Faded Boxers

Being an aficionado of the Fantasy genre, I’ve come across the name Stephen R. Donaldson on many a search for a worthwhile read. His name is often spoken with the same reverence usually reserved for the so called masters of the genre such as Tolkien and Lewis.

The unavailability of his work ony served to increase my desire to see what all the buzz was about. When I went to the States last year, the Donaldson books were on top of my shopping list, and it was a sad twisted joke that they were the only ones I couldn’t find.

A few months ago, just as I had given up all hope of ever finding the elusive trilogy, a routine inspection of the Fantasy section of a nearby bookstore revealed not only the first trilogy, but all the books from the second trilogy as well.

After inwardly ejaculating a string of joyous expletives that would make Samuel L. Jackson giggle, I whipped out my credit card with such force that it made a sound even dogs can’t hear, paid for all six books, and prepared myself for literary greatness that only an Amazon review could promise.

Fast forward to the present. I had just finished reading the first trilogy yesterday and has since been digesting my first encounter with Stephen Donaldson. So was it everything they said it would be?

No. And Yes.

The Writing
The first thing I noticed while reading the books is Donaldson’s command over the English language. His prose is lyrical, flowing, and oftentimes poetic. He has a very wide vocabulary that adds another dimension to the images his words evoke.

Unfortunately Donaldson’s strength in writing is also one of the factors which hindered me from fully enjoying his work—at least at the start. His words flow with a rhythm and cadence that tend to put me to sleep.

I enjoy perfectly constructed sentences as much as the next guy, but there’s nothing like variety to add some spice in the narrative. Donaldson writes at a languid pace that well suits the introspective sequences, but may not be apt for the action scenes. Still, creating rousing action sequences may not at all be Donaldson’s focus as he gives more attention to the conflicts brewing within the key characters.

The Characters
Before reading the books, I had decided that Thomas Covenant would be my favorite hero (or anti-hero as it was later revealed to me) for all time. Now that I’ve gotten to know him a little better, I found that while he may not be my favorite anti-hero for all time, he’d act as a good placeholder until a better one comes along.

I knew a lot about Thomas Covenant before reading the books: He’s a leper whose first act after being cured was to rape the first person to help him. Neat huh? There’s more. Apparently, his leprosy is only a reflection of what’s happening inside. This makes for a lot of interesting heated arguments between Covenant and pretty much everyone else.

It can be said that with a character like Covenant, then it should logically be a character-driven story. Again, the reality isn’t all that simple. Yes, Donaldson spends a lot of time developing the character, while allowing the reader to take an active part in Covenant’s journey. But I think it was at the expense of everything else happening outside.

All the events that transpired in the books was because of Covenant’s presence, but the initiative mostly came from the people around him. If I didn’t know better, I would say that Donaldson created every other character to give Covenant a bunch of sounding boards with which he can work out his issues. But seeing that most of the key secondary players were all well constructed, they can hardly be called glorified sounding boards. It is in this regard that I was mildly disappointed to have a hero that practically does nothing for the bulk of the story.

The Story
Understandably, Donaldson has been mistakenly compared to Tolkien by more than a few people. This is probably because of the genre that both writers are known for, as well as the longevity of their work. Though Tolkien is much more celebrated, Donaldson’s technique is arguably superior.

While Tolkien’s writing can and should be taken at face value (it is widely known that Tolkien denied any similarities that his books had with the Bible, and had no other meaning in mind as he was writing his stories. It can be said that Tolkien didn’t like metaphors), Donaldson operates on so many levels that it can be very hard to keep track of them all.

Tolkien reaches a much wider audience because everything is so apparent. Much of the action that occurs in Donaldson’s work is inside the head of the main character: Thomas Covenant. For example, if the Donaldson books were turned into movies, it would contain a lot of scenes of people doing a lot of walking, arguing, crying, and walking.

I remember waiting for Thomas Covenant to perform an act so awesome and earth shattering that it would act as a big payoff for all the walking. But it never came. Well it did, only not in the way that I expected.

The Bottomline
By the end of the first book Lord Foul’s Bane, I had written off Donaldson as an overrated writer whose only saving grace is his writing technique. It had taken more than a month for me to finish the first book and it probably took longer for me to finish the second book The Illearth War.

However, somewhere in the middle of the second book, I started to come around. It was at this point that I stopped waiting for those epic fight scenes that I’ve come to look for in the fantasy stories I love so much. This gave me room to start caring more about the secondary characters, and I began to see the world that Donaldson created in a different light. I’ve accepted the fact that Covenant will never wield a sword, but he is capable of great things nonetheless. I’ve began to notice the intricacies and detail that Donaldson put in his work and I found myself turning the pages faster and faster. By the time I got to the third book, The Power That Preserves, I was reading at a pace that allowed me to finish it in a week. When I did finish the third book, I found that I was remembering all the things I found wrong at the start of the story and how they were necessary to build up to the ending.

Ultimately, I liked the first Thomas Covenant trilogy but not in the way that I had initially foreseen; and I’m looking forward to starting the second trilogy once I finish writing this post. Although Thomas Covenant fans have stated that the second trilogy is slightly inferior to the original series, I feel that I will have an easier time with it as I am in a better position to read them now.

In summary:

Was it a great story? Yes. The greatest trilogy ever written? Probably not, but it’s probably up there in the top 10. Is Donaldson now my favorite fantasy author? Nope. That distinction still belongs to George R. R. Martin.