Nevarre Goes Fitzy
Aug. 4th, 2008 10:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mtvesselApr 2008
Forest Mage - Robin Hobb - Harper Voyager, 2006
* *
And it started so well. Shaman's Crossing introduced a promising Victorian fantasy world and a protagonist, the pious and conventional soldier son Nevarre, who was at least different from Hobb's previous hero, the self-pitying Fitz. Unfortunately in this book all the original elements are thrown away and it degenerates into a re-telling of the original Assassin trilogy with some minor variations.
Contrary to my expectations, the first 230 pages are the best thing in the book. The story picks up immediately as Nevarre, recovering rather too well from the events at the end of Shaman's Crossing, develops a personal problem with which many readers will sympathise. This leads to a spectacular fight with his family, with the escalating tensions topped by a dramatic and shocking event. Its effect in narrative terms, however, is unfortunately characteristic of the novel as a whole. For Nevarre ends up cutting a great many ties with his old life and heading out on his own towards the eastern border.
This theme of isolation is one that Hobb covered in teeth-grinding detail in the Assassin and Tawny Man trilogies and she adds little that is new here. Its cause is much the same - Nevarre believes himself to be at the mercy of the Speck's magic with which he still appears to be linked despite previous events (incidentally, the constant references to "the magic" wanting or doing this that or the other is one of the many annoyances of this book. I can understand that Hobb would not want to antagonise her religiously inclined readers, but a powerful supernatural force with a will and purpose of its own is a god by pretty much any definition of the word and the fact that neither Nevarre nor the Speck use it is completely out of keeping). Now a sensible hero would say "I have this link with my enemy's magic, which I consider to be a curse - how do I get rid of it?" But not Nevarre. He bumbles around, inadvertently doing what the Speck magic/god wants anyway, and refusing to communicate with anyone who could help him. In short, he turns into Fitz.
Nevarre's extreme stupidity is, I fear, part of a narrative pattern common to certain female fantasy writers (for example Mary Gentle and, to a certain extent, J.K. Rowling), in which the male protagonist has an extremely bright and go-getting female friend who could sort out his problems in a trice if only he would talk to her. In this case the woman concerned is Epiny, whom Nevarre goes to ridiculous lengths to avoid meeting for fear that she might - you know - do something about his condition. OK, so it's consistent with Nevarre's Victorian attitude to women and makes a point about how masculine pride and prejudice can get in the way of sorting a problem out, but it's an annoying character trait.
In Nevarre's case, this is compounded by his conflicted attitude to the magic/god that is claiming him. Having your hero at the beck and call of a higher power and effectively telling the reader that no decision that he makes will have any significant effect on the narrative outcome is a good way of making them lose interest, particularly when sustained over 800 pages. The fact that the book's ending is very similar to something that Hobb has done previously (but better) doesn't help either.
I'm trying to think of a positive thing to say about this book, but to be honest it's hard. There are one or two things in it that suggest that Hobb hasn't completely lost her mojo (the weird scene at the Spindle, for one), but the fact that she seems unable to make a story out of the interesting politics and new characters she introduced in the first volume and instead has fallen back on plots she has done before suggests that she may have reached her imaginative limits as a writer. Perhaps the third volume will prove me wrong, but I fear not.
Forest Mage - Robin Hobb - Harper Voyager, 2006
* *
And it started so well. Shaman's Crossing introduced a promising Victorian fantasy world and a protagonist, the pious and conventional soldier son Nevarre, who was at least different from Hobb's previous hero, the self-pitying Fitz. Unfortunately in this book all the original elements are thrown away and it degenerates into a re-telling of the original Assassin trilogy with some minor variations.
Contrary to my expectations, the first 230 pages are the best thing in the book. The story picks up immediately as Nevarre, recovering rather too well from the events at the end of Shaman's Crossing, develops a personal problem with which many readers will sympathise. This leads to a spectacular fight with his family, with the escalating tensions topped by a dramatic and shocking event. Its effect in narrative terms, however, is unfortunately characteristic of the novel as a whole. For Nevarre ends up cutting a great many ties with his old life and heading out on his own towards the eastern border.
This theme of isolation is one that Hobb covered in teeth-grinding detail in the Assassin and Tawny Man trilogies and she adds little that is new here. Its cause is much the same - Nevarre believes himself to be at the mercy of the Speck's magic with which he still appears to be linked despite previous events (incidentally, the constant references to "the magic" wanting or doing this that or the other is one of the many annoyances of this book. I can understand that Hobb would not want to antagonise her religiously inclined readers, but a powerful supernatural force with a will and purpose of its own is a god by pretty much any definition of the word and the fact that neither Nevarre nor the Speck use it is completely out of keeping). Now a sensible hero would say "I have this link with my enemy's magic, which I consider to be a curse - how do I get rid of it?" But not Nevarre. He bumbles around, inadvertently doing what the Speck magic/god wants anyway, and refusing to communicate with anyone who could help him. In short, he turns into Fitz.
Nevarre's extreme stupidity is, I fear, part of a narrative pattern common to certain female fantasy writers (for example Mary Gentle and, to a certain extent, J.K. Rowling), in which the male protagonist has an extremely bright and go-getting female friend who could sort out his problems in a trice if only he would talk to her. In this case the woman concerned is Epiny, whom Nevarre goes to ridiculous lengths to avoid meeting for fear that she might - you know - do something about his condition. OK, so it's consistent with Nevarre's Victorian attitude to women and makes a point about how masculine pride and prejudice can get in the way of sorting a problem out, but it's an annoying character trait.
In Nevarre's case, this is compounded by his conflicted attitude to the magic/god that is claiming him. Having your hero at the beck and call of a higher power and effectively telling the reader that no decision that he makes will have any significant effect on the narrative outcome is a good way of making them lose interest, particularly when sustained over 800 pages. The fact that the book's ending is very similar to something that Hobb has done previously (but better) doesn't help either.
I'm trying to think of a positive thing to say about this book, but to be honest it's hard. There are one or two things in it that suggest that Hobb hasn't completely lost her mojo (the weird scene at the Spindle, for one), but the fact that she seems unable to make a story out of the interesting politics and new characters she introduced in the first volume and instead has fallen back on plots she has done before suggests that she may have reached her imaginative limits as a writer. Perhaps the third volume will prove me wrong, but I fear not.
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Date: 2008-08-13 09:06 pm (UTC)