Is there a "right age" to read the Chronicles?

[DrPaul]

I've just had this article drawn to my attention:

www.tor.com/blogs/2013/12/is-there-a-ri ... ead-a-book

Quite a few of us would have come across the First and Second Chronicles as teenagers or young adults, and have re-read and/or reflected on them over the years as we've become older.

I don't claim to speak for anyone else, but I know that my own appreciation of the books has changed with age. In particular, when I was younger I (like, I think, a lot of people) was very impatient with Covenant's timidity and passivity (and occasional outright bastardry) in the First Chronicles. However, on more recent re-reads I have better understood Covenant's attitude, summed up in his statement in TIW that "I'm a coward! Lepers have to be."

Reflecting on why this is so, I think it has to do with the difference between being a young man when I first encountered the Chronicles (with a young man's unexamined assumptions about his own abilities, autonomy and capacity for agency) and reaching an age when I had acquired a better understanding of my own limitations and dependencies (and was physically less able to ignore them!), and thus perhaps better able to empathise with Covenant's self-limiting discipline.

Of course (and this gets back to the point raised in the article I've linked to) my youthful impatience with Covenant certainly didn't get in the way of my enjoyment of the First Chronicles.

I suspect (and could be doing people a grave injustice in so doing) that it might also be the case that the younger people are when they read the Second Chronicles, the more likely they are to join THOOLAH.

What have others' experiences been?

[lurch]

Is there a " right age" to read the Chronicles?

Yes and I have been all of them.

More than age, is the need to have the right mind set, the right perspective, or simply, an open enough mind to catch upside down, inside out " play" that the author works in TCoTC. Perhaps such a mental state comes with age, perhaps not. Recent thread on SRD's humor in the Last Chrons illustrate that age isn't necessarily the qualifier to getting all of Donaldsons work.

Plot is just the beginning. Perhaps leprosy, rape, etc implies a age threshold in order to deal with those dark attributes of the story. Again that relies on a maturity to age relationship that may or may not exist. When does a youth start understanding the subtleties of Shakespeare?..How can one NOT re-read Shakespeare?? Perhaps thats the threshold for any " Art";when one is willing to re-read a piece of work, then one is ready,,at the right conjuncture of experience and perspective, then one is ready for it.

Very few authors have brought me to tears. Hesse got me as a young man. Donaldson got me with TLD.

[peter]

Oddly, my perspective on reading the !st C., age 19 was not the one of impatience with TC for his reluctence to 'get involved' or even hatred of him for his bastardry. His position seemed right to me, for a man in his position and I instictively understood it. Yes I yearned for the point where he would overcome his inner anger and fear and take on the role he had been asigned [we all knew he would eventually do this] but at no point was I frustrated with him. So in this sense the idea that the impatience of youth makes it a bad time to read the Chrons doesn't hold up for me. However - without doubt I failed to see 'deeper meaning' in the books, seeing them instead as simply fine, fine stories; and I have never been able to 'rise above' this even at successive readings up to and into my 50's. Who knows - maybe had I first read 1C. in my 40's or whatever my perspective on the 'deep meaning' thing may have been different.

[distrait72]

I gave LFB to my older brother for his 13th birthday. I was 10. He read it, then more or less discarded it. I kept it and read it, then ended up buying the sequels and then waiting for each new book to come out. At that age, there were things I didn't understand, certainly but I understood enough to keep me interested over the years.
To briefly give a reply, no. There is no 'right' age to begin reading. As the other people in this discussion have already stated, it depends on the reader's level of comprehension, maturity, etc. It would have to be a decision on a case-by-case basis.

[Rau Le Creuset]

Depends on the person really.. For me i was to stupid to appreciate what i read when i was in grade 8. so about 13. I read all three books, didn't really like them and proceeded to discard them from memory. Re-read them last year in grade 12 and now I will never forget them, or have another favorite series. strange really.

