The Illearth War Chapters 1 & 2

[pitchwife]

Chapter 1: The Dreams of Men
& Chapter 2: "Halfhand"

In the end of LFB we left Covenant

Walking up the long driveway to his house as if that were his only hope

The ordeal in the land has left Covenant mentally shaken. He is unable to digest it, unable to accept it, yet unable to deny it either.

for two weeks he shambled through his life from day to day in a kind of somnolence ... He wraped blankness about himself like a bandage, and did nothing, thought nothing, recognized nothing.

At first he wraps himself in oblivion, but slowly the memories of his experience return

he had behaved with a subtle infidelity which now made him squirm.

As the memories come back, Covenant feels that he is losing his grip on sanity, that his dream is a subconcious death wish, and he responds with the only answer he knows: dicipline.

Quickly, urgently, he took a large dose of his medication -- DDS, diamino-diphenyl-sulfone. Then he went into the white fluorescence of his bathroom, stropped his old straight razor, and set the long sharp blade to his throat.
Shaving this way, with the blade clutched in the two fingers and thumb of his right hand, was a personal ritual which he had taught himself in order to discipline and mortify his unwieldy imagination. It steadied him almost in spite of himself. The danger of that keen metal so insecurely held helped him concentrate, helped to rid him of false dreams and hopes, the alluring and suicidal progeny of his mind. The consequences of a slip were acid-etched in his brain. He could not ignore the law of his leprosy when he was so close to hurting himself, giving himself an injury which might reawaken the dormant rot of his nerves, cause infection and blindness, gnaw the flesh off his face until he was too loathsome to be beheld.
When he had shaved off two weeks of beard, he studied himself for a moment in the mirror. He saw a gray, gaunt man with leprosy riding the background of his eyes like a plague ship in a cold sea.

Covenant does his best to repress the memories, to find scientific phsycological explanations to his dream, but the harder he tries to supress it, the stronger the turmoil inside him becomes, until he is driven to seek some solace in being among other human beings.

He knew of no other antidote to delusion; he could no longer face his dilemma alone.

Covenant decides to hitch a ride to the next town. He is picked up by a truck driver. Once more Covenant finds himself in a false position, while the driver lectures him about the behaviour of lepers. Finally when Covenant gathers the courage to assume his identity, the driver does not believe him.
Covenant is a leper, that is his identity, his self. He was bereft of all his other identities: husband, father, writer.

The doctors there had taught him that his illness was the definitive fact of his existence.

Covenant embraces this victimized reality and clings onto it like a life line. In his dream, his delusion, he is cured, divested of his last hold of selfhood. The land tries to grant him a new identity - a hero, Berek reborn, but Covenant rejects it vehemently. And now in the bar this identity returns to haunt him again:

"Folks, this is Berek." She began clapping for him as she said, "Maybe he'll sing for us." Good-naturedly, the audience joined her applause. Covenant's hands limped about him, searching for support. Inspite of his efforts to control himself, he stared at his betrayer with a face full of pain. The applause reverberated in his ears, made him dizzy.
No!
For a long moment he cowered under Susie Thurston's look. Then like a wash of revelation, all the houselights came on. Over the bewildered murmurs and rustelings of the audience, a commanding voice snapped, "Covenant."

In these two chapters we are again confronted with society's harsh treatment of Covenant: Threatening phone calls, the burning of Joan's stables, his lawyer's meager reaction, the driver's attitude, and the sherif's uncompassionate treatment. Why is it that not even one soul finds a bit of empathy in thier heart for Covenant?

We also meet a blind beggar outside the bar and Covenant gives him a 20$ bill. What is the significance of the blind beggar he meets outside the bar?

The truck driver that takes Covenant is an interesting character, he also is a victim, the driver lost his arm in the war, but contrast his stance towards life with Covenant's. Interesting that SRD reminds us about Covenant -

But he was not a hero. He had lost the two last fingers of his right hand, not in combat but in surgery;

At the very beginning of these chapters Covenant was reading a book, and he remembers it saying:

modelling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task a man could undertake .... the dreams of men belong to god

.
What is SRD's message in this passage?

[danlo]

I want 2 kno what book this is from!

