AATE, Part II, Chapter 11: Kurash Qwellinir
Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:42 pm
AATE, Part 2, Chapter 11: Kurash Qwellinir
We all know that SRD is a rarefied and highly-talented writer. One specific aspect of writing that I think he does particularly well is the crafting of lead or introductory sentences for a chapter. The first sentence in this chapter —“Dawn was little more than a faint smudge of grey in the cleft of the chamber when Clyme entered, bearing treasure-berries for Thomas Covenant.”— sets an emotional mood by a simple showing of the setting. Not complicated, but powerful when done well, as I believe it is here. I mean, we get the chapter started off with the Unbeliever having some little viridian nuggets of hope delivered right into his hand! Beauty!
As the penultimate chapter in this novel, “Kurash Quellinir” brings an incredible amount to the table. Firstly, we have a full-on Covenant point-of-view chapter here, one of three total for AATE. This trip to KQ is the second one that the Ur-lord has made in the Chronicles, and there are numerous echoes and overlaps from his first journey. Covenant doesn’t just slip around in the fault lines of his Timewarden memories, but rather time does something more subtle with him here. Before really digging in, a quick plot summary:
Covenant is with the Humbled, two Ranyhyn and a horse. They are still working their way across the Shattered Hills (otherwise known as Kurash Quellinir) to get to wherever the Ranyhyn are leading them. The going is tough enough for the terrain, but then they get attacked by skest. As they proceed, a caesure appears briefly which sends Covenant slipping into his memories as Timewarden for the rest of the chapter pretty much. The Feroce return and honor their bargain with TC; they take care of the skest. Finally, another caesure erupts, and Thomas Covenant walks right into its core.
Two Trips in Resonance
“But other things he could not forget— Foamfollower in vast agony…” (536)
“As far as he was concerned, no Haruchai had ever failed him. Not even when Bannor had refused to accompany him to Foul’s Creche.” (539)
“Blood pulsed from a cut on Covenant’s forehead. He recalled striking his head on the edge of a table.” (542)
So these are just a few examples from the text of the clearly synchronous overlap between TC’s two experiences/trials in this locale. Such a resonance is very appropriate for this character at this point in this story. I loved the experience of reading this for the first time, of (re-)discovering those little elements from his trip with Foamfollower. In fact, considering the cut on Covenant’s forehead I would venture to say that the strength of this two-journey-overlay phenomenon causes TC’s time slippage in this chapter to be more like a translation between worlds experience (where, if you recall, specific details like forehead cuts happen in one world before being translated back to the other). But that’s up for debate.
It is fascinating to me that the Unbeliever is with Haruchai this time, and no Giants, unlike being with Foamfollower the first time round, and without the referenced Bannor who chose not accompany him. In this place I believe we can honestly say that absence is just another form of what is present.
The Time Element
Okay, so at this point in the novel we are all well aware of TC’s loss of the present via his memory slips. However, in this chapter those slips seem to take on a bit of a new quality. At the top of 540, it states that “he stood where Ridjeck Thome had once held the apex of the promontory and watched time run backward, incrementally unmaking seven thousand years of ruin. Ages were erased in instants. Instants were ages. … Sand gathered into stones.” Sounds pretty insequent to me! He’s apparently not just being dropped into the middle of a memory directly from his physical present, but he’s actually seeing the effects of time reversing; he’s witnessing the backward flow of time via review of his Timewarden memories. And as if that’s not wild enough, he is also continuing to see his physical present while bouncing around in the past. (still 540) “In a reality which he no longer inhabited, Covenant observed his mount’s panic.” Though his body is still there with the Humbled in Kurash Qwellinir, his spirit is not.
So TC trips his way around in the past all while still being aware of his present for much of the chapter. He sees himself and Foamfollower at the climax of his first journey to this place in TPTP. The Despiser somehow knows that TC’s spirit is there in the scene, and banishes him. He says, “You have no place here. You do not exist. Your time will never come.” (still 540)
Okay man, did that just happen? How can that be??? “That voice violated time and memory. It came from a different version of existence, a brief disruption enabled by the caesure. Lord Foul then had not known that Covenant’s spirit was watching now from its remembered place within the Arch of Time.” Right, so the caesure is what allowed Foul to rid TC’s spirit from that memory, gotcha. But the last sentence on 540 really makes me feel the overlap from the two trips in resonance: “The Despiser had believed himself triumphant.” Whoa, wait…are you implying that the Despiser’s defeat the first time is connected to this moment??? If not, why use the past perfect?