[peter]

If that makes you in your late teens Rau, then you are about exactly the same age as I was on my first read. 38 years on I'm still of the opinion that the 1st Chrons were the best three books I have EVER read.

[sgt.null]

I was 13ish when I read the first...

[peter]

I think Sarge, that would have been too young for me. I was reading some fairly advanced stuff at that age but nothing of the sheer size of the First Chrons. I suspect that LFB might have been a bit beyond my patience at that age.

[Iolanthe]

Surely there are other things besides age that affect the way the Chronicles will affect you, like your circumstances, experience, frame of mind etc.

I was mid 30s, married with two young children when I first read them - that is, the first Chronicles (the others hadn't been published then). Looking after children all day, teaching piano from late afternoon well into the evening, I was looking for escapism, not a lesson in life. I can see how very differently someone half my age would be affected by reading them for the first time, but as we are all different, the perception of the Chrons is also going to be different for each of us.

[peter]

This is indeed true Iolanthe. The Chrons are a sufficiently complex affair [and boy do I know that now after three or four years on the Watch more than I did at the time!] - sufficiently complex to draw out a multitude of responses from different readers. At 18 I could however read them as simply a story [still can in fact] and I never needed to go any deeper than that [still don't]. I wonder if my whole perception of the Chrons would have been altered if I had first encountered them at say 30 when you did.

[Eldritch]

Re reading the FC.

First read, I discarded the violation of Lena, just took it as a plot device. (Nice guy, huh?)

Went to night school, did a dissertation on a novel. Yep LFB. Understood that, although TC thought the Land was a dream, his guilt, regarding Lena, was real!

At college we had to present a novel from a feminist point of view, LFB c'mere! Atiaran got me a pass with honours.

Now, as a father, I'm surprised Trell didn't introduce TCs head to TCs back passage.

[Dondarion]

For me, a story takes the reader where he is, as he is. Whatever is gleaned from it's being read is never wasted. I am interested here to see how this story has satisfied so many readers at various ranges of "maturity", from those simply looking for a stand alone tale to those with a desire to reach the deeper levels of meaning and truth the story offers. Until one's mind is opened by life experience, it isn't possible to be the latter type of reader. But that shouldn't keep us from reading this wonderful series for whatever it may offer each of us. When I first read it in my 20s, I was a bit frustrated with TC's constant denial, and bargains, and moodiness and downright mean demeanor. It wasn't until later that I started to look more at the reasons for why this might have been the case, and that can only come with a more mature perspective about life and the people in it. SRD himself has said that he felt he needed to mature as a writer until he was ready to take on TLCs, which is why it took so many years for him to revisit this tale. If he had to do that to effectively write it, it is safe to say that we have to do the same to effectively read it. Bit we have to start, and thus the journey begins.

[DrPaul]

Now, as a father, I'm surprised Trell didn't introduce TCs head to TCs back passage.

Basically, in LFB Lena deliberately misinformed her parents about what had happened, and Triock did not learn the truth about the rape and tell Trell until Covenant was out of Mithil Stonedown with Atiaran. Then Trell stayed home to care for Lena while Triock pursued Covenant and Atiaran.

In TIW, when Trell met Covenant in Revelstone he basically tried to do what you suggest and was prevented from doing so by Bannor.

[peter]

I have just aquired a new set of The Chronicles of thomas Covenant the Unbeliever and am in preparation to begin my 'Magnum Opus'. I intend to prepare a detailed chronological account and time line [or as detailed as possible] of all of the events preceeding TC's first appearing in the Land on top of Kevins Watch. This will include any and all mythological references alongside the known historical events. How long it will take, or if I can complete such an undertaking I have no idea, but a 'mans reach should exeed his grasp or what's a heaven for?' I'll give it my best shot. I have not grasped all of the 'deeper meaning' of any of the Chrons, least of all the Last - but this should not impeed me. My aim is to 'catalogue' rather than to interpret. I'm 56 years old now. For the first time in my life I'm going to read in complete, from start to finish, [including 'Gilden Fire'], The Complete Chronicles of Thomas Covenant.