Right there on the 1st page on TC's coffee table is a book he was reading while he was making up his mind 2 risk coming 2 town @ the beginning of LFB. Only 4 hours have passed in our world, but apparently, the passage has a brand new meaning 4 him now:

"...modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task a man could undertake...." And on another page it said, "...the dreams of men belong to God..."

Does any1 kno what book this IS????

aftertought: oops I just quoted the same thing Pitch...and 2 answer ur question...I don't kno...almost 2 much FFT! I'll b thinking about it!

[birdandbear]

Okay - this is some very hasty googling. It certainly looks juicy though! I don't have time to read either of these right now, but they look fascinating.

These quotations are from two different short stories by Jorge Luis Borges.
"the dreams of men belong to god" is from The Secret Miracle, which you can find here: textz.gnutenberg.net/textz/borges_jorge_luis_the_secret_miracle.txt

and "modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task a man could undertake" is from The Circular Ruins, which you can find here: www.online-library.org/fictions/ruins.html

This is an essay on "Borge's Use of Berkeley's Idealism" : www.gwu.edu/~english/kaleidoscope/Essay ... ssay7A.htm


I would guess that Covenant was reading a collection of Borges' short
stories.

Note: The Book of Wishes, an international study of human desire, by Clifford A. Pickover, attributes "The dreams of men belong to God." to S.R.D.

I will have to read both of these stories when I get home!

[danlo]

Oh man Borges? He's brilliant---Now, how many fantasy books do u kno that start off w/a quote from a world renowned intellect, poet and Noble prize winner??? HUH?

[Lord Mhoram]

One by Stephen Donaldson!

[Vain]

Curiouser and curiouser.....

"The Circular Ruins," Stoicheff observes how the story's narrative indeterminacy "creates a pattern that stretches not toward revelation but around it." This particular "little fiction" sketches out the tale of a man alone in the jungle, holed up in the ruins of an ancient temple, sleeping most of his days away in an attempt to dream another man into existence. Once he's accomplished this feat and has set his "son" on his own path, the man starts to question his own condition, only to discover (a discovery that winds up consuming him) that he himself is simply the dream-woven creation of yet another dreamer. "He understood that modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task that a man could undertake," Borges writes, "much more difficult than weaving a rope out of sand."

Cannot say that I had even picked up on the possibility that the book on the table was real but having a look at the intent in the book, there are some connections....


In addition, I picked up one more little thing and I think it's correct to say that each summoning requires an increasing level of damage to TC.

The 1st was simply falling down in front of a police car....the second is a violent slamming of his head against a table....and if memory serves me correctly, it gets worse.

I'm also trying to play with Susie Thurston to see if it means something else.....that reference to Berek was too strange for there to NOT be a link

[caamora]

I never thought of the book that TC was reading! As I was reading the passages quoted by Vain, there definitely is a connection. But sadly, it seems to illustrate that the Land is not real after all.

[amanibhavam]

I've always supposed somehow, that that quote had been made up by SRD - it's great that you'v found it!

[birdandbear]

Aw, shucks - just a bit of Googling.

[Drinny]

The book TC was reading is certainly an interesing issue. I'm not sure, but I see this as more development of the question of the reality of the Land: SRD gives us every possible reason to believe it isn't real. So we find that before his 'experience', TC was reading about dreams. Perhaps that affected his thinking.

Also, the symbolism is so clear and obvious: desecration in the Land, TC's life; leprosy and ill-health in TC's life vs. the Land's hyperreal health, etc. etc. Plus, TC heard of the research about normal people starting to hallucinate when sensory-deprived. It all points to the Land being a mere delusion.

BUT, and this is in my opinion the crucial point: even if it seems unreal, it is still important. TC cannot stop thinking about it, cannot help being troubled by the unfinished issues in the Land. It does not matter if the Land is real or not; what matters is TC's stance towards the Land and what it means to him.

[danlo]

very well put Drinny!

[birdandbear]

The attitude with which the townspeople regard Covenant is horrible enough in itself, but I'm always outraged by the blatant disregard of Covenant's civil rights by the sheriff in the bar. This guy got a tip from some a$$hole who saw Covenant hitchiking and stopped to call the cops on him, and went to collect him like he was some filthy stray. Covenant had every right to be in that bar. That's discrimination man! Not to mention harassment. He oughtta sue their socks off!

