Kevin's Watch

One thing I've noticed is that, over time, the real-world segments of the first Chrons are gaining poignancy and importance for me. In fact, I appreciate that SRD spends so much time grounded in Covenant's reality, before diving headlong into his fantasies. This is particularly striking for me because, when I first read the series in my teens, I couldn't get enough of the Land, and likewise couldn't wait to get there!

Of course, the rest of the story would be meaningless without these sections.

Has anyone else noticed a similar shift in their perceptions?

More or less the same with me. I started reading the 1st Chrons in my late teens as well (1978-79).
I fell in love with the Land and its inhabitants. I probably would have sold my soul to get the Health sense of the Land-dwellers...and to get a taste of aliantha.
I didn't care much for Covenant- I just did not understand his Unbelief. I felt more akin to Hile Troy.
Reading TPTP I couldn't wait to get back to Revelstone.

Growing older and (hopefully) more mature, I began to appreciate and understand Covenant more. The story became more about human struggle; the boundaries between imagined and real world therefore began to fade.

As a teen I fantasized about Lena's life, the martial skills of the Haruchai and me studying at Revelwood. Later on I just wanted to read Covenant's novel "Or I will sell my soul for Guilt".

When I pre-ordered ROTE, my wife became pregnant, leading me to fantasize about Covenant's relation to his son Roger. Man, was I surprised..

For me, in my first readings the Land was all that interested me.. I had minimal interest in what was happenning in the 'real' world.. But in my more recent reads I've paid more interest to what's going on there - as it seems Fouls presence is making itself present there. But it doesn't seem likely that there'll be much action going on in the real world til the last book of the last series...

I've found the same as well. I read the LFB when I was a teen, and was simply facinated, and as most teens do, fantasized about the Land. I've read the series a couple of times since then, and am now reading it once again as to prepare for its ending in the final two books.

I now am much more understanding of TC's unbelief. I understand in greater detail his character, as before I simply did not have the experience to relate to him. Being suddenly disabled, I'm fascinated that SD has been able to capture the emotions that disability promotes. He must have had quite the education from his father when he was younger.

Rigel wrote:One thing I've noticed is that, over time, the real-world segments of the first Chrons are gaining poignancy and importance for me. In fact, I appreciate that SRD spends so much time grounded in Covenant's reality, before diving headlong into his fantasies. This is particularly striking for me because, when I first read the series in my teens, I couldn't get enough of the Land, and likewise couldn't wait to get there!

Of course, the rest of the story would be meaningless without these sections.

Has anyone else noticed a similar shift in their perceptions?

No, you're just getting old...

Absolutely, not just with these books but with most everything. I hear the music I listened to in my teenage years with "different ears," etc. I didn't care too much when I was younger what happened to TC here; I kind of skipped through that first part of the "real world" hoping the books would get better. Once I got to the Land, it was all fantasy and I cared not one whit for what made him react the way he did to it. Now, however, you can't understand what goes on in the Land, or why, without knowing what influenced it. And TC DOES influence the Land itself. Even the Halfhand legend, and the legend of white gold, affect the Land before he got there. but I disgress. I used to want to be entertained without caring. Now I have to care for it to entertain me. Excellent discussion.

I'm going through the opposite right now...just starting to really get a visual of the Land, see the characters as people going up against an unassailable enemy, see and feel their pain in my mind's eye and heart, while the real-world bits were always my favs.

Covenant's experiences in the real world are real downers. He's powerless and alone and messed up and struggling to eke out a marginal existence. I think it'd be perfectly natural to want to cruise past that part.

But Donaldson writes about pain. And readers respond to pain in two ways.

In the Gradual Interview was wrote:As an extremely broad generalization, I think there are two types of readers: those who are repelled by expressions of pain; and those who feel a sense of recognition. Everybody is familiar with pain. But some people manage their own pain by denial, or by some other form of self-absorption (narcissism; a sense of victimization; etc.), and so they--in effect--have no patience for alternative approaches to pain. However, other people manage their own pain by every technique imaginable *except* denial and self-absorption, and so they feel recognition and even empathy when they encounter open expressions of pain from sources outside themselves.

(12/17/2004)

I think this also bears on getting older. As we get older, we become more and more the kind of person who can feel recognition and empathy when reading about pain. And less and less the person who is repelled by the thought of pain.

And so, as we get older, some of us find more "use" for the real-world parts of the Chronicles.