The Wounded Land, Chapter 1: Daughter

[danlo]

While the Halloween cookies are baking it's time to do a little reminiscing. Since I hit my twenties, back in the day, when the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant were first published I guess I was a little spoiled. I didn't have to wait. As soon as I was done with The Power That Preserves I had the pleasure of tearing though the first book of the new series, The Wounded Land. That had it's downside too, I probably ripped through the next three books faster than I should have. When I reread the enitre Chronicles two years ago I took it slow and learned so much more. And The Wounded Land was probably the toughest book of the series, if not the toughest book I've ever read, period.

It all begins in "Daughter" where we find ourselves back in Anyruraltown USA roughly nine to ten years after Convenant's miraclulous recovery from allergic shock to rattlesnake antivenom. The older Dr. (from TPTP), Julius Berensford, has kept in touch with Thomas Covenant during all these years and has just hired a new female doctor, fresh out of residency, to head up the County Hospital's Outpatient Clinic and Emergency Room. Her name is Linden Avery and though she trained as a Family Practitioner she's probably the best this town could get. She, apparently, has her own reasons for being here too, as she tells Berensford that the town reminds her of her parents and the town she grew up in.

Even the house where the hospital has rented rooms for her reminds her of her parent's house. As she is moving in to her drab new apartment Dr. Berensford shows up to welcome her and we learn that Linden Avery carries alot more (dark, personal) baggage with her than just her possesions. Her father commited suicide when she was eight and her mother died when she was fifteen. She has taken care of herself and put herself though Med School on grim determination since. A consumate loner, obsessed with her own personal issues she had come to this town to die.

Linden is scheduled to begin work at the hospital that Monday, but after Dr. Berensford gets her settled in he says he need to put her to work right away. It's seems he is at a loss of what to do with one of his patients and needs a second opinion. His patient is a leper named Thomas Covenant who lives just outside of town at a place called Haven Farm. Berensford is extremely cryptic as to what exactly is wrong with Mr. Covenant seeing as he has only lost two fingers and his leprosy has stabilized. It's very odd but the older doctor sounds like whatever going on is almost illegal or too much for him to deal with.

Apparently this Covenant guy is a well known author and a stubborn man, with serious issues of his own, and Berensford finally convinces Linden Avery to go out to see him on the pretense of being new to the town and a fan of his work. She's never heard of him but accepts a copy of Covenant's first book, Or I Will Sell My Soul For Guilt, and she agrees to go.

On her way out to the farm she checks out the town for the first time and sees a destitute family dressed in burlap rags standing on the Courthouse steps holding signs that say "Repent". When she first entered her apartment she found a note under her door that said "Jesus Saves" within a red triangle and these signs share that triangle as well. When she asks Berensford about the note he says that this is a very depressed area given to evangelical inclinations. It is a hot humid day in the middle of spring and even the weeds seem to be melting as she drives past the fields on her way out of town.

She finally finds a sign that says Haven Farm and sees a white frame house set off the road against a backdrop of trees. Then as she continues up the driveway she looks in her rearview mirror and suddenly sees a tall robed figure that seems to appear out of nowhere next to the sign. It is an old man with a long grey beard and the look of a fanatic who motions to her, then clutches at his chest and collaspes. Linden rushes back to give him medical aid as he suffering from and apparent heart attack and lays dying. She adminsters CPR and finally gives him a shot designed to restart his heart.

"He reminded her of her father, had he lived to be and old man. He looked like he was from another world, his breath was vile and gangrenous." (composite) Now he isn't breathing, completely exhausted and ready to give up Linden looks away, dizzily and when she looks back he is standing, healthy and whole. He helps her to her feet, hugs her and says, "Ah, my daughter, do not fear. However he may assail you. There is also love in the world." His eyes become commandments and as he releases her he utters two last words, "Be true." And he then walks away and vanishes.

