Book Review: Memory, Sorrow & Thorn
Cover art for the second book, Stone of Farewell
“Wanderers in the land of Osten Ard are cautioned not to put blind trust in old rules and forms, and to observe all rituals with a careful eye, for they often mask being with seeming.”
There is a sort of strange alchemy that binds plots and readers, a mysterious principle of attraction not quite reducible to “I like [X] genre” or “-stories featuring [Y] trope,” or even “[Author] is a gifted wordsmith.” Sometimes, a story simply fails to click, at times for reasons you can hardly make out yourself. At other times, a story will grab you so thoroughly that you will find yourself impatiently hurtling through its pages, only occasionally stopping to consider that blitzing through a book you are enjoying is a rather counterproductive way of savoring it. I read all 2,344 pages of Tad Williams’ trilogy Memory, Sorrow & Thorn in about 2 weeks. Safe to say, then, that it belonged to the latter camp for me.
The books take place in the world of Osten Ard, a Medieval setting populated by numerous kingdoms, yet all united under the governance of the High Ward, a feudal empire ruled by the beloved High King Prester John. In many ways, Osten Ard is a fairly typical and by-the-numbers Medieval European fantasy setting, yet Williams’ attention to detail—and his tendency to draw directly on real-world legends and history, not just on other fantasy authors—gives it a distinct and appealing texture. I will give just two examples. The first: Like so many settings, Williams’ has a Scandinavian-esque culture inhabiting the north of Osten Ard, the Rimmersmen: Unlike most fantasy settings, however, the Rimmersmen are very much the settled, post-conversion Norse, with no particular connection to the sea, and not the usual Viking lookalikes. The second example: To the southeast, Osten Ard is home to a vast grassland region called the Thrithings, inhabited by horse-riding nomads. So far, so ordinary. Yet Williams’ Thrithings-folk are not your usual Mongol-Plains Indians mashup, but are instead more like something halfway between the Goths and caravan-dwelling Gypsies, with vaguely Germanic-sounding names and a highly unique culture.
The story open with Simon, a 14-year old kitchen boy living and (occasionally) working in the Hayholt, the vast and mouldering castle that is the royal seat of Prester John. The Hayholt is the heart of Erkynland, Prester John’s original kingdom and the core of his empire. He is a good and beloved king, a unifier and a great hero in his youth: By the time of the story’s start, however, John is old and ailing, and not long for the world. Heir apparent is his oldest son, Prince Elias, yet Elias is grim, belligerent man, who has taken as his confidant the mad priest Pryrates. Through mysterious enticements and manipulations, Pryrates has convinced Prince—soon King—Elias to establish an alliance with the evil, snow-white Norns, an elvish race long since barred in the mountain of Nakkiga in the far north. Their objective: To reincarnate the Norn-queen’s undead son, Ineluki the Storm King, who was slain by human hands millennia in the past. Why Elias partakes in this plot is at first unknown, but Simon is sent scampering across Osten Ard to spread the word of Elias’ treachery, and eventually to search in quest of three ancient, magical swords—Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, said to have the power to defeat the Norns and banish Ineluki once more. On the way, Simon picks up a cast of friends, mentors and allies, including the “troll” Binabik (Williams’ “trolls” are more like a race of pygmy Inuit), King Elias’ own daughter, the princess Miriamele, and many others. Simon even ends up meeting and befriending the mysterious Sithi folk, the Norns’ secluded but less malevolent forest-dwelling kin, who play a key role in the tale. The story branches as it progresses, eventually pursuing multiple concurrent plotlines across the far corners of Osten Ard, all ultimately converging on a climax that does not go quite as one might expect.
“When frost doth grow on Cloves’ hell
And Shadows walk upon the road
When water blackens in the Well
Three Swords must come again
When Bukken from the Earth do creep
And Hunën from the heights descend
When Nightmare throttles peaceful Sleep
Three Swords must come again
To turn the stride of treading Fate
To clear the fogging Mists of Time
If Early shall resist Too Late
Three Swords must come again”
The three books that make up MS&T are not perfect—in fact, in certain respects they are very seriously flawed. The pacing, for one thing, is atrocious, and extremely uneven: Self-indulgently slow in places only to rapidly speed up before cratering off a cliff once more. At at over 520,000 words, the last book in the trilogy, To Green Angel Tower, was one of the longest novels ever written at release, frequently split up into two volumes in subsequent printings. I am not averse to long novels, nor to a measured pace, but it has to be justified. Though good, and noteworthy, for reasons I will get into, I do not think the quantity of plot on offer here merited the enormity of prose.
