Breaking the Author/Reader Contract.

[Tsyr]

No, every post you've put up demonstrates quite clearly that you don't understand the books. Not liking them is fine. However, pointing out that everything you've posted about the books indicates that you missed the point is not the same thing as saying you should like them. And everything you've posted indicates that you didn't understand what the books were about.

I've been silent so far; I mostly lurk these days, sadly. But I have to chime in here.

What mouse (and others, and now myself) I think are trying to tell you is this:

We understand the story isn't about a "hero".

We understand that the main character isn't a hero, and he doesn't want any of the stuff he's going though.

We understand that Donaldon is trying to do 'deep' fantasy here, making us question standard assumptions about character roles and such.

We get that, thank you very much.

The thing is, the book leaves me with *nothing*. It certainly doesn't inspire me. It doesn't entertain me. It doesn't make me stop to think about anything (I'm perfectly aware of what Donaldson is trying to show, thank you). It provides no revelations. It doesn't even present a view of a signifigant event (Unlike, say, Shindler's List).

To me, the entire series is a waste. I derive nothing from them, save for a general sense of distaste, a revulsion towards the main character I can rarely muster for anyone, and a renewed apathy for mankind.

See, here's the thing for me.

I can read a novel about a pretty terrible person. I've done that.

I can read a novel about a whiney person. I've done that.

But a novel about a terrible person who is whiney is too much.

I cannot *stand* the character. At all.

Any so called 'point' of Donaldson's work becomes irrelivant; I refuse to suffer through the books to get it. I don't care how important the message is, dealing with the insufferable human waste that Donaldson uses as a vehicle for the story turns me off.

Likewise I do not care that Covenant was a leper; I do not have real-world 'sympathy' as such for a novel character; Every facet of his character is defined by Donaldson. I do not grant him a pardon for being vile because of unfortunate life circumstances, because Donaldson wrote those life circumstances into him. They exist to give backdrop for the character obsensibly, but all they seem to be used as is an excuse to make a vile character, and try to get people to look at him in a more understanding light.

Yes, I read paste the rape scene. I made it nearly to the third book. And saw no reason to continue. Of course, no, I didn't finish it, so your response will be, "Well, because you didn't finish it, you missed the point".

Here is my point, summed up:

I don't care about the "point" of the book enough to deal with the absolutely vile main character long enough to get it.

This is where Donaldson failed.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

I, for one, would like to see this thread get back to the pertinent subject at hand.

Specifically-

How could Moorcock have written Moonglum out of the Elric novels? I just don't get it...?

 

[Umbran]

They decided not to let that define them. And they don't spend all their time whining about it.

Yes. And I had a brother with cerebral palsy and a Master's degree who couldn't get a job because nobody wanted to hire a cripple. You've no need to lecture me about the disadvantaged.

I am very glad your friends have managed to overcome their problems. They were lucky. Not all disadvantaged people are strong enough to avoid having their disadvantages define them. Some of them do whine about it incessantly. Normal people don't always win out over adversity. If you want to treat Covenant as a normal person, stop whipping him for failing to be superhuman.

As it is, my point wasn't about disadvantaged folks in general. It was about Covenant, specifically. His is a very peculiar case, chosen specifically because it woudl be outside the realm of most reader's experience. He isn';t your friends, or my brother. At the start of the book, he's not exactly sane. To expect him to react as Joe Average on the street might (as if we even knew how Joe Average would react!) is simply not reasonable.

 

[Umbran]

No, every post you've put up demonstrates quite clearly that you don't understand the books. Not liking them is fine. However, pointing out that everything you've posted about the books indicates that you missed the point is not the same thing as saying you should like them. And everything you've posted indicates that you didn't understand what the books were about.

Storm Raven, you are copping to a major fallacy - that there is a single "what this book is about" that one can point to. That there's a unique "what this book means" that a person can understand or not understand.

