Exploring where life and story meet!

Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Strange Bedfellows and a Lack of Sleep

I did not think it possible, or at least hoped I had outgrown it, but I have fallen again into the temptation of staying up far too late reading a book; it is a flaw I had not indulged in since graduate school ten years ago and hoped it was now merely a matter of historical interest, rather it was only a lack of tempting reading material that kept me from this rather venial sin.  But I have overindulged on literary treats in the last few days and my mind is still reeling slightly from the barrage it has just suffered, but I am happy (and more importantly know how it ended), thus I can get back to life as usual, sadly neglected of late.  I have had this trait for as long as I can remember, not so much a reading addiction as a need to know how things end, it applies to any sort of story, be it a movie, a book, or what have you.  I have no patience (or think I don't) to wait for how everything plays out, so if I catch wind of a good story, the rest of life is all too easily forgotten.  Perhaps that is one reason I enjoy reading well read and beloved books over again, I then have the freedom to lay them aside and not feel anxious for the plight of the hero.  A predilection I have even noticed in my own stories, I cannot keep something a secret too long, hence I tend more towards short stories.  I haven't picked up a book like that in years, until a few days ago.  I had thought it impossible to ever find a living, current writer I could enjoy so much but I am happily wrong.

I have started many a newer work only to lay it aside in disappointment or disgust, perhaps being too picky, but there was always something amiss: the writing style, the plot, the characters, the world, the pacing, but most especially the worldview.  I demand excellent writing, an intriguing plot, characters I care about, a world that feels as if I am part of it, a pace that neither lags nor races, and something that speaks to what it means to be human, but not in a way that is unreal, shallow, or false.  I need a book with soul, or rather that acknowledges that people are more than a collection of atoms dwelling in an accidental universe, and in so doing also speaks to the deeper reality of our own existence; a book that still means something when the story is over, from which I cannot walk away unchanged.  This is one of those books.

It is very hard to write a review of such a work, it cannot be summed up well in a few words but rather must be experienced.  Other works I have read have occasionally popped into my mind as comparisons, though having some commonalities (as most good books will) it is something that is altogether unique (also as a good book should be).  It is a fantasy novel, containing the familiar battle of good versus evil, but it takes a look at both sides, the flaws and strengths and vagaries and subspecies of each and takes them all seriously.  It is a four book series and the first book had me hooked immediately, turning all my preconceptions on their head; I was putty in the author's hands, annoyed at my own gullibility but delighted by the unanticipated twists and turns.  The first book starts out innocently enough in the tradition of Ben-hur and 'Gladiator', but as the series goes on, it deepens and fleshes out in ways hardly to be imagined but certainly enjoyed.

But as good as the story is, its undercurrents are even better and it contains resounding echoes from many of my favorite books.  It has the 'insanely hopeful in spite of overwhelming odds and looming despair' feeling of A Tale of Two Cities.  It has the powerful themes of redemption and love, and the rejection thereof, of Les Miserables.  There is a spicy hint of The Screwtape Letters and a whisper of Pilgrim's Progress.  It has all the twists, turns, complicated characters and plots, political intrigue, action, romance, adventure, an immersive world, and intense pacing of the first three Robert Jordan novels (the Wheel of Time series) without the tedium and stagnation found in his later books.  But most of all, after everything, it most seems to echo The Imitation of Christ.  Yes you read that correctly.  A fantasy novel that also speaks to the very core of your soul and demands of you answers to the same questions the characters must face.

It was painful at times, a mirror into which I did not want to look, but also refreshingly true and taking that truth very seriously.  There were times I wanted to slap the characters, not because they were annoying, well yes they were annoying because they didn't make the decisions which they obviously should make the moment I thought they should, but why was that so frustrating?  I saw myself and my own misdeeds and indecision and stupid thoughts echoed in their own.  They were real and struggled with the same things all mortal men must wrestle with; they were not one dimensional caricatures that went out and slew the dragon and returned triumphant.  They were not thoroughly evil or good (at least the human characters), even if they were a villain or a hero respectively, they were some combination of both, sometimes hardly recognizable as a hero one moment in their pettiness or sulks and the next heart wrenchingly grand: just like all of us!  People were confused, misguided, led by deeper passions to which they could put no name but thinking they were acting on some nobler motive, they doubted, they boasted, they were people, incredibly human: deep, complicated, often unaware of their motives, falling short of their potential, overcoming their weaknesses.  It is a good story, but it is also a grand adventure of the soul.  The Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King series) by Karen Hancock.

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