[Furls Fire]

Thus it begins!!! I'm with you danlo, The Wounded Land was one of the most heart-breaking things I have ever read. After finishing The Power that Preserves, I was lulled into thinking that the Land and the Lords would be flourishing under the new Peace they had found.

Oh my goodness, was I ever surprised...and DISMAYED!! This was the most wrenching book I ever read.

The mood of it is set early on too. Linden's severity shouts at us just in these first few pages.

When Linden Avery heard the knock at her door, she groaned aloud. She was in a black mood, and did not want visitors. She wanted a cold shower and privacy-a chance to accustom herself to the deliberate austerity of her surroundings.

She had spent most of the afternoon of an unnaturally muggy day in the middle of spring moving herself into this apartment which the Hospital had rented for her, lugging her sparse wardrobe, her inadequate furniture, and a back-breaking series of cardboard boxes containing textbooks from her middle-aged sedan up the outside stairs to the second floor of the old wooden house. The house squatted among its weeds like a crippled toad, spavined by antiquity; and when she had unlocked her apartment for the first time, she had been greeted by three rooms and a bath with grubby yellow walls, floorboards covered only by chipped beige paint, an atmosphere of desuetude bordering on indignity-and by a piece of paper which must have been slipped under the door. Thick red lines like lipstick or fresh blood marked the paper-a large crude triangle with two words inside it:

JESUS SAVES

She had glared at the paper for a moment, then had crumpled it in her pocket. She had no use for offers of salvation. She wanted nothing she did not earn.

Right here, we already get a sense of her personality. Right there, we can see that, like Covenant, and like the Land, she is "wounded".

She had come to this town because she wanted to try to help people like her parents. And because she wanted to prove that she could be effective under such circumstances-that she was not like her parents. And because she wanted to die.

The mood, by this time, is definitely set...

Berenford is an interesting character...he actually has some wisdom about him..

He peered at the triangle and the writing, muttered, "Jesus saves," under his breath, then sighed. "Occupational hazard. I've been going to church faithfully in this town for forty years. But since I'm a trained professional who earns a decent living, some of our good people -- " He grimaced wryly, " -- are always trying to convert me. Ignorance is the only form of innocence they understand." He shrugged, returned the note to her. "This area has been depressed for a long time. After a while, depressed people do strange things. They try to turn depression into a virtue-they need something to make themselves feel less helpless. What they usually do around here is become evangelical. I'm afraid you're just going to have to put up with people who worry about your soul. Nobody gets much privacy in a small town."

Who does that sound like???

I like this part too:

"Have you ever heard of Thomas Covenant? He writes novels."

She felt him watching her while she groped mentally. But she had no way of following his line of thought. She had not read a novel since she had finished her literature requirement in college. She had had so little time. Striving for detachment, she shook her head.

"He lives around here," the doctor said. "Has a house outside town on an old property called Haven Farm. You turn right on Main." He gestured vaguely toward the intersection. "Go through the middle of town, and about two miles later you'll come to it. On the right. He's a leper."

At the word leper, her mind bifurcated. This was the result of her training-dedication which had made her a physician without resolving her attitude toward herself. She murmured inwardly, Hansen's disease, and began reviewing information.

Mycobacterium lepra. Leprosy. It progressed by killing nerve tissue, typically in the extremities and in the cornea of the eye. In most cases, the disease could be arrested by means of a comprehensive treatment program pivoting around DDS: diamino-diphenyl-sulfone. If not arrested, the degeneration could produce muscular atrophy and deformation, changes in skin pigmentation, blindness. It also left the victim subject to a host of secondary afflictions, the most common of which was infection that destroyed other tissues, leaving the victim with the appearance-and consequences-of having been eaten alive. Incidence was extremely rare; leprosy was not contagious in any usual sense. Perhaps the only statistically significant way to contract it was to suffer prolonged exposure as a child in the tropics under crowded and unsanitary living conditions.

