whole face changes. It's like he has some hold on you that I don't understand...

She hasn't let go of losing Covenant... nor does she appear to want to. If she had, it would no longer hurt her, she wouldn't react when his name is mentioned, etc. She's decided to hide her pain and bear it... not the same as resolving it. Knowing SRD, this could become an important dynamic.

On the other hand, Linden knows she could never explain what happened without everyone thinking she's crazy. Who could she talk to about the Land? She briefly considered telling Megan, and then Sheriff Lytton. Too bad, that would've been a hilarious scene!

Just a quick word, everyone - dissecting the Chronicles involves alot of thought and discussion, and sometimes debate as well - but there is no need to let things get out of hand.

Matrixman wrote:Well, this discussion has been divisive, and I'm sorry if my comments have degenerated the talk further. I leave in peace.

I hope you'll come back, MM.

Anyone have any ideas about this butcher thing?

I've always assumed everybody here knew that this is a chapter by chapter discussion and that any knowledge gained after must be spoilered. Sorry, I should have copied the rules. Dissections can get intense, but please respect other's beliefs and opinions. Unfortunately you are in the hands of a madman who has a very itchy trigger finger on the delete button if flames rise higher.

btw: the girl was rescued in The Power That Preserves, not the 2nd Chrons.

Matrix Man, I'm an arrogant jerk. Come back! I didn't mean to be so harsh.

On the otherhand, Torrent, please come back! I'm sure others didn't mean to be so derisive!

Ah, I can't speak for others, so maybe I should leave it be.

"you ain't nuthin without a man" is FAR from the same thing.

I don't think there is ANYONE here who has said such a thing. Perhaps it is the personal value-systems of individual members which has given rise to such an interpretation.

Anyone have any ideas about this butcher thing?

It is quite menacing. I wonder if it has any more significance than to make Roger seem creepy? I hope so.

She's decided to hide her pain and bear it... not the same as resolving it. Knowing SRD, this could become an important dynamic.

Good observation. I can't imagine ANY Donaldson character being completely resolved at the beginning of a new series. And "knowing" SRD, I agree it could become important--if for no other reason that to illustrate once again all the ways in which humans can be inauthentic. Even when we think we're doing something good (as with the Oath of Peace), we are denying some part of ourselves.

Wayfriend and Malik wrote:Anyone have any ideas about this butcher thing?
It is quite menacing. I wonder if it has any more significance than to make Roger seem creepy? I hope so.

Spoiler

Wow maybe that does add some creedence to the Jeremiah/Roger switcheroo theory!!! Jeremiah's family (or their little "clave" were quite experienced with knives--and somebody had to slaughter that cow. Remember there was alot of blood in the 2nd Chrons-alot! Damm even part of Foul or something else could have popped right into him out of the bondfire!

One more attempt to explain myself.

Malik23 wrote: You can't see him stressing that people need each other, need love, need relationships, need the healing that comes from giving and experiencing love?

Yes, that's what I wanted to say. It goes beyond "going on with her life" or just getting laid.

Matrixman,
I didn't want to imply that it's not normal to live alone or to have no "dates". Some people may think so (I don't), but that's not the point. And I don't understand how people could get this so wrong. But it's probably my fault because I sometimes write what comes to my mind or what my intuition tells me.

A quote from the first chapter:

At another time, the strict professionalism of this space (=her office) might have eased her. Her displayed diplomas, like her tidy desks and heavy filing cabinets, served to vouch for her. She had found comfort among them on other occasions. But today they had no effect.
How many times had she held Thomas Covenant in her arms? Too few: not enough to satisfy her hunger for them.

Of course you can argue that her hunger cannot be satisfied by anybody else. I agree. But maybe that's beside the point. The question is whether her life is really fulfilled. Look at the way SRD describes her office. The 'strict professionalism' and tidyness (SP?) of her office seem to mirror the routine of her daily life - organized, controlled, stagnant. I don't know if SRD wants to characterize Linden's current life by this, but it was my feeling that he does.

@avatar and everybody else
The arrogance thing. Maybe pride would be the better word. It doesn't have to be seen all negative, after all she has a reason to be proud of herself. But maybe part of her thinks that she has lived through so many things and that she has achieved so much that she is now in a certain way 'above' others. Not in the sense that she looks down on others. She seems to care for other people. She doesn't let anybody care for her though.

