Prior to and after reading this book, I read several other books by Stephen R. Donaldson. The ones that I read AFTER this, I read because I hoped he could recapture what he finally achieved here. The ones I read PRIOR TO this, I read because while they were a bit pedestrian, unnecessarily (and uninterestingly) convoluted and just plain mediocre, there was SOMETHING there, or so I thought…every once in a while, Donaldson would evoke an image or stir an emotion that made me STOP wanting to put it down. Then it’d go away, and I’d wait patiently for the next time…which meant long periods of drudgery rewarded only sporadically. Still, it was enough to keep me reading the entirety of ‘The Wounded Land’ and ‘The One Tree’, neither of which are worth re-reading…the brief summary at the beginning of this book is quite enough to get you “caught up”.
So I don’t know if I was more astonished or vindicated when this book started off better than either of the previous two, climbed incrementally until around the middle, and then climbed exponentially near the end. It’s a one-hit wonder…it’s pretty good in the first half and brilliant after that. And I have absolutely no idea where it came from. It was as if, just briefly, he was fully possessed by fervent inspiration, driving home emotions (some rewarding, some painful) with irresistible force that changed my attitude from “almost wanting to put it down” to literally being equal parts awed and terrified by the immense power of his writing; not wanting it to end because it was so amazing, not wanting to READ the end because it could be so potentially gut-wrenching, wondering WHY I suddenly cared SO MUCH about the two main characters. It still puzzles me today…and I still can’t think of portions of it without feeling actual physical pain/sadness.
Usually I enjoy re-reading books that I like. In very rare cases, I prefer not to, because they affect me so greatly (in some way) that it takes me a while to literally get over the feelings they induce.
I don’t think I’ll ever read anything by Stephen Donaldson ever again, “re” or otherwise, but this is the only one that places in that category for reasons of “Self-Preservation”, and not boredom.
Inspirational Quote: “Nom”
Grade: A-