Origin and Integration
In addition to (and perhaps also in conjunction with) the overlapping of time in this chapter from TC’s perspective, there appears (to me) to be numerous echoes of origin laced throughout these overlaps. I found three parts from the text that made me think of origin echoing in the present:
1. On 532, near the end of paragraph 4, it is written that “His only real virtue was that he had striven to prove worthy of aliantha and hurtloam.” The text goes on to list other things and people from the Land of whom TC had striven to prove worthy. I recall that hurtloam and aliantha were among the first things in the Land that he had encountered way back in LFB. And his experience of hurtloam elicited quite a strong reaction from him. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was the way that hurtloam made his nerve endings apparently regenerate (impossible for a leper) that was the original cause for his adamancy about the Land being a dream. DO correct me if I am wrong on this. And that contradiction—the marvel of the sudden visceral experience of health through hurtloam and his insistence that the Land be a dream because it causes something in him that he MUST continue to believe impossible for the sake of his own survival—reached its culmination in Foul’s Creche when he affirmed both sides of this contradiction, both the unreality and importance of the Land in the eye of his paradox.
2. Near the end of paragraph 7 on the same page it says that “His leprosy was not the whole truth.” Covenant has always deemed his leprosy to be essential. He did not allow Linden to cure him of it after she had resurrected him; he still felt he needed it in order to be who he is, to be true. Though still central, the fact of his leprosy is not the singular defining aspect of his character, his essence, his being. Though Linden resurrected him, he did not return to life whole. He was fragmented as evidenced by his slippage down the fault lines of his Timewarden memories. This chapter sees this slippage reach a sort of culmination.
3. And on pages 548-9 it is described how the Feroce use their power to cause the stone to remember its strength. We’ve already seen them do this twice before—when they tried to get the Staff from Linden, and when they caused the horse to recall his strength in the previous chapter. But the power itself, or really the result of its exertion, causes the object (in this case the stone ground of the Shattered Hills) to remember. That word itself—remember—causes me to think of both origin and integration.
I think of origin because recollection is a form of drawing to the present that which is past; and though what is recalled from the past may not directly stem from some specific beginning point, the fact of recalling something from deep in an entity’s past is at least akin to drawing upon that which is original for that entity. Or should I say prototypical? And the word remember makes me think of integration because a simple chunking of the word reveals it to contain the idea of re-membering. If we take the word member to be a verb implying to bring disparate parts together, then remembering can be seen as a process of taking those members that once (originally?) were unified and then recombining them into that whole once again. Clear as mud?
Closing Thoughts
My personal experience as a reader of this chapter was to feel and to some extent experience Covenant’s mad swirl of memory slippage and time overlaps for myself. I recognize that there are plenty of moments and aspects to this chapter that I have not touched on; I will leave those open to be broached by others. But I did find a couple oddities that I will mention:
In the first paragraph on 533, there is no article used when referencing the Humbled. I checked the entire chapter, and this is the only instance in which the word Humbled is used without the usual article of the before it. Now, this could be a typo or an authorial error. OR, it could be intentional on SRD’s part. Maybe I’m nitpicking about this one tiny little thing, but it stood out to me as strange, and knowing how focused on words SRD is when he writes, I am inclined to think that he did this on purpose for some reason...I just can’t figure out what that reason may be. Then again, in paragraph 10 on 539, he uses the word fornication when it really should be formication. After having to swallow that word many times in ROTE, I found the lack of it being used in this instance to also stand out as strange, and a missed opportunity.
And I will conclude this initial dissection post by pointing out one more thing from the chapter that really grabbed hold of me. Despite all the awesomeness that I feel the chapter contains, this one moment shines forth for me as the most beautiful: On 533, Clyme is remarking about the onset of a violent storm. “Instead of responding, Covenant dug in his pockets for treasure-berry seeds. As he and his companions rode, he scattered seeds two or three at a time, sowing the grassland with aliantha like a gesture of defiance.” Frankly, I find his act of spreading aliantha seeds to be a response in and of itself. When I first read this, it seemed almost like an act of prayer. Ur-Lord, Timewarden and Unbeliever sowing the seeds of hope together! BEAUTY.