[Vain]

When you consider how people with AIDS were/are treated then it's quite easy to see that civil liberties aren't worth much. Have a look at the simple SARS issue - and how people are being shunned.

Here in New Zealand, a visiting Chinese delegation was turned away from a meeting in some backwater town because of the fear that they may have SARS.

[arabisha]

I am rereading Illearth War just now so am late for these chapter posts. Also, I could not get a copy of LFB so I just restarted with TIW. Its been a long long time so forgive me for stupid errors please.

If you look at these first chapters from a Christian viewpoint you get some interesting parallels. Specifically where the law is concerned. The townspeople behave in a way that reminds me of the elite religious leaders in Christ's time. They were so concerned about themselves that it prevented them from compassion. They had basically made the Law a shackle. They tried to persecute Christ for healing on the Sabbath. When it came to helping a neighbor they would not risk dirtying themselves. They did not want to be "unclean." This law was a covenant and Christ's life and death and resurrection introduced a new covenant.

I notice how the Sheriff (the embodiment of the law in the town) was hostile to Covenant. Additionally, TC had his own personal law...his VSE's his self-preservation. If he stuck to his law he gained a sense of security. But his law was costly....he had to abandon his dreams. We don't know much about what TC was like before his illness, but we do know that he has compassion for the truck driver....he sympathizes with him because he has suffered amputation too. His capacity for compassion even in the face of humiliation/rejection is impressive. He gives the blind beggar 20 dollars and hears the man sing something about a "foretaste of divinity" afterwards. If I remember right, his first summoning to the Land came just after an act of compassion too. The singer calls him Berek but before anything can happen, lo and behold if the law doesn't come drag him off. The sherrif tells him in the car that he realizes that Covenant is not touchable by the law for what he has done but is told in no uncertain terms that his presence won't be tolerated.
When he wakes up in the land he refuses the hurtloam. This may be just because he fears he will someone else. But anyone would think that these people who were capable of actually SEEING health would exhibit the same fear of contamination that the townsfolk did. But they don't. It could be argued that it is because they have access to hurtloam and other means of healing but I don't think that fully explains it. TC considers suicide. The Land and his own internal law are in direct conflict. How must the first Christians have felt upon hearing of grace? "What? You gotta be kidding? Why that's just too good to be true." Paul I think it was had to lecture early churches who ended up returning to the old law. They wanted to believe but what was the price to pay if they were wrong? Their very souls. TC refuses food and drink, thinking that if he denied himself the sustenance of the land that it would preserve some vestige of his internal law but changed his mind when he saw what the Staff of Law did to poor Dukka (sp?) I think he saw his own fate there if he continued down that road.

[shadowbinding shoe]

So the book Thomas reads is real. Fascinating. On several levels. Reading these two short stories I don't think their message is that the Land is unreal, or at least not only that.

The stories deal with people that have lives that are as insubstantial and illusory as their dreams. The difference between dreams and reality in them is nonexistent. In fact it's not the reality that is in doubt, it's the person experiencing it that is in doubt. In one a dreamer discovers that he is himself a mere dream (of a character from yet another dream) and in the other a writer lives a year of personal fulfillment writing a play in the moment of his death where he is totally unregistered to anyone but himself and maybe god.

I always had to stretch my credulity to accept that Thomas Covenant's life in 'Townfulosombitches USA' (thnx Danlo) is realistic. Who heard about lepers in this day and age? He and his town seem like a memory from some biblical time even though they have some modern touches here and there (and yet these touches do not really belong to 'Townfulosombitches'. They're impositions the larger modern world put on them such as the doctors and the telephone company. They don't really fit into the build of this society. Why for example does Covenant stays in this town? Surely he could find some anonymity somewhere else? But his link to modern outer world (his car) is taken from him and he shows precious little initiative in trying to do it anyway. He belongs to this town.

