Friday, 3 April 2020 09:36 pm
DOUBLE Book Review: Tales of the Long Bow + Assassin's Apprentice
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deckardcanineI hadn't mentioned that I was reading G.K. Chesterton's Tales of the Long Bow at the same time as other books. It is, in fact, the first published novel I've read entirely online, via Project Gutenberg. What can I say; it wasn't at the local bookstore or library. It isn't famous enough for a Wikipedia entry, yet I've seen it quoted a couple times in my circles. Since the above web version doesn't make for easy bookmarking, I took to reading a chapter at a time, sometimes weeks or months apart.
Fortunately, each of those eight lengthy chapters stands on its own pretty well. The story is semi-episodic, with continuity mattering a little more later. The overarching theme is a group of men in England (of course) who, perhaps without meaning to, take turns bringing silly expressions to literal reality, particularly those that are supposed to evoke impossible tasks but may be merely difficult under normal circumstances. Eventually, they make a name for themselves as the League of the Long Bow. One of them has the last name Hood, and the poetry of this is not lost on them.
The title refers to "drawing the long bow," which means lying or exaggerating (yeah, some of these expressions aren't widely used in the modern U.S.), but the Long Bowmen are generally quite honest. In fact, as befits Chesterton, many of its shenanigans serve to oppose developments by dishonest authorities. Others at least shine light on peculiar facets of culture. Never do they prank for the sake thereof; they take themselves seriously. Also as befits Chesterton, the pet issues tend to feel still relevant. He may even have been ahead of his time, as when he decries water pollution.
It's a little tricky for me to talk about the events without giving too much away. Let's just say they challenge the reader to spend a while figuring out what expression is the focus of a given chapter. If the solution to each mystery doesn't strike you as all that funny, you may still laugh at the character interactions, especially the repartee. As well as the narrator's self-deprecation, suggesting that nobody would care to read this. My personal favorite chapter was the hilarious first, despite (or in part because of?) it being one of the most credible and uncontroversial.
If you decide to check it out, I recommend either a different format or more frequent reading than I chose. Chesterton may be witty, but he's not big on brevity.
Shortly after I finished that, I got through Assassin's Apprentice, the start of Robin Hobb's Farseer series.
In a land called the Six Duchies, a grumpy old man unceremoniously drops off his six-year-old grandson, the first-person narrator, at the royal palace, saying that this is the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry (the nobles here have Puritan-type names) and an unidentified commoner. Nobody doubts the claim, because he looks a lot like his father, but nobody really knows what to do with him. He doesn't even appear to have a proper name, so they usually call him Fitz, which technically means "son" but has come to imply a bastard (not necessarily that kind). Only in his early teens does anyone call him FitzChivalry Farseer, and not often.
Fitz gets pretty much the worst of both worlds. He's expected to train in upper-class ways and avoid lower-class friends, but to what end? He's unlikely to ascend the throne. He meets his father maybe once, without remembering. Much of the time, he's not even afforded basic human respect, as if he couldn't understand speech. (To be fair, he is extraordinarily laconic early on.) The few who care about him, including Burrich, the servant of Chivalry who becomes Fitz's long-time caretaker, don't exactly love him. Several, including an uncle who makes Claudius from Hamlet look decent and a teacher who could raise nostalgia for Severus Snape, resent his very existence. He's rarely happy, yet he never complains of unfairness.
King Shrewd, who apparently lives up to his name, may be the first to recognize Fitz's potential. After upping his grandson's luxuries, he invites Fitz to train in secret under a fellow royal bastard, the king's assassin. Unlike in The Way of Shadows, his usual killing technique involves poison rather than melee weapons. And it's not all killing; he does various stealthy deeds on command. Fitz welcomes almost anything to make him feel important.
As you may have surmised, this is one of those high fantasies where magic takes a while to have a major presence. Fitz does have two rare innate talents. From his father, he inherited "the Skill," a set of psychic powers, including a passive detection of emotions that usually allows him to sense people's presence before he can see or hear them. From his mother, he inherited "the old Wit," which lets him communicate and bond strongly with animals. Burrich forbids the latter, because it can inspire beastly behavior in the human, but Fitz sees nothing wrong with that. (Hey, if people are going to treat him like a beast anyway...)
Another form of magic is manifest in an occasional companion known only as the Fool. Nobody knows for sure where he came from, what his sex is, or even what species he is besides half human. (We don't hear of any other sapient species or even much of fictitious animals, so that's weird.) He may act quirky, but he actually knows a lot, sometimes dropping cryptic prophecies to help Fitz.
The other magic, alas, is pure evil. The Red Ship Raiders from overseas have been abducting citizens from coastal towns and then offering to kill them for pay or return them otherwise. That's not backwards; the released captives are never the same again and might be deemed better off dead. I can't rightly say what happened to them, let alone how, but they care almost exclusively about satisfying their hunger and greed. They're not exactly zombies; they still have their memories and talk a little when they feel like it, but in some ways, they're sub-animal in the way they treat themselves. Fitz can't sense them as he can others, which lets them reach him before he's ready. Good thing they don't trust each other enough for well-coordinated attacks.
At the end of this 435-page volume, things are looking up for Fitz a little in the wake of a victory, but the story is still just beginning. He's no Kvothe; his talent combo hardly makes him a Renaissance man yet. I feel like Hobb didn't budget his time well, partly because the narration gives short shrift to the assassin work, tho that may have been an effort to discourage our possible perception of Fitz as an antihero.