An author sets out to get some things across to the reader, sure. But in any novel-length work, it surely isn't just one thing. It is many things. In a series of six it is even more than many. In addition, no modern author worth his salt (and OCvenant notwithstanding, Donaldson is one), who believes that what he writes into a work is the only thing that a reader should get out of it. Each reader is a unique individual, and will get some unique things from a work.

You got some things out of Covenant, fine. The fact that others did not get the exact same experience from the books doesn't make you right, and them wrong. Or them misunderstanding.

 

[Desdichado]

Next you're going to tell me that I suxxor because I have a GameCube and your X-box pwnz it.

Let's not get carried away. It's self-evident that an xbox pwnz a gamecube...

 

[barsoomcore]

A novel about a terrible person who is whiney is too much. I cannot *stand* the character.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and bet that you're not trying to make an absolute statement here -- rather, you're trying to express what it was about the Covenant books you found so annoying.

I bet that you don't mean to say that novels that are about terrible people who whine are a priori bad novels. I bet you'd agree that it's possible IN PRINCIPLE for a novel about a terrible person who whines to be a thrilling, wonderful story that you would love and cherish.

The books of Stephen Donaldson happen to not be those novels.

But any argument to the effect of "Good novels can be about bad people," while you may agree with the truth of it, won't change your opinion of Thomas Covenant.

I bet.

There's a distinction my wife and I make when talking about why we liked one story or another -- that between "identification" and "sympathy".

We enjoy stories through identification when we admire and wish to be like the hero of the story. Their triumphs become our triumphs and their struggles become our struggles. Stories like this usually feature characters whose personal traits are very pale, easily brushed aside -- so that they don't interfere with the audience's identification with the character.

"Neo", from The Matrix, is a great example of a character who practically has no personality whatsoever -- and that fact is key to understanding the popularity of the stories. His lack of personality makes it easier for the audience to identify with him. What kind of music does Neo like? Whatever you want him to like. What kind of food does Neo like? Whatever YOU like, I guess. That movie was designed for people to identify with the main character.

We enjoy stories through the process of sympathy when we care about and understand the hero of the story. They may hold very different ideas than we do, but we nevertheless care about them and their struggles. Stories that seek this sort of connection feature characters that are detailed and provide strong descriptions of their likes and dislikes, their loves and their fears and whatnot.

Thomas Covenant only makes sense from the point of view of sympathy. For most of us, anyway. If you usually enjoy stories through identification, these books will be repugnant to you because they appear to be asking you to participate in horrid crimes and behave in weak and selfish ways. Donaldson is asking his reader to sympathize with someone that they might ordinarily condemn out of hand. Not to approve of the conduct or overlook the crimes, but to care about them as a human being and agree to consider their struggle.

I make no claim that he succeeded at that, but I do think it's important to understand the distinction between those two approaches. They are approaches to READING, be it understood, not WRITING. You cannot WRITE a "identification" story -- though you can write a story that draws its power from the reader's tendency to identify (or sympathize).

Steven Brust, in his third Vlad Taltos book, suddenly insists that his readers stop identifying with his hero. Vlad does some very bad things for not very good reasons, and it was a little shocking to me as a teenager when I first read Teckla -- up to then I'd been largely identifying with Vlad and suddenly he was sort of a bad guy. Sort of annoying, actually. I had to sympathize with him rather than identify with him in order to enjoy the story.

The point is, a sufficiently skilled writer ought to be able to make us sympathize with ANYONE -- and that means that a great story can be made out of any human being's struggles. No writer, however, no matter how skilled they may be, can get us to identify with someone whose conduct we find repugnant.

I submit that Donaldson wanted his readers to sympathize with Thomas Covenant. Each of us has to decide if he succeeded or not at this task.

 

[GSHamster]

Very well put, barsoomcore.

Back to the original topic, I don't think that Donaldson broke the reader/author contract. You pretty much got what he promised in those (Covenant) novels.