And she was Linden Avery the Chosen, who had stood with Thomas Covenant against the Land's doom. Men like Sheriff Lytton - and Roger Covenant - could not intimidate her

Would you really object if I said that she thinks this makes her special and different from everybody else?
And she has never shared this part of her life and this part of who she is with any of her friends. She has never shared her 'inner sanctum', so to speak, with anybody from this world.

In a way I think this might be called arrogance because one could say that she thinks nobody is worthy of it. And it seems to me that she doesn't let anybody get close enough to become that important to her (Jeremiah is close to her in another way but she can't really share it with him either). Maybe that's her arrogance. Not sharing, not letting anybody come close enough.

Of course, you could name a dozen of reasons for that, but this is the best explanation I can give you for what I think is her arrogance. Of course, it's not a conscious arrogance, I don't think she's an arrogant or condescending person. It's on a more abstract level (and here my English is coming to an end).

If you view this differently this is fine. This was meant as an attempt at interpretation and my opinion isn't unlikely to change again if I'm convinced otherwise. Just calling me silly isn't going to convince me though. Maybe in the next chapter this will all be proven wrong, I haven't reread it yet.

A question about that "ache" she's feeling. Malik has quoted this before:

At times the contrast between her experiences with Thomas Covenant and her years at Berenford Memorial discouraged her. Surely her contest with the madness of her patients could compare with the sheer glory of Thomas Covenant's struggle to redeem the Land? Nevertheless she closed her throat and continued guiding Roger towards Joan's room. The ache which he elicited was familiar to her, and she knew how to bear it.
Her life here was not less than the one she had lived with Covenant. It was only different. Less grand, perhaps: more ambiguous, with smaller triumphs. But it sufficed.

I'm not sure I understood what she meant by "ache". I guess it is not just her mourning for TC but also the loss of that "sheer glory" that she's feeling?
And what about the "suffice". Does this sound like fulfillment? Of course I'm not a native speaker of English and maybe this is taken out of context. But tell me. (Oops, Malik wrote exactly the same think, sorry, I got lost in my own thoughts).

Okay, it's late at night and I'm hungry, I'd better stop here before the thread implodes.

Avatar wrote:I think it may be an indication that she's living (again) too much in her past, (although considering the incredibleness of the recent past, what with visiting the Land and all, it may not be surprising), but I don't see it as arrogant. That, I see as...well...perhaps sad.

You may be right. It didn't strike me as arrogant before I started this $%&! dissection. But once I get started...

Torrent, glad to see you back. I think you're making a valuable contribution. Glad you stuck it out.

Hi Torrent, glad you're back.

From previous discussions on the Watch, I can tell you that there are different ways people think about "arrogance". There are some who believe it can come in two kinds, a good kind ("pride"), and a bad kind ("conceit"). And there are those (like me) who believe that there is only one kind, and that it's bad. So you may not get the reaction you expect when you say that Linden is arrogant.

Let's look at the way SRD tells us about Linden in the opening paragraphs of TWL:

Though she was only thirty, she felt old, unlovely, and severe. This was just; she had lived an unlovely and severe life. Her father had died when she was eight; her mother, when she was fifteen. After three empty years in a foster home, she had put herself through college, then medical school, internship, and residency, specializing in Family Practice. She had been lonely ever since she could remember, and her isolation had largely become ingrained. Her two or three love affairs had been like hygienic exercises or experiments in physiology; they had left her untouched. So now when she looked at herself, she saw severity, and the consequences of violence.

Hard work and clenched emotions had not hurt the gratuitous womanliness of her body, or dulled the essential luster of her shoulder-length wheaten hair, or harmed the structural beauty of her face. Her driven and self-contained life had not changed the way her eyes misted and ran almost without provocation. But lines had already marked her face, leaving her with a perpetual frown of concentration above the bridge of her straight, delicate nose, and gullies like the implications of pain on either side of her mouth - a mouth which had originally been formed for something more generous than the life which had befallen her. And her voice had become flat, so that it sounded more like a diagnostic tool, a way of eliciting pertinent data, than a vehicle for communication.

But the way she had lived her life had given her something more than loneliness and a liability to black moods. It had taught her to believe in her own strength.

SRD doesn't beat around the bush! If you have a crappy life, he'll come out and say it pretty plainly.

I find the Linden at the start of Runes to be very similar to the Covenant we see described after returning from his first defeat of Lord Foul. There are no sweeping changes in his life, he still has leprosy, he is still shunned, he still hangs out at Haven Farm. But he is changed inside - he is no longer tormented by it, instead he is capable of accepting it and living vitally within its confines. The changes are internal, not external; the outward characterstics are not changed much. His life is spare, but it's a good life nonetheless.

