Part 2 - chapter 1: Those who Endure--
Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 11:03 pm
We have finished the first half of the book and are now starting the second half of it called "Only the Damned" - a line from Covenant's post Land Ethics book.
Part 2 - chapter 1: Those who Endure--
And in this chapter, told from Covenant's perspective we get another quote from the past. A ditty all the way back from the first chapter of Lord Foul's Bane! An optimistic song about about imperfections, parenthood and possibilities.
We are now back on the surface and out of immediate danger. The Ardent took the company to a barren spot in the lower Land outside the reach of Kevin's Dirt.
This is an introspective chapter, a wonderful one. Because this is Donaldson's strong-point. Covenant has just seen his faery daughter consumed and damned for eternity. Mhartir tries to rub salt into his wounds with it, telling to his face that he never tried to succor his daughter. But Covenant is already feeling guilty as hell. Mahrtir's needling do not affect him. He is at the end of his rope. He can't imagine going on if he won't manage to save at least Linden from her self-induced catatonia.
Throughout this chapter I felt that this time, Covenant is finally filling the role of a father.
He is honest and without pride and even confesses his love to Linden.
Covenant gives us some interesting observations, chiefly that becoming catatonic like Linden and Jeremiah is not a surrender in his eyes but a tactical retreat and that having endured such a thing you return changed, stronger and stranger than you were before and you're aware on some level of what happened to you while you were unconscious.
This explains his more coherent thought processes having overcome Esmer's trick in the previous chapter. I'm not sure how the previous instances of catatonia fit this idea. Covenant went through a long one because of the Elohim in The One Tree and Linden through two short ones, once in Revelstone in The Wounded Land and then at the end of White Gold Wielder, maybe, when she was possessed by a raver.
The Ardent talks about water being important, the deluge under Mount Thunder erasing all predictions of the future, fate being writ in water. And in addition all of the company baptize in a nearby stream. Covenant's method to waken Linden is an extreme form of baptization: keeping her underwater for as long as he can in the deep pool in the stream.
Part 2 - chapter 1: Those who Endure--
And in this chapter, told from Covenant's perspective we get another quote from the past. A ditty all the way back from the first chapter of Lord Foul's Bane! An optimistic song about about imperfections, parenthood and possibilities.
We are now back on the surface and out of immediate danger. The Ardent took the company to a barren spot in the lower Land outside the reach of Kevin's Dirt.
This is an introspective chapter, a wonderful one. Because this is Donaldson's strong-point. Covenant has just seen his faery daughter consumed and damned for eternity. Mhartir tries to rub salt into his wounds with it, telling to his face that he never tried to succor his daughter. But Covenant is already feeling guilty as hell. Mahrtir's needling do not affect him. He is at the end of his rope. He can't imagine going on if he won't manage to save at least Linden from her self-induced catatonia.
Throughout this chapter I felt that this time, Covenant is finally filling the role of a father.
He is honest and without pride and even confesses his love to Linden.
Covenant gives us some interesting observations, chiefly that becoming catatonic like Linden and Jeremiah is not a surrender in his eyes but a tactical retreat and that having endured such a thing you return changed, stronger and stranger than you were before and you're aware on some level of what happened to you while you were unconscious.
This explains his more coherent thought processes having overcome Esmer's trick in the previous chapter. I'm not sure how the previous instances of catatonia fit this idea. Covenant went through a long one because of the Elohim in The One Tree and Linden through two short ones, once in Revelstone in The Wounded Land and then at the end of White Gold Wielder, maybe, when she was possessed by a raver.
The Ardent talks about water being important, the deluge under Mount Thunder erasing all predictions of the future, fate being writ in water. And in addition all of the company baptize in a nearby stream. Covenant's method to waken Linden is an extreme form of baptization: keeping her underwater for as long as he can in the deep pool in the stream.