We all know that SRD is a rarefied and highly-talented writer. One specific aspect of writing that I think he does particularly well is the crafting of lead or introductory sentences for a chapter. The first sentence in this chapter —“Dawn was little more than a faint smudge of grey in the cleft of the chamber when Clyme entered, bearing treasure-berries for Thomas Covenant.”— sets an emotional mood by a simple showing of the setting. Not complicated, but powerful when done well, as I believe it is here. I mean, we get the chapter started off with the Unbeliever having some little viridian nuggets of hope delivered right into his hand! Beauty!
As the penultimate chapter in this novel, “Kurash Quellinir” brings an incredible amount to the table. Firstly, we have a full-on Covenant point-of-view chapter here, one of three total for AATE. This trip to KQ is the second one that the Ur-lord has made in the Chronicles, and there are numerous echoes and overlaps from his first journey. Covenant doesn’t just slip around in the fault lines of his Timewarden memories, but rather time does something more subtle with him here. Before really digging in, a quick plot summary:
Covenant is with the Humbled, two Ranyhyn and a horse. They are still working their way across the Shattered Hills (otherwise known as Kurash Quellinir) to get to wherever the Ranyhyn are leading them. The going is tough enough for the terrain, but then they get attacked by skest. As they proceed, a caesure appears briefly which sends Covenant slipping into his memories as Timewarden for the rest of the chapter pretty much. The Feroce return and honor their bargain with TC; they take care of the skest. Finally, another caesure erupts, and Thomas Covenant walks right into its core.
Two Trips in Resonance
“But other things he could not forget— Foamfollower in vast agony…” (536)
“As far as he was concerned, no Haruchai had ever failed him. Not even when Bannor had refused to accompany him to Foul’s Creche.” (539)
“Blood pulsed from a cut on Covenant’s forehead. He recalled striking his head on the edge of a table.” (542)
So these are just a few examples from the text of the clearly synchronous overlap between TC’s two experiences/trials in this locale. Such a resonance is very appropriate for this character at this point in this story. I loved the experience of reading this for the first time, of (re-)discovering those little elements from his trip with Foamfollower. In fact, considering the cut on Covenant’s forehead I would venture to say that the strength of this two-journey-overlay phenomenon causes TC’s time slippage in this chapter to be more like a translation between worlds experience (where, if you recall, specific details like forehead cuts happen in one world before being translated back to the other). But that’s up for debate.
It is fascinating to me that the Unbeliever is with Haruchai this time, and no Giants, unlike being with Foamfollower the first time round, and without the referenced Bannor who chose not accompany him. In this place I believe we can honestly say that absence is just another form of what is present.
The Time Element
Okay, so at this point in the novel we are all well aware of TC’s loss of the present via his memory slips. However, in this chapter those slips seem to take on a bit of a new quality. At the top of 540, it states that “he stood where Ridjeck Thome had once held the apex of the promontory and watched time run backward, incrementally unmaking seven thousand years of ruin. Ages were erased in instants. Instants were ages. … Sand gathered into stones.” Sounds pretty insequent to me! He’s apparently not just being dropped into the middle of a memory directly from his physical present, but he’s actually seeing the effects of time reversing; he’s witnessing the backward flow of time via review of his Timewarden memories. And as if that’s not wild enough, he is also continuing to see his physical present while bouncing around in the past. (still 540) “In a reality which he no longer inhabited, Covenant observed his mount’s panic.” Though his body is still there with the Humbled in Kurash Qwellinir, his spirit is not.
So TC trips his way around in the past all while still being aware of his present for much of the chapter. He sees himself and Foamfollower at the climax of his first journey to this place in TPTP. The Despiser somehow knows that TC’s spirit is there in the scene, and banishes him. He says, “You have no place here. You do not exist. Your time will never come.” (still 540)
Okay man, did that just happen? How can that be??? “That voice violated time and memory. It came from a different version of existence, a brief disruption enabled by the caesure. Lord Foul then had not known that Covenant’s spirit was watching now from its remembered place within the Arch of Time.” Right, so the caesure is what allowed Foul to rid TC’s spirit from that memory, gotcha. But the last sentence on 540 really makes me feel the overlap from the two trips in resonance: “The Despiser had believed himself triumphant.” Whoa, wait…are you implying that the Despiser’s defeat the first time is connected to this moment??? If not, why use the past perfect?