Linden in Runes is the same. Externally, not much has changed since the beginning of TWL. She remains a doctor, she remains mostly solitary, she remains a person who lives through her work. She doesn't become garrulous, hang out in bars, and sing karioke. Because, like Covenant, what was forged in her in the Land is internal, not external. Inside, she's much different: she's capable of love and she's not dragged back by her parents memory and her belief in her own strength is untainted by a liability to black moods. Her life is spare, but it's a good life nonetheless.

I find the Linden at the start of Runes to be very similar to the Covenant we see described after returning from his first defeat of Lord Foul.

I think this is a good description. Yes, she's had a major personal victory in the 2nd chronicles. Obviously, she has grown and resolved some of her past issues. However, this doesn't mean that ALL her issues are resolved.

Yes, I think she has an admirable and worthy life. Yes, I think SRD wanted us to have this impression. I do concede that the contrast between her present life and the life she had in the Land might be intended by Donaldson to point out that people can still live "heroic" lives in this world, in small ways, without the need to save an entire world. I also think SRD is interested in showing how our "ordinary" lives here in the real world can still be epic. (See his essay on epic fantasy for more on this.)

But given all the above, I think it still makes sense to say Linden's character is not completely resolved, that her life is not completely fulfilling, and her "new" issues may be responsible for the mistakes she makes later . . .

One final note: I don't see arrogance yet, but I think it might be a plausible description later.

No reason why she might not become "arrogant - some could say that Covenants' refusal to give Linden the ring and let her "safely" battle Foul early on in the Second Chronicles was arrogant.

This is great. I wish I was 14 again (so long ago!) to be experiencing Donaldson for the first time and have an online discssion forum.

I want to speak to the following.

At times the contrast between her experiences with Thomas Covenant and her years at Berenford Memorial discouraged her. Surely her contest with the madness of her patients could not compare with the sheer glory of Thomas Covenant's struggle to redeem the Land? Nevertheless she closed her throat and continued guiding Roger toward Joan's room. The ache he elicited was familiar to her, and she knew how to bear it.

This is exactly what it feels like to lose a loved one - an intimate partner with whom you share all of your heart. When she thinks of the "sheer glory of TC's struggle...", that could be a metaphor for perfect, utter happiness with one's partner or spounse. It's easy to look back at something that once brought you bliss and be saddened, especially if something standing right in front of you reminds you of your loss. This ache of hers that she knew how to bear - it's what people learn to do after losing a partner or spouse. You find a way. The ache is there, it is always there, the hole is unique and thus can never be replaced by anything else. (I speak from experience.)

Jeremiah and her new duties can't replace TC, but just because TC can't be replaced doesn't mean she isn't content. Her life didn't stop when she lost TC (and the Land, for that matter). I would argue against her being content if 1) she was a crazed workaholic; or 2) if she completely disassociated herself from the world. Neither two occurred. IMHO. I see everything in her life as pointing toward contentment. Or, I should say, continuing contentment. There's a long struggle at first, where the pieces of your life are scattered all over the ground and you can't even see them. Then you can see them, and after a while you can pick them up. How you decide to put them back together determines if you will be mentally healthy - and I think she is.

Regarding her arrogance, or anything like it, I'm completely confused. I don't see it.

Roger as a butcher - whoever said SRD didn't drop stuff like this on us without cause is absolutely right. Ravers are butchers. We have no further than Seareach to look for evidence of that.

Could he be possessed by a Raver *now*? I suppose it's possible, although as someone else said I'm pretty sure people from the Land can't come here. But Foul appeared in the flame - he somehow transferred his essence from the Land to the "real world" in some shape or form, regardless of how substantial it was.

Ravers are spirits - perhaps some of the same laws that apply to "people" don't apply to them. I've always wondered who started the commune. That seemed to be a bit of info that would have been nice to have. How did Foul influence - and who did he influence - into getting these nuts together and rile themselves up? Was it a Raver? That would make a lot of sense. On the other hand, the absence of a leader and an explanation could simply be SRDs efficient writing. He could believe that we don't need to know that information, so he doesn't tell us.

And God, I sure hope that my memory is functioning correctly and this isn't something we already know because if it is, I've just wasted everyone's time.

If not, well, perhaps a Raver started the commune and a Raver is inside Roger. SRDs not even trying to hide that aspect of Roger's personality, and is almost banging us on the head.