But while one part of her brain unwound its skein of knowledge, another was tangled in questions and emotions. A leper? Here? Why tell me? She was torn between visceral distaste and empathy. The disease itself attracted and repelled her because it was incurable-as immedicable as death. She had to take a deep breath before she could ask, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Well -- " He was studying her as if he thought there were indeed something she could do about it. "Nothing. That isn't why I brought it up." Abruptly, he got to his feet, began measuring out his unease on the chipped floorboards. Though he was not heavy, they squeaked vaguely under him. "He was diagnosed early enough-only lost two fingers. One of our better lab technicians caught it, right here at County Hospital. He's been stable for more than nine years now. The only reason I told you is to find out if you're- squeamish. About lepers." He spoke with a twisted expression. "I used to be. But I've had time to get over it."

I love how "Dr Avery" clicks in with that part. Like a switch being turned on.

And this:

He did not give her a chance to reply. He went on as if he were confessing. "I've reached the point now where I don't think of him as leprosy personified. But I never forget he's a leper." He was talking about something for which he had not been able to forgive himself. "Part of that's his fault," he said defensively. "He never forgets, either. He doesn't think of himself as Thomas Covenant the writer-the man-the human being. He thinks of himself as Thomas Covenant the leper."

So very sad. After all he had been thru to think that he just thought of himself as a leper. By this time, I realized that this book was not going to be the happy romp thru the Land I was hoping for....

"Give me some excuse I can use to go out there."

She could hardly bear the sight of his relief. "That I can do," he said with a show of briskness. Reaching into a jacket pocket, he pulled out a paperback and handed it to her. The lettering across the drab cover said:

Or I Will Sell My Soul for Guilt
A novel by THOMAS COVENANT

"Ask for his autograph." The older man had regained his sense of irony. "Try to get him talking. If you can get inside his defenses, something will happen."

I would LOVE to read that novel!! Wouldn't it be cool if SRD actually wrote that novel??

When she regained enough self-command to raise her head, her sight was a smear of pain and her face was slick with sweat. The old man was standing over her. His eyes were on her; the intense blue of his gaze held her like a hand of compassion. He looked impossibly tall and healthy; his very posture seemed to deny that he had ever been close to death. Gently, he reached down to her, drew her to her feet. As he put his arms around her, she slumped against him, unable to resist his embrace.

"Ah, my daughter, do not fear."

His voice was husky with regret and tenderness.

"You will not fail, however he may assail you. There is also love in the world."

Then he released her, stepped back. His eyes became commandments.

"Be true."

She watched him dumbly as he turned, walked away from her into the field. Milkweed and wild mustard whipped against his robe for a moment. She could hardly see him through the blurring of her vision. A musky breeze stirred his hair, made it a nimbus around his head as the sun began to set. Then he faded into the humidity, and was gone.

She wanted to call out after him, but the memory of his eyes stopped her.

Be true.

Deep in her chest, her heart began to tremble.

At this, I went "Whoa!!! Why is he saying that to her!!!!"

It's only 9 pages long, but wow!! What a way to begin the Second Chrons!!

Great beginning Danlo!!!

[Fist and Faith]

As the man used to say, And awaaaaay we go!

Well, between the two of you, there's not much left to say. But since I just made a certain thread in the main forum, I'll just point out this passage:

His eyes became commandments.

[danlo]

In a really weird twisted way I like Linden Avery. I really put alot into my thoughts and entertained a number of ways to approach this chapter. I even did a character and point by point topical breakdown. I haven't done that since college! What I came away with was a, kinda, simplified synopsis that allows others to fill in the gaps, make the big quotes, and most importantly "feel" the immediacy of what's going on by trying to stay in the present tense. As if this book was something new. Which it, always, really is.

This is my third attempt at this book and already I'm seeing thing I hadn't before. Newbies! Look away!!! On this go round I see alot of foreshadowing I've never bothered to pick up on before. Here are some examples;

Spoiler

The intricate description of the Beggar's "foul" breath and the overbearing humidity and "melting" qualities of the fields, the unnatural weather in midspring, and the 'trance" or preoccupation of the family on the Courthouse steps. The foreshadowing of corruption of natural things-the omnipresent doom of "something broken".