Could it be that Covenant subconsciously recognizes the fact that he is a mere figment of SRD no matter where he is? Or that he wishes to be one? (it would make his suffering seem less)

Also the fact that Covenant was reading this book negate the popular opinion that since he returned to his farm from the Leprosarium his life was empty and he just lived like an automaton according to his VSE regiment. He can't have social contact and his inspiration is dried up at the moment but as we can see he can read his books. These books I'd reckon were purchased/found only after he got sick. The two Borges stories Covenant peruse fit his current life much better than his former care-free life. Also he tends his house and walks his farm enjoying the natural life instead of the human one. So despite the hardships of his current life it's not a total desert.

[Cord Hurn]

In LFB I had a difficult time (upon first reading it) in sympathizing with Covenant. Because of his rape of Lena, of course, but also because he complains within Mhoram's hearing about the Battle of Soaring Woodhelven being over "a couple of corpses" (Mhoram's just-deceased parents) and his general surliness toward the denizens of the Land. And the way people mistreat him in our world in somewhat abstract in LFB-- others just paying his bills for him so he won't come around. But in THIS book, right from the start the mistreatment is concrete and in front of us, with the burning of the stables, the threats TC gets over the phone, and the truck driver's remarks meant to represent what others think of Covenant. Suddenly, it becomes a whole lot easier for me to have sympathy for the Unbeliever.

The applause after each number was thunderous, and Covenant quaked at the sound. When the set was over and Susie Thurston retired for a break, he was sweating coldly.

The gin seemed to be having no effect on him. But he needed some kind of help. With an aspect of desperation, he signaled for another round. To his relief, the waiter brought the drinks soon.

After he had lowered his Scotch, the driver hunched forward purposefully, and said, "I think I got this bastard figured out."

The solemn man was oblivious to his tablemates. Painfully, he croaked again, "My wife."

Covenant wanted to keep the driver from talking about the third man so openly, but before he could distract him, his guest went on, "He's doing it out of spite, that's what."

"Spite?" echoed Covenant helplessly. He missed the connection. As far as he could tell, their companion--no doubt happily or at least doggedly married, no doubt childless--had somehow conceived a hopeless passion for the waif-woman behind the microphone. Such things happened. Torn between his now-grim fidelity and his obdurate need, he could do nothing but torment himself in search of release, drink himself into stupefaction staring at the thing he wanted and both could not and should not have.

With such ideas about their tablemate, Covenant was left momentarily at sea by the driver's comment. But the big man went on almost at once. "Course. What'd you think, being a leper is fun? He's thinking he'll just sort of share it around. Why be the only one, you know what I mean? That's what this bastard thinks. Take my word, buddy. I got him figured out." As he spoke, his cobbled face loomed before Covenant like a pile of thetic rubble. "What he does, he goes round where he ain't known, and he hides it, like, so nobody knows he's sick. That way he spreads it; nobody knows so they don't take care, and all of a sudden we got us an epidemic. Which makes Covenant laugh hisself crazy. Spite, like I tell you. You take my word. Don't go shaking hands when you don't know the guy you're shaking with."

Dully, the third man groaned, "My wife."

Gripping his wedding band as if it had the power to protect him, Covenant said, intently, "Maybe that isn't it. Maybe he just needs people. Do you ever get lonely--driving that rig all alone after hour? Maybe this Thomas Covenant just can't stand to go on living without seeing other faces once in a while. Did you think about that?"

"So let him stick to lepers. What call is he got to bother decent folks? Use your head."

Use my head? Covenant almost shouted. Hellfire! What do you think I'm doing? Do you think I like doing this, being here? A grimace that he could not control clutched his face. Fuming, he waved for more drinks. The alcohol seemed to be working in reverse, tightening his tension rather than loosening it. But he was too angry to know whether or not he was getting drunk. The air swarmed with the noise of The Door's patrons. He was conscious of the people behind him as if they lurked there like ur-viles.

It seems to me highly unlikely that nearly six weeks after TC's visit to town, the townspeople still talk about it so much that a stranger passing through town like this truck driver is inundated with the news to the point that he has to discuss it with the hitchhiking Covenant. And even more unlikely that it's ALL the driver wants to talk about! But in a story of fantasy, it's just a little more detail about which we can suspend our disbelief, I suppose.