Nevertheless, my overall word on MS&T is a hearty recommendation: It is one of the greatest fantasy epics of all time. Williams is simply more interesting than most recent fantasy authors: His prose, though not at the level of your Tolkien, Vance or Le Guin, is enjoyable and at times poetic, his setting is richly realised and textured, and his characters are splendid. The latter is worth dwelling on, for it is really the main selling-point and thematic crux of the series: Memory, Sorrow & Thorn is ultimately a set of books about people, and especially one person—Simon. With Simon in particular, the reader is given an ample insight into his mind, both his thoughts and personality, as he struggles and develops throughout the story.
This psychological portrait is really what makes MS&T most unique, and what may be both its biggest appeal, and its biggest turn-off. As a young boy, barely into his teens, Simon is inexperienced, curious but rather oafish (a “mooncalf,” as he is often labelled), irresponsible, and frequently quite annoying. He is a very realistic portrayal of a boy of his age, and this aspect—seeing a richly rendered, psychologically believable but rather ordinary child be pressed through a grand fantasy adventure—is Williams’ biggest contribution and statement. Simon grows as the story progresses, but he grows the way real boys grow: Haltingly, often painfully, and only by iteration. He matures, but he is not transformed, he learns, but he does not magically attain wisdom. Simon is a person, not an archetype, and I say this neither as compliment nor criticism, but merely by way of observation. Archetypes are necessary for mythic tales, they are neither a limitation nor a crude device: For the grand adventure in high mimesis, some degree of archetypal framing should pervade the entire telling. But MS&T is a grand adventure told in low mimesis. Simon isn’t a subversion of anything as such, he’s not an especially bad person, a cynical person, a stupid person except in the ways young boys are stupid, but he is just… Simon, as he often reflects on in the story.
Yet like so many boys, Simon wants to be more, longs for heroism and adventure, and unlike so many, he actually gets it. Simon does become something of a hero over the course of the story, certainly in the eyes of the people around him—the problem is that Simon does not see himself through the eyes of others, but through his own eyes, and he knows the truth: That neither scars, nor slain monsters, nor a lock of white hair, silvered by the blood of a dragon, nor even the friendship of fairies or the company of royals—none of these things magically transmute the clay of a young boy into some other, finer stuff. He wants to become a hero, he does become a hero, and yet nothing seems to change. This is nearly always how growth works in real life, and not only for children. Even the grandest triumphs, the greatest opportunities—even fame, wealth, love and adventure do not suddenly make us someone or something other than ourselves. If we had hoped we could escape our paltry selves and be transformed through a chrysalis of worldly success, we are bitterly disappointed. Neither gold nor celebrity possess such powerful alchemy.
Cover art for the first book, The Dragonbone Chair
Throughout the novels, Williams betrays a substantial engagement as I have said already with real-world historical literature and myth: Scattered throughout are copious references to Arthuriana, sagas, Medieval Robin Hood ballads and more. It is not a deep, fundamental wrestling with philological sources at the level of an Inklings author, nor would one expect this of course, but it is notable and appreciated. Though Williams’ Prester John has nothing to do with the real legend, and the word ‘Prester’ has lost its meaning, the very inclusion of the name was rather striking to me. John’s youngest son, Prince Joshua, is a clear King Alfred figure, all the way down to Williams giving him Alfred’s story of the burnt cakes.
The name Sithi for his elvish race is, of course, an allusion to the Celtic, yet the Sithi themselves—mercifully—are not yet another Hiberno-Welsh elven pastiche. Their language takes on notes of Japanese, peppered with enough apostrophes at some times to obscure this (‘Ki’ushapo,’ ‘Nenais’u’), though at times less so (‘Amerasu’ is rather flagrant). Their culture and society is also quite refreshingly unique: Ever since the breaking of the unity of ancient ‘Sithidom,’ with the first arrival of iron-wielding human races and the destruction of old Asu'a beneath the Hayholt, the Sithi have resided in scattered settlements throughout the vast Aldheorte Forest, their various clans headed by ritual leaders whose functions are centered around a ceremony called the ‘Year Dancing.’ Much of this is of course identifiably Tolkienian in the broader strokes, yet Williams weaves his inspirations together in a way that feels unique. Adding to this is the fact that Williams’ Sithi are far more alien than your standard fantasy elves—their limbs are often described as bending in ways not possible for a human’s—and indeed are very heavily implied to have arrived to the world of Osten Ard from something like outer space in the ancient past. I will mention in passing that the detail of the Sithi’s aversion to iron is an allusion to real-world fairy folklore, and yet another example of Williams’ tendency to mix his more derivative genre conventions with infusions from an evident reading of actual history, old legend and folklore—a rarity, among latter-day fantasy authors.