Origin and Integration
In addition to (and perhaps also in conjunction with) the overlapping of time in this chapter from TC’s perspective, there appears (to me) to be numerous echoes of origin laced throughout these overlaps. I found three parts from the text that made me think of origin echoing in the present:
1. On 532, near the end of paragraph 4, it is written that “His only real virtue was that he had striven to prove worthy of aliantha and hurtloam.” The text goes on to list other things and people from the Land of whom TC had striven to prove worthy. I recall that hurtloam and aliantha were among the first things in the Land that he had encountered way back in LFB. And his experience of hurtloam elicited quite a strong reaction from him. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was the way that hurtloam made his nerve endings apparently regenerate (impossible for a leper) that was the original cause for his adamancy about the Land being a dream. DO correct me if I am wrong on this. And that contradiction—the marvel of the sudden visceral experience of health through hurtloam and his insistence that the Land be a dream because it causes something in him that he MUST continue to believe impossible for the sake of his own survival—reached its culmination in Foul’s Creche when he affirmed both sides of this contradiction, both the unreality and importance of the Land in the eye of his paradox.
2. Near the end of paragraph 7 on the same page it says that “His leprosy was not the whole truth.” Covenant has always deemed his leprosy to be essential. He did not allow Linden to cure him of it after she had resurrected him; he still felt he needed it in order to be who he is, to be true. Though still central, the fact of his leprosy is not the singular defining aspect of his character, his essence, his being. Though Linden resurrected him, he did not return to life whole. He was fragmented as evidenced by his slippage down the fault lines of his Timewarden memories. This chapter sees this slippage reach a sort of culmination.
3. And on pages 548-9 it is described how the Feroce use their power to cause the stone to remember its strength. We’ve already seen them do this twice before—when they tried to get the Staff from Linden, and when they caused the horse to recall his strength in the previous chapter. But the power itself, or really the result of its exertion, causes the object (in this case the stone ground of the Shattered Hills) to remember. That word itself—remember—causes me to think of both origin and integration.
I think of origin because recollection is a form of drawing to the present that which is past; and though what is recalled from the past may not directly stem from some specific beginning point, the fact of recalling something from deep in an entity’s past is at least akin to drawing upon that which is original for that entity. Or should I say prototypical? And the word remember makes me think of integration because a simple chunking of the word reveals it to contain the idea of re-membering. If we take the word member to be a verb implying to bring disparate parts together, then remembering can be seen as a process of taking those members that once (originally?) were unified and then recombining them into that whole once again. Clear as mud?
Closing Thoughts
My personal experience as a reader of this chapter was to feel and to some extent experience Covenant’s mad swirl of memory slippage and time overlaps for myself. I recognize that there are plenty of moments and aspects to this chapter that I have not touched on; I will leave those open to be broached by others. But I did find a couple oddities that I will mention:
In the first paragraph on 533, there is no article used when referencing the Humbled. I checked the entire chapter, and this is the only instance in which the word Humbled is used without the usual article of the before it. Now, this could be a typo or an authorial error. OR, it could be intentional on SRD’s part. Maybe I’m nitpicking about this one tiny little thing, but it stood out to me as strange, and knowing how focused on words SRD is when he writes, I am inclined to think that he did this on purpose for some reason...I just can’t figure out what that reason may be. Then again, in paragraph 10 on 539, he uses the word fornication when it really should be formication. After having to swallow that word many times in ROTE, I found the lack of it being used in this instance to also stand out as strange, and a missed opportunity.
And I will conclude this initial dissection post by pointing out one more thing from the chapter that really grabbed hold of me. Despite all the awesomeness that I feel the chapter contains, this one moment shines forth for me as the most beautiful: On 533, Clyme is remarking about the onset of a violent storm. “Instead of responding, Covenant dug in his pockets for treasure-berry seeds. As he and his companions rode, he scattered seeds two or three at a time, sowing the grassland with aliantha like a gesture of defiance.” Frankly, I find his act of spreading aliantha seeds to be a response in and of itself. When I first read this, it seemed almost like an act of prayer. Ur-Lord, Timewarden and Unbeliever sowing the seeds of hope together! BEAUTY.
