Caro.PA@PARC-MAXC.ARPA@sri-unix.UUCP (08/11/83)
(I should mention first that I have NOT yet read the Second Chronicles ... I'm waiting for \White Gold Wielder/ to come out in paperback so that I can buy and read all three books at once.) Re: Mongiovi's in 8:42 "... I think Thomas Covenant needs some lessons on how to be an effective human being ..." That's just the point. I have often heard people claim that Covenant is just "too unbelieveable" and that no "normal" human being would do what he has done. Covenant is a pariah and a leper. The world is full of hatred for him ... every sharp edge, every hard surface is potential Death to him. Would you expect ANYONE to act like an "effective" or "normal" human being under such conditions? Donaldson makes this all quite plain. He portrays Covenant as a naive young author (in \Lord Foul's Bane/) who is happy with his life and his marriage. But after Covenant comes down with Hansen's disease, he loses two fingers, his wife, his innocence, and his PASSION. All that's left to him is his drive to survive. That's why I love it when TC acts like such a schmuck in the Land. I think it's excrutiatingly delightful when he refuses to do what I would do myself, what any other "normal" human being would do. It is his inaction that tells me something about my own motives. He's the perfect anti-hero. I could go on and on about Covenant, the Land, how it seems that Donaldson CONSCIOUSLY tried to make the Land as un-Tolkienesque as possible but used the same archetypes anyway (... Woodhelvin-mumble <=> elves, Stonedowners <=> dwarves, Forestalls <=> ents, Ur-viles <=> Orcs, Lord Foul <=> Sauron, etc.), blah, blah, blah, but I will stop here. Perry PS I heard a rumor that Donaldson is writing mystery novels under pen-name. Anyone have some facts?