“As he walked beneath the velvet-black sky and wheeling stars, Simon felt as if an entire lifetime might be passing with incredible swiftness; simultaneously, the night journey seemed but a single moment of nearinfinite duration. Time itself seemed to sweep through him, leaving behind a wild mixture of scents and sounds. Aldheorte had become a single living thing that changed all around him as the deathly chill melted away and the warmth came pushing through. Even in darkness he could sense the immense, almost convulsive alterations.
As they walked in bright starlight beside the chattering, laughing river, Simon thought he could sense green leaves springing from bare boughs and vibrant flowers forcing their way out of the frozen ground, fragile petals unfurling like the wings of butterflies. The forest seemed to be shaking off winter like a snake shrugging its old, useless skin.”
The last point I wish to hit is that of the story’s fundamental goodness. MS&T is a dark series, “subversive” in many places as goes genre expectations, not frightened of attacking certain sacred cows of convention. Nevertheless, Williams never revels in shock value, nor falls into the trap of conflating such basic table-turning for actual cleverness and insight. MS&T takes a hammer to the edifice of heroic fantasy, but it does so ultimately to harden and strengthen it, not for the joy of watching pieces fly apart.
Deconstruction serves a purpose in literature: It can, when treated properly, be like prairie fire, which, although destructive, clears the weeds and dead grasses, opening for new growths. A genre is inherently an artificial thing, the strict categorizations we now take for granted being a product of the publishing industry during the 20th century. There is something inescapably constraining about the concept, and if maintained too strongly, the cordoning of works into isolated genres tends invariably to lead to stagnation and decay; conventions begin to pile up, rigid tropes start to form, and authors begin drawing entirely for inspiration upon previous authors in the same tradition, leading to a sort of spiraling ‘genre incest,’ where no new infusions of styles or ideas take place. If left unchecked, such growing staleness would be the death of the genre: The fantasy genre in the 70s and 80s might not unjustly be judged as heading in that direction. In this context, the occasional pulse of deconstruction may be a necessary corrective mechanism, grabbing hold of the ossifying genre and shaking it till the parts start moving once more.
The above only holds, however, if deconstruction is taken as a mere stage in a cycle, the next stage of which must necessarily be reconstruction. This is the fatal point. Since the 90s, the trajectory—only accelerating—has been towards ever more deconstructive, subversive, unsettling reinterpretations of genre conventions: “This isn’t your grandpa’s formulaic post-Tolkieniana.” Intrigue, betrayal, sexual abuse, failed prophecies and an ever-growing impulse towards nihilism and grimy cynicism has been the hallmark of the ‘bold’ new fantasy. In and of itself, this is not necessarily a bad evolution of the genre. Tolkien himself handled many of the same themes in the Silmarillion narratives, particularly in the Children of Húrin. These had, however, minimal impact on the development of the post-Tolkien fantasy genre prior to the grimdark turn, and your default Shannara-Wheel of Time-Dragonlance fare of the 70s and 80s were a flattened, simplified distillate of the writers that inspired them, if not without certain merits of their own.
The problem, then, was not inherently the turn towards a sharper, more serious engagement with the darker sides of life. It had its place, it had its cause. But deconstruction must precede reconstruction if it is to be anything else than senseless vandalism and a dull wallowing in cynicism. This reconstructive effort, however, largely did not follow, and most of the great subversive writers were quite content to remain in their subversion, chuckling at their temerity as they chopped off the head of yet another beloved character. The reason for this entire detour on deconstruction is to tell that Williams in MS&T partakes, in part, in this same deconstructive turn, but then actually follows it to an edifying, reconstructive end. Williams smashes up many of his pieces, but he then has the common curtesy to put them back together again.
I will not spoil how the story ends, nor will I say if it ends happily, but I will confirm that it ends well, justifying the hardships it drew the reader through. As far as I am concerned, the reader of modern fantasy could go far, far worse than William’s sprawling, self-indulgent and often grim epic, which is among the best the genre has to offer.