He was conscious of the people behind him as if they lurked there like ur-viles. Already Thomas Covenant compares his experiences in the "real world" with how it is in the Land. He does this a moment earlier in the bar, too, when the lime in his gin has him reflecting that its flavor is a poor imitation of aliantha (which I recall as being a combination of lime and peach with just a hint of salt).

[Cord Hurn]

Also the fact that Covenant was reading this book negate the popular opinion that since he returned to his farm from the Leprosarium his life was empty and he just lived like an automaton according to his VSE regiment. He can't have social contact and his inspiration is dried up at the moment but as we can see he can read his books. These books I'd reckon were purchased/found only after he got sick. The two Borges stories Covenant peruse fit his current life much better than his former care-free life. Also he tends his house and walks his farm enjoying the natural life instead of the human one. So despite the hardships of his current life it's not a total desert.

Yeah, he can read what he wants, and go out and enjoy the great outdoors if he pleases--as long as he keeps to himself. It's better than being locked up in a prison or leprosarium, for sure.

For a week or so, he made progress. He paced through the charted neatness of his house like a robot curiously aware of the machinery inside him, searching despite the limited functions of his programming for one good answer to death. And when he left the house, walked out the driveway to pick up his groceries, or hiked for hours through the woods along Righters Creek in back of Haven Farm, he moved with an extreme caution, testing every rock and branch and breeze as if he suspected it of concealing malice.

But gradually he began to look about him, and as he did so some of his determination faltered. April was on the woods--the first signs of a spring which should have appeared beautiful to him. But at unexpected moments his sight seemed to go suddenly dim with sorrow as he remembered the spring of the Land. Compared to that, where the very health of the sap and buds was visible, palpable, discernible by touch and scent and sound, the woods he now walked looked sadly superficial. The trees and grass and hills had no savor, no depth of beauty. They could only remind him of Andelain and the taste of aliantha.

But what pleasure he can get in this life is already diminished by the attachment he feels towards the Land. I think that's why hearing one of Susie Thurston's songs bothers him so much. I say this because nothing in the bar scene indicates that he's thinking of Joan or Roger.

But her next song burned him. With her head back so that her white throat gleamed in the light, she sang a song that ended,

Let go my heart--
Your love makes me look small to myself.
Now, I don't want to give you any hurt,
But what I feel is part of myself:
What you want turns what I've got to dirt--
So let go of my heart.

Applause leaped on the heels of her last note, as if the audience were perversely hungry for her pain. Covenant could not endure any more. Buffeted by the noise, he threw dollars--did not count them--on the table, and shoved back his chair to escape.

[Cord Hurn]

It seems to me highly unlikely that nearly six weeks after TC's visit to town, the townspeople still talk about it so much that a stranger passing through town like this truck driver is inundated with the news to the point that he has to discuss it with the hitchhiking Covenant. And even more unlikely that it's ALL the driver wants to talk about! But in a story of fantasy, it's just a little more detail about which we can suspend our disbelief, I suppose.

I might need to back away from this statement just a bit. While it still seems kind of unlikely to me that a truck driver with no interest or stake in the town near Haven Farm really wants to talk on and on about lepers, Stephen R. Donaldson does provide an explanation for the trucker's obsession:

With his new smoke going, he rested his arm on the wheel like a sphinx, and abruptly began talking. He had something on his mind.

"You live around here?"

Covenant said noncommittally, "Yes."

"How long? You know the people?"

"After a fashion."

"You know this leper--this Thomas something-or-other--Thomas Covenant?"

Covenant flinched in the gloom of the cab. To disguise his distress, he shifted his position on the seat. Awkwardly, he asked, "What's your interest?"

"Me? I got no interest. Just passing through--hauling my ass where they give me a load to go. I never even been around here before. But where I et at back in town I heard talk about this guy. So I ask the broad at the counter, and she damn near yaks my ear off. One question--and I get instant mouth with everything I eat. You know what a leper is?"

Covenant squirmed. "After a fashion."

So, the truck driver had his "ear yakked off" by a waitress wanting to talk on and on about how Thomas Covenant had the nerve to walk into her town, and that explains why he wants to talk about lepers to Covenant. This makes the trucker's attitude more plausible. Somehow I forgot about this detail!