I'd argue that one novel that does meet the criteria is the science fiction novel Calculating God by Robert J. Sawyer. In the novel, humans make contact with aliens that completely believe in God. To them, the existence of God is axiomatic, and there is no doubt at all. So anyway, this sets up a lot of neat tension between humans and the aliens that is explored. But at the end of the novel,

Spoiler

Sawyer reveals that a "God" does actually exist and has a purpose in mind (giving birth to another God, IIRC) , thus destroying the argument or debate between the two main characters

.

 

[Particle_Man]

The modern world greatly misunderstands what a "hero" is. I think there is a difference between a "Hero" and an "American Hero." The "American Hero" is a morally flawless person who sacrifices him or herself. This is largely a myth exemplified by Superman.

Hero's are not and were not intended to be role models.

Modern? What about King Arthur and his knights? Or the Saints? They were heroes, often with no moral flaws, and the latter were explicitly meant to be role models.

Anyhow, I am now going to reveal the ending of the Thomas Covenant series. Spoiler alert.

Spoiler

At the end of the second series, it is revealed that the world is in fact fantasy, and the villain was the part of the hero's mind that hates lepers, and the whole thing was some sort of self-therapy, I guess. So for what it is worth, it was rape fantasy rather than rape.

This may shed light on why someone thinks someone else misses the point. Personally, I just think that it might turn out to be a betrayal of the reader's expectations after all, but then what do I know?

Anyhow, didn't Donaldson do another nasty rape scene in a sci-fi series based on the Ring of the Nibelung? Weird fetish, that Donaldson. Almost as bad as Anthony's pedophilia-fetish.

 

[Alzrius]

Um, quite the opposite, I expect.

Dragons of Summer Flame was published in 1996. That's the same year that TSR converted Dragonlance over to the SAGA rules system. Seems to me the novel was designed to facilitate the rules change, rather than to kill the setting.

Mind you, as far as I've heard, changing Dragonlance over to SAGA was a bad idea, but that's a separate issue. It looks like Weis and Hickman were doing pretty much what TSR wanted them to do.

Weis and Hickman have a history of writing books at the direction of TSR/WotC. I heard that at some point after the first few books, they began to write the DL novels which then were used as the template for the "Dragons of..." adventures (instead of the other way around, which is how it had been at first).

Then, as you noted, Dragons of Summer Flame (which they wanted to actually make into a trilogy. Oi would that have gone on forever) for the express purpose of the SAGA system.

And finally the War of Souls trilogy, which was written because Peter Adkison wanted to undo all of the damage that Dragons of Summer Flame and the SAGA system had inflicted.

Frankly, knowing how much TSR/WotC directed and commissioned their work, it becomes impossible for me to understand then why Weis & Hickman threw such a gigantic hissy-fit when Lord Soth was moved to Ravenloft. I mean, did they not realize that there was more going on here than just their books? Did they forget that the intellectual properties of all of these characters weren't owned by them? It's not like any pet projects of theirs were being ruined by this.

Instead, they try and slip this little scene into Dragons of Summer Flame specifically to counteract Knight of the Black Rose, and not only do they fail utterly in that regard, but they also end up making the fans wonder about answers...which leads to TSR firmly and loudly telling everyone that Soth is, indeed, in Ravenloft.

The final slap in the face came in Dragons of a Vanished Moon in the scene where

Spoiler

Mina asks Soth to join Takhisis in taking over the world, Soth, apparently having come into enlightenment and accepting responsibility for everything he did - in other words, being completely out of character - refuses, and Takhisis kills him in a petulant fit. The chapter didn't even fit that well into the rest of the story, coming across as more of an aside where the authors decide to kill off the character in a fit of pique for having had someone else besides them use him.

I just can't stomach the level of hypocrisy involved in that whole debacle. They knew it wasn't their sandbox anymore, so they had no right to bitch when someone else played in it.

Now that's a serious breach of author/reader contract, IMHO.

 

[ssampier]

The Implied Contract of Roots

Speaking of vile acts and characters, is the slave ship captain in Roots redeemable? In the movie, he doesn't like the idea of hauling slaves from Africa. He does it anyway. He rejects the offer of a 'belly warmer'. He then gives in and rapes that young girl because she could not speak English.