The beggar/Creator has already gently manipulated things through Dr. Berensford somebody else has been hard at work for a while too...

[Furls Fire]

I noticed all that too, danlo. Definite manipulation going on there on the part of the Creator. Chosing Linden for basically the same reason he chose Covenant. They both know the meaning of despair, guilt, loss, grief... "Your knowledge of your disease made you wise." Linden too, in a way, is diseased, not physically, but mentally. Her desire to heal,

Spoiler

so she can cleanse all the guilt she feels over her parents' deaths

is so strong, it just pours from her. This is why the Creator chose her.

"You will not fail, however he may assail you. There is also love in the world."

She knows nothing about love at this point. Nothing at all...that comes later. More foreshadowing.

[Seafoam Understone]

Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say

She knows nothing about love at this point. Nothing at all...

because she does. Unfortunately it's a warped sense of love. A love out of obligation. A love that made her stay at her mother's side and

Spoiler

eventually kill her.

From what I gathered she had lovers in college/med-school but not LOVERS. So in the truest sense of the word she is ignorant of what REAL love is until she meets Covenant and experiences the Land and him in the later books.

I like how you were able to pick out Furls, about Linden and the sense of her personality.

Indeed a short chapter but a knock out of a beginning.

I also liked Furl's assessement and her picking out little things like "something broken" and how Covenant and Avery are both like the Land "wounded".

WTG danlo for picking out (your spoiler) those brief but very descriptive lines that literally

Spoiler

mirrors the Land as it is when they go there

nice catch.

Another thread asked for favorite TCTC books and I didn't say so there but I'll throw it out for the record here that the second chrons are my favs...

Spoiler

mainly because they have GIANTS :lol

: But also because the characters are so intense, equal if not more than to the characters in the first chrons,

Spoiler

i.e. Sunder and the First and Cable Seadreamer.

I liked LA because she does have good issues that she has to deal with. SRD did have her well thought out.

[danlo]

Seafoam! Your enthusiasm for this great, newer, series is outstanding, elating and contagious! However, you do have to be a little careful: there's a fine line between teasing and spoiling. We have to assume in these 'dissections" that some folks are reading along for the first time. So do be careful. And most of all: Be true!!!

[Furls Fire]

Well, I wouldn't go as far as to say

She knows nothing about love at this point. Nothing at all...

because she does. Unfortunately it's a warped sense of love. A love out of obligation. A love that made her stay at her mother's side and

Spoiler

eventually kill her.

From what I gathered she had lovers in college/med-school but not LOVERS. So in the truest sense of the word she is ignorant of what REAL love is until she meets Covenant and experiences the Land and him in the later books.

If you think about it, she really knows nothing about love. She knows the pain that comes from loving people that don't return it. Her parents never loved her, if she had "lovers" in college and med school, so what, that isn't love either. All that was, was her trying to feel what love was like, but it wasn't love. She's barren of love, so when the creator tells her, "there is also love in the world", she has no idea what he means. And doesn't find out until much later.

It takes a few reads to pick up the little subtleties. I have to admit, back 20 years or so ago, when I read this for the first time, I was in such a hurry to get to the Land again, that I missed quite a bit of this little hints and nuances of Linden. And of Berenford. This opening chapter has ALOT in it.



Here we gooooooooooo...

[birdandbear]

OOOO YAY!!! I'm going to keep up with this one darn it! I didn't know this was starting yet, so I haven't read the first chapter. But I'm only 9 pages behind this time, instead of a book and a half behind, like I ended up with the first dissection. This time will be better! I will participate! I'll stay caught up, so I won't feel like I have to go read first before I can input.

