What do you think?
Rate this book
527 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published September 1, 1978
28%. "Treading water and sputtering, he looked around until he located Elena. “Fair warning!” He tried to sound angry despite Glimmermere’s fresh, exuberant chill. “I’ll teach you fair warning!” He reached her in a few swift strokes, and shoved her head down."Flirting
"He felt her tugging at his feet. Grabbing a deep breath, he upended himself and plunged after her. For the first time, he opened his eyes underwater, and found that he could see well. Elena swam near him, grinning. He reached her in a moment, and caught her by the waist. Instead of trying to pull away, she turned, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him on the mouth."Intimate gestures
"Clenching himself, he rolled over, and found that she sat close to him, regarding him softly. Unable to resist the sensation, he touched a strand of her wet hair, rubbed it between his fingers."And finally a smidgeon of awareness.
"but when he tried to relax and flow with it, his pulse throbbed uncomfortably in his chest. He was too conscious of Elena’s presence."Clearly attracted to his daughter and not perturbed by it. In this process, Elena is beginning to throw herself at her father. This reaches its apex at Trothgard.
78%, "Then the High Lord interrupted his reverie. She had left her robe and the Staff of Law on the grass by her graveling. Wrapped only in a blanket, and drying her hair with one corner of it, she came to join him. Though the blanket hung about her thickly, revealing even less of her supple figure than did her robe, her presence felt more urgent than ever. The simple movement of her limbs as she seated herself at his side exerted an unsettling influence over him. She demanded responses. He found that his chest hurt again, as it had at Glimmermere."Gets in some more violence against women, and once again the trusty Bloodguard are missing in action.
"She did not answer aloud. Instead she turned toward him. Tears streaked her cheeks. She was silhouetted against the darkening vista of Trothgard, as she stepped up to him, slipped her arms about his neck, and kissed him. He gasped, and her breath was snatched into his lungs. He was stunned. A black mist filled his sight as her lips caressed his. Then for a moment he lost control. He repulsed her as if her breath carried infection. Crying, “Bastard!” he swung, backhanded her face with all his force. The blow staggered her."Elena, Covenant's daughter by rape proposes to him.
"Her answer seemed to spring clean and clear out of the strange otherness of her gaze. “You cannot ravish me, Thomas Covenant. There is no crime here. I am willing. I have chosen you.”"Covenant shows out-of-character restraint...
"He stroked away the salt pain of her tears with his thumbs, and kissed her forehead tenderly."
17%. "My mother understood at once that this was a gift from you. And she shared it with me. It was so easy for her to forget that you had hurt her. Did I not tell you that I also am young? I am Elena daughter of Lena daughter of Atiaran Trell-mate. Lena my mother remains in Mithil Stonedown, for she insists that you will return to her." - Elena
34%. “You are young and I am old. This journey has taken much from me. I have few summers left. There is nothing.” “My time has a different speed. Don’t covet my life.” “You are Covenant Ringthane. You have power. How should I not covet?” He ducked away from her gaze; and after a short pause she added, “The Ranyhyn still await your command. Nothing is ended. They served you at Mount Thunder, and will serve you again—until you release them.”
37%. “You should have expected it. Or what did you think this Oath of Peace is about? It’s a commitment to the forgiving of lepers—of Kevin and Trell. As if forgiveness weren’t the one thing no leper or criminal either could ever have any use for.” - Covenant
"If he did, he would soon come to resemble Hile Troy—a man so overwhelmed by the power, of sight that he could not perceive the blindness of his desire to assume responsibility for the Land. That would be suicide for a leper. If he failed, he would die."
82%. "The next instant, he saw Elena’s gaze again, felt it sear his memory. He halted. A sudden idea threw back the chill. It sprang practically full-grown into view as if it had been maturing for days in the darkness of his mind, waiting until he was ready."
"16%. He grasped the krill in both fists, its blade pointing downward. With a convulsive movement, he stabbed the sword at the heart of the table, trying to break its blunt blade on the stone. ... “Unbeliever—you have brought the krill to life.” ... then at 19% ... That Covenant could not refuse; he was too ashamed of his essential impotence, too angry. Kicking himself vehemently into motion, he strode out of his suite."
62%. "Callindrill was trying to help them. Rapidly he tore their clothing into strips, made tourniquets and bandages. He did not look up to see his danger."
"Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events. Crudely stated, this means that in fantasy the characters meet themselves - or parts of themselves, their own needs/problems/exigencies - as actors on the stage of the story, and so the internal struggle to deal with those needs/problems/exigencies is played out as an external struggle in the action of the story."
"In fantasy, however,
the ultimate justification for all the external details arises from the characters themselves. The characters confer reality on their surroundings. This is obviously true in "The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant." The villain of the piece, Lord Foul, is a personified evil whose importance hinges explicitly on the fact that he is a part of Thomas Covenant. On some level, Covenant despises himself for his leprosy - so in the fantasy he meets that Despite from the outside; he meets Lord Foul and wrestles with him as an external enemy."
"30%. “No,” Covenant said. “I recognized something in what you said—I’m starting to understand this. Listen. This whole crisis here is a struggle inside me. By hell, I’ve been a leper so long, I’m starting to think that the way people treat lepers is justified. So I’m becoming my own enemy, my own Despiser—working against myself when I try to stay alive by agreeing with the people who make it so hard. That’s why I’m dreaming this. Catharsis. Work out the dilemma subconsciously, so that when I wake up I’ll be able to cope.”
He could not go on in this fashion. If he did, he would soon come to resemble Hile Troy -- a man so overwhelmed by the power of sight that he could not perceive the blindness of his desire to assume responsibility for the Land. That would be suicide for a leper.Ugh. Not this again, this crap that you're the only one who can't believe in the Land because it will doom you as a leper. I really hoped we had gotten that out of our system in the 1st book. It was by far the most tedious part.
If he failed, he would die. And if he succeeded, he would never again be able to bear the numbness of his real life, his leprosy.Okay, so couldn't you just kill yourself at that point, if it was truly so difficult to bear?
He knew lepers who had died that way, but for them the death was never quick, never clean. Their ends lay beyond a fetid ugliness so abominable that he felt nauseated whenever he remembered that such putrefaction existed.Okay, still not seeing why suicide wouldn't be an option here. . . maybe because of that promise you made to yourself to survive? Umm, I guess, but is there nothing to be said at all for being sole witness to one of the most amazing glimpses of alternative dimensions that any human has ever seen? That's surely gotta be worth something.
“He had burned that book too late.”