With that in mind, I'm not surprised that the immediate sequel appears to be slightly more popular. Maybe I'll read it someday. For now, I find AA passable. It's not the dreariest book I've read in the last year, nor did it ever bore me. I only wish it had gotten more out of the way.
My next read is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. That also has a mixed-blood royal teen boy despised for existing, but it looks pretty different.
Fortunately, each of those eight lengthy chapters stands on its own pretty well. The story is semi-episodic, with continuity mattering a little more later. The overarching theme is a group of men in England (of course) who, perhaps without meaning to, take turns bringing silly expressions to literal reality, particularly those that are supposed to evoke impossible tasks but may be merely difficult under normal circumstances. Eventually, they make a name for themselves as the League of the Long Bow. One of them has the last name Hood, and the poetry of this is not lost on them.
The title refers to "drawing the long bow," which means lying or exaggerating (yeah, some of these expressions aren't widely used in the modern U.S.), but the Long Bowmen are generally quite honest. In fact, as befits Chesterton, many of its shenanigans serve to oppose developments by dishonest authorities. Others at least shine light on peculiar facets of culture. Never do they prank for the sake thereof; they take themselves seriously. Also as befits Chesterton, the pet issues tend to feel still relevant. He may even have been ahead of his time, as when he decries water pollution.
It's a little tricky for me to talk about the events without giving too much away. Let's just say they challenge the reader to spend a while figuring out what expression is the focus of a given chapter. If the solution to each mystery doesn't strike you as all that funny, you may still laugh at the character interactions, especially the repartee. As well as the narrator's self-deprecation, suggesting that nobody would care to read this. My personal favorite chapter was the hilarious first, despite (or in part because of?) it being one of the most credible and uncontroversial.
If you decide to check it out, I recommend either a different format or more frequent reading than I chose. Chesterton may be witty, but he's not big on brevity.
Shortly after I finished that, I got through Assassin's Apprentice, the start of Robin Hobb's Farseer series.
In a land called the Six Duchies, a grumpy old man unceremoniously drops off his six-year-old grandson, the first-person narrator, at the royal palace, saying that this is the illegitimate son of Prince Chivalry (the nobles here have Puritan-type names) and an unidentified commoner. Nobody doubts the claim, because he looks a lot like his father, but nobody really knows what to do with him. He doesn't even appear to have a proper name, so they usually call him Fitz, which technically means "son" but has come to imply a bastard (not necessarily that kind). Only in his early teens does anyone call him FitzChivalry Farseer, and not often.
Fitz gets pretty much the worst of both worlds. He's expected to train in upper-class ways and avoid lower-class friends, but to what end? He's unlikely to ascend the throne. He meets his father maybe once, without remembering. Much of the time, he's not even afforded basic human respect, as if he couldn't understand speech. (To be fair, he is extraordinarily laconic early on.) The few who care about him, including Burrich, the servant of Chivalry who becomes Fitz's long-time caretaker, don't exactly love him. Several, including an uncle who makes Claudius from Hamlet look decent and a teacher who could raise nostalgia for Severus Snape, resent his very existence. He's rarely happy, yet he never complains of unfairness.
King Shrewd, who apparently lives up to his name, may be the first to recognize Fitz's potential. After upping his grandson's luxuries, he invites Fitz to train in secret under a fellow royal bastard, the king's assassin. Unlike in The Way of Shadows, his usual killing technique involves poison rather than melee weapons. And it's not all killing; he does various stealthy deeds on command. Fitz welcomes almost anything to make him feel important.
As you may have surmised, this is one of those high fantasies where magic takes a while to have a major presence. Fitz does have two rare innate talents. From his father, he inherited "the Skill," a set of psychic powers, including a passive detection of emotions that usually allows him to sense people's presence before he can see or hear them. From his mother, he inherited "the old Wit," which lets him communicate and bond strongly with animals. Burrich forbids the latter, because it can inspire beastly behavior in the human, but Fitz sees nothing wrong with that. (Hey, if people are going to treat him like a beast anyway...)
Another form of magic is manifest in an occasional companion known only as the Fool. Nobody knows for sure where he came from, what his sex is, or even what species he is besides half human. (We don't hear of any other sapient species or even much of fictitious animals, so that's weird.) He may act quirky, but he actually knows a lot, sometimes dropping cryptic prophecies to help Fitz.
The other magic, alas, is pure evil. The Red Ship Raiders from overseas have been abducting citizens from coastal towns and then offering to kill them for pay or return them otherwise. That's not backwards; the released captives are never the same again and might be deemed better off dead. I can't rightly say what happened to them, let alone how, but they care almost exclusively about satisfying their hunger and greed. They're not exactly zombies; they still have their memories and talk a little when they feel like it, but in some ways, they're sub-animal in the way they treat themselves. Fitz can't sense them as he can others, which lets them reach him before he's ready. Good thing they don't trust each other enough for well-coordinated attacks.
At the end of this 435-page volume, things are looking up for Fitz a little in the wake of a victory, but the story is still just beginning. He's no Kvothe; his talent combo hardly makes him a Renaissance man yet. I feel like Hobb didn't budget his time well, partly because the narration gives short shrift to the assassin work, tho that may have been an effort to discourage our possible perception of Fitz as an antihero.
With that in mind, I'm not surprised that the immediate sequel appears to be slightly more popular. Maybe I'll read it someday. For now, I find AA passable. It's not the dreariest book I've read in the last year, nor did it ever bore me. I only wish it had gotten more out of the way.
My next read is Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld. That also has a mixed-blood royal teen boy despised for existing, but it looks pretty different.