You know, maybe I'm just a sucker for a good one-liner, but even when I was 14 the seven word sentence "There is also love in the world." struck me as deeply moving and profound. To me this one sentence felt like a repudiation of all violence, despair, pain and darkness with that single bright burning torch. Yes, all these things exist, and yes, sometimes people get lost in them, but this one good, maybe the only good, outweighs them all - because the dark can never cover all as long as there is also love in the world. I read all that into that one line when I was 14, and I read all that into it still. It has become one of the cornerstones of my entire philosophical/spiritual belief structure. Yes, but - there is also Love in the world. SRD can do that to you.

[dlbpharmd]

The first time I read this chapter I thought "who's Linden? Where's Covenant?" Now when I re-read this I realize that using Berenford to introduce Covenant to the reader is a stroke of genius. It's our first clue that this will be The Chronicles of Linden Avery as well as the 2nd Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

[Cloudberry]

I read the chapter yesterday and I also noticed the foreshadowing for the first time .

Spoiler

Apart from the beggar's foul breath which I noticed the first time I read TWL.

These quotes sums up the chapter for me:

The rooms reminded her of her parents' house. That was why she hated the apartment. But it was condign, and she chose to accept it. She both loathed and approved the aptness of her state. Its personal stringency was appropritate.

When I read this the first time I asked myself why she would like to live in such an apartment when she could have got something better. Made me wonder what kind of person she is and what have happened to her?

But she had been mortifying herself for so long that she had no respect left for the parts of her which could still feel shame.

This is so strong. What a hard way of life. Again why?

Three minutes later, she was was outside the municipal limits. There the road began to run through tilled valleys, between wooded hills. Beyond the town, the unseasonable heat and humidity were kinder to what they touched; they made the air lambent, so that it lay like immanence across the new crops, up the tangled weed-and-grass hillsides, among the budding trees; and her mood lifted at the way the landscape glowed in the approach of evening. She had spent so much of her life in cities. She continued to drive slowly; she wanted to savor the faint hope that she had found something she would be able to enjoy.

Maybe there is a light in her life after all, some hope she hides away.

Spoiler

This description of the nature always make me think about Andelain.

All the blackness of her life was in her. She had spent to many years learning to be effective against death; she could not surrender now. She had been too young, weak, and ignorant to save her father; could not have saved her mother; now that she knew what to do and could do it, she would never quit, never falsify her life by quitting

Be true.

Spoiler

You just know it's going to be a good story from this point... The beggar has chosen her and soon Linden will be in the land...

[Furls Fire]

It really is amazing that after only 9 pages in, Donaldson had already established who she was, her depth, her need, her place in the story.

And b&b, you are so right about that statement..."there is also love in the world"... It took my breath away too. Very profound and yet, so simple, that belief is like the light of hope in the dark. During the times of grief in my life, those words have always run thru my mind and heart. I always come back to them.

[Fist and Faith]

Yes birdandbear!!! That was a fantastic post!! There is also love in the world. Not just pain and hate and despair. Also love! And we can choose that path if we want!

Spoiler

As Sunder will say in a couple books, "I have learned that we are born for beauty rather than ill."

Choose the love, folks!! Choose the beauty!! LET ME HEAR EVERYBODY SAY IT:

CHOOSE THE LOVE!!!

*hand cupped behind ear*

[Furls Fire]

*looks up from her book...clears her throat*

CHOOSE THE LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

*goes back to her book*

[Fist and Faith]

That's what I'm talking about!!!

[Furls Fire]

*looks up again...*

yes yes yes, now shhhhhhhhhh...I'm trying to read

*goes back to her book, grinning*

[Fist and Faith]

Ah, I'm practically swimming in love!! Such a feeling of togetherness and belonging and community and joy and peace...

Ah, my heart!!

[Furls Fire]

"all you need is love, dah dah dah dah...all you need is love, love is all you need"

*looks at Fist*

don't drown

[birdandbear]

Can you feel the love tonight?

*Shouts* CHOOSE THE LOVE!!!!

*Links one arm with F&F and throws the other over FF's shoulders, obscuring her book, sings "We shall overcome"*

[danlo]

Quick! Hide the diamondraught! Or they'll all be doing kareoke come All Hallows Eve!