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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is one of those series that has a huge reputation. It's described as bleak and dark, philosophically and theologically dense, linguistically dense and intricate with startling beauty and brutality. Basically, it's a series that has Believers, and these Believers are often evangelizers, or at least apostles.
I found the book to be...fine. Up front, I wouldn't really recommend it. It's not really especially bleak or dark (though this is only the first book, so who knows!), or at least not darker than anything described as grimdark or even a lot of things not described that way. There's violence, including casual sexual violence, and while that's unpleasant, it's not really anything new for the genre (and, to be honest, is common enough to be tedious and almost eyeroll inducing). There's slavery and systemic violence, but this book didn't really dwell on it or anything.
Of course, it is worth touching a bit more on the sexual violence. Bakker has a bizarre sense of sexuality, I think. It's impossible to read this book and not think that he probably hates women, or at least has a very low opinion of them. The only female characters in the novel (there are very few--really only two) are used and treated purely as sexual objects. Also, one of them is raped for hours but continually orgasms while she's being raped. This is a bizarre thing to write, especially because it complicates, I think, Bakker's views on rape. Because consent basically doesn't exist in any sexual relationship in the novel (one of the female characters is a sex slave, the other is a prostitute [of course there's consent involved in prostitution, but sex being consensually contractual is a bit different from consent between willing partners]), it seems odd that Bakker chooses to make her orgasms such an important aspect. Or that she includes them at all, And the orgasms, in part, keep her from being able to give consent(?) which is just...well it's odd.
So maybe Bakker doesn't hate women, but it does read like a rape fantasy.
As for the philosophical aspects...it's a very internal novel. As in, there's probably five lines of inner monologue for every line of dialogue. Your mileage will vary with this, and I'll come back to this in a bit. As far as the philosophical and theological elements--some of them are interesting. Like how magic users seem to be agnostic or atheistic while also being sort of obsessed with revelation. The religious characters--of which there are many--represent surprising diversity in belief, morality, practice, and so on, even among those who are of the same faith. It's a very realistic demonstration not often seen in fiction and is maybe one of the more impressive parts of the novel. But when you get to the actual philosophies presented...they're quite dumb, if I'm being honest. They remind me of a libertarian stoner describing buddhism but insisting on how rational and scientific it is. Bakker uses words like INTELLECT in a way that reminds me of people like Sam Harris. Someone who believes that humanity can be perfected and this comes through intellectualizing the world.
What I mean to say is that I find this book so lauded for its deep philosophy to be philosophically childish.
But, really, this is much less of a problem than it might sound. I don't find the philosophies presented to be an omnipresent elements. They're more a sometimes interesting (sometimes silly) sidebar to characters and their interactions.
The prose gets such glowing reviews from people that I'm sort of befuddled having finished it. Same with the narrative. I mean, the narrative is fine, but it's often described as labyrinthine and dense and even somewhat confusing. A book that punishes the careless reader. It's often compared to Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, which is maybe the most intricately plotted thing I've ever encountered, and which can, at times, confuse the reader whose attention drifts.
But, yeah, I found this novel extremely straightforward. The motivations for characters is so apparent as to possibly be an issue. Everything seems so very much on the surface. Or, rather, even when things are subtext in a conversation or interaction, Bakker includes so much inner monologue that any subtext becomes very apparent, possibly to a fault, honestly. And the general thrust of the plot is also extremely straightforward. A Holy War is declared early in the novel and a bunch of people gather to fight in it. There are competing factions within the crusaders, and then there's a secret, shadowy faction that many believe no longer exists. It's somewhat unusual context for a pretty typical story, I think. Political machinations and the like abound.
The prose is a strange matter. On the one hand, Bakker writes some of the most striking historical passages I've read in a book. It's an odd skill to have since it's not the type of writing that you ever see in fiction, but Bakker does this better than most historians. The rest of the prose is a different matter. It's sometimes somewhat overwrought, especially when it's leaning into the philosophical, but it's generally quite normal, and sometimes incredibly clumsy.
He has a strong tendency to italicize for emphasis, which is something I generally find obnoxious, but then he also throws exclamation marks everywhere. This isn't a sample from the book, but it very well could be:
--Kellhus thought and when he thought, people took notice. All of this struck Conphas at once. But why! Why him! Did he not know that Conphas was like a God to so many!--
Not even exaggerating, entire paragraphs will go on like that. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but I personally find it quite obnoxious since it forces the reader to read in specific ways. It's the opposite of subtlety. It's more like smacking someone in the face with a stick and then telling them how to read the sentence you wrote. It shows a complete lack of faith in the reader.
Granted, this is more a personal thing for me than something that applies to everyone. Thousands of books are published every year where authors use italics for emphasis and pepper exclamations throughout their prose, but I find it unpleasant, and somewhat amateurish.
Which is why it's surprising that his prose gets so much credit.
Anyrate, the novel mostly works. There's action, adventure, competing ideologies, and on and on. The worldbuilding is also very interesting. It promises a lot of depth and a deep and well rounded sense of history. There are some elements of worldbuilding that actually bother me a lot, and seem to be a fulcrum of the series.
Kellhus may not be the main character, but he's definitely the center of the novel, or at least its focal point. But the abilities he has are kind of nonsensical. Granted, he's sort of an ubermensch, but Bakker tries to give a rational and grounded explanation of his abilities. Like his ability to read people through intense scrutiny of their faces and a superhuman attention and perception of musculature in the face. I mean, I buy that. Honestly, I can get behind it, especially in a fantasy novel. The problem comes from the society he comes from, which is a society of ascetic monks who deny themselves any attachments to the physical world. So they're basically a bunch of impassive monks who show no emotion, unless they choose to, and who respond to physicality in a completely inhuman way.