[Dondarion]

BP: May The Craetor bless your endeavor! I hope you choose to use this forum along the way to post status, check your work, add insight, etc. It is an admirable undertaking you embark upon, and I hope it doesn't expose too many SRD inconsistencies along the way. But, in the end, I think it will provide a great reference tool to 'keep it all straight', a frustration I have whenever I pick these books up (especially TLCs). All the best on what I am sure will be a great journey.

[Avatar]

Yeah, you better post that stuff.

Anyway, as to the question... First read LFB when I was thirteen or so. All of the first 6 were out by then, so I'd read them all within the year. (First books I ever ordered from a bookshop. ) Never liked (trusted) Linden all that much, but no inclination toward THOOLAH either.

LFB was probably my first real experience of the idea of an anti-hero. (With the possible exception of Noyes' Highwayman if you happen see him that way.)

I was immediately blown away by the first book ("Say to the Council of Lords, and the High Lord Prothall, son of Dwillian, that the uttermost limit of their span of days upon the Land is seven times seven years from the present time") and all the other five that followed.

Donaldson's ability to make you hate characters you should feel sorry for, and to empathise with those you should despise is a remarkable one.

I dunno if there is a right age, but I don't really think there is a wrong one either. If you can read it, you can read it, if you know what I mean.

--A

[DrPaul]

I've just thought of another angle to this thread.

If we look at our volumes of the Chronicles on our bookshelves, we will probably find that they are far from physically identical. If we think about it, this is due to changes in our lives and fortunes between the times when we bought our books.

My volumes of the First and Second Chronicles are all second-hand paperbacks, and some still carry the labels displaying the cheap prices I paid and the names of the second-hand shops in the insalubrious precincts of Sydney where I bought the books in the 1980s.

On the other hand all my volumes of the Last Chronicles are hardback copies that I bought new as soon as they appeared in Brisbane bookshops, apart from TLD which I bought online (also new and hardback).

[Iolanthe]

I've just thought of another angle to this thread.

If we look at our volumes of the Chronicles on our bookshelves, we will probably find that they are far from physically identical. If we think about it, this is due to changes in our lives and fortunes between the times when we bought our books.

My volumes of the First and Second Chronicles are all second-hand paperbacks, and some still carry the labels displaying the cheap prices I paid and the names of the second-hand shops in the insalubrious precincts of Sydney where I bought the books in the 1980s.

On the other hand all my volumes of the Last Chronicles are hardback copies that I bought new as soon as they appeared in Brisbane bookshops, apart from TLD which I bought online (also new and hardback).

Interesting thought DrPaul. My first Chrons are a hardback compendium of all three bought from a book club. The second three paperbacks from W H Smith as they came out. The four last Chrons all large hardback books. But I also have them all on kindle - much easier to read once one learns to wade through the errors in the text. In TLD there are at least two places where a very strange phrase has appeared in the middle of a word that should be there. I will write down examples for future reference when I read it again.

[peter]

[Thanks Dondarian and Av. If it achieves any worth in my eyes it will surely find it's way here - and undoubtedly much 'brain picking' will be done along the way! ]

re Your 1st Chrons Compendium edition Iolanthe - are you satisfied that it was not 'edited' in any way from it's original published form in order to achieve this presentation? I ask because I deliberately avoided a combined edition of the 1st C. for fear that this might be the case. [I did once have a single volume edition, and I was never convinced that all three books could have been 'sqeezed' into the size of book it presented unless 'editing out' had been done. I gave the book to someone else to read so never really established if this was the case or not]. If you are happy that the text is 'unabridged' for these combined volumes then I may risk buying 2C. in this form.

[Iolanthe]

I don't think it is amended, Peter. When I read the Kindle version there was nothing there that I hadn't read before. It is a big, fat compendium.