So this is where things break down. If he's raised in an emotionless society and all his abilities stem from his ability to superhumanly perceive emotions...you see where I'm going with this? Even if his perceptions are so acute and superhuman, his unfamiliarity with emotional expressions should severely hamper his superhuman ability to apprehend the emotions of people through their facial expressions.
Anyrate, we can get past that, yeah? The bigger problem with the novel is that it's very emotionally flat. Obsessively so, I think, and I think this goes with the philosophical underpinnings of the novel, which are also quite silly. So even when you should probably have an emotional reaction, you're left at such a remove--despite how much internal monologuing there is--from the characters that the novel is really more an intellectual exercise than a fully fledged experience.
And, unfortunately, that intellectual exercise is mostly in the service of something quite silly, quite hateful, and also somewhat shoddily thrown together.
It's possible I'll try the next book anyway, though. I mean, I did read this quite quickly, so I found it interesting enough.
I found the book to be...fine. Up front, I wouldn't really recommend it. It's not really especially bleak or dark (though this is only the first book, so who knows!), or at least not darker than anything described as grimdark or even a lot of things not described that way. There's violence, including casual sexual violence, and while that's unpleasant, it's not really anything new for the genre (and, to be honest, is common enough to be tedious and almost eyeroll inducing). There's slavery and systemic violence, but this book didn't really dwell on it or anything.
Of course, it is worth touching a bit more on the sexual violence. Bakker has a bizarre sense of sexuality, I think. It's impossible to read this book and not think that he probably hates women, or at least has a very low opinion of them. The only female characters in the novel (there are very few--really only two) are used and treated purely as sexual objects. Also, one of them is raped for hours but continually orgasms while she's being raped. This is a bizarre thing to write, especially because it complicates, I think, Bakker's views on rape. Because consent basically doesn't exist in any sexual relationship in the novel (one of the female characters is a sex slave, the other is a prostitute [of course there's consent involved in prostitution, but sex being consensually contractual is a bit different from consent between willing partners]), it seems odd that Bakker chooses to make her orgasms such an important aspect. Or that she includes them at all, And the orgasms, in part, keep her from being able to give consent(?) which is just...well it's odd.
So maybe Bakker doesn't hate women, but it does read like a rape fantasy.
As for the philosophical aspects...it's a very internal novel. As in, there's probably five lines of inner monologue for every line of dialogue. Your mileage will vary with this, and I'll come back to this in a bit. As far as the philosophical and theological elements--some of them are interesting. Like how magic users seem to be agnostic or atheistic while also being sort of obsessed with revelation. The religious characters--of which there are many--represent surprising diversity in belief, morality, practice, and so on, even among those who are of the same faith. It's a very realistic demonstration not often seen in fiction and is maybe one of the more impressive parts of the novel. But when you get to the actual philosophies presented...they're quite dumb, if I'm being honest. They remind me of a libertarian stoner describing buddhism but insisting on how rational and scientific it is. Bakker uses words like INTELLECT in a way that reminds me of people like Sam Harris. Someone who believes that humanity can be perfected and this comes through intellectualizing the world.
What I mean to say is that I find this book so lauded for its deep philosophy to be philosophically childish.
But, really, this is much less of a problem than it might sound. I don't find the philosophies presented to be an omnipresent elements. They're more a sometimes interesting (sometimes silly) sidebar to characters and their interactions.
The prose gets such glowing reviews from people that I'm sort of befuddled having finished it. Same with the narrative. I mean, the narrative is fine, but it's often described as labyrinthine and dense and even somewhat confusing. A book that punishes the careless reader. It's often compared to Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, which is maybe the most intricately plotted thing I've ever encountered, and which can, at times, confuse the reader whose attention drifts.
But, yeah, I found this novel extremely straightforward. The motivations for characters is so apparent as to possibly be an issue. Everything seems so very much on the surface. Or, rather, even when things are subtext in a conversation or interaction, Bakker includes so much inner monologue that any subtext becomes very apparent, possibly to a fault, honestly. And the general thrust of the plot is also extremely straightforward. A Holy War is declared early in the novel and a bunch of people gather to fight in it. There are competing factions within the crusaders, and then there's a secret, shadowy faction that many believe no longer exists. It's somewhat unusual context for a pretty typical story, I think. Political machinations and the like abound.
The prose is a strange matter. On the one hand, Bakker writes some of the most striking historical passages I've read in a book. It's an odd skill to have since it's not the type of writing that you ever see in fiction, but Bakker does this better than most historians. The rest of the prose is a different matter. It's sometimes somewhat overwrought, especially when it's leaning into the philosophical, but it's generally quite normal, and sometimes incredibly clumsy.
He has a strong tendency to italicize for emphasis, which is something I generally find obnoxious, but then he also throws exclamation marks everywhere. This isn't a sample from the book, but it very well could be:
--Kellhus thought and when he thought, people took notice. All of this struck Conphas at once. But why! Why him! Did he not know that Conphas was like a God to so many!--
Not even exaggerating, entire paragraphs will go on like that. There's nothing necessarily wrong with it, but I personally find it quite obnoxious since it forces the reader to read in specific ways. It's the opposite of subtlety. It's more like smacking someone in the face with a stick and then telling them how to read the sentence you wrote. It shows a complete lack of faith in the reader.
Granted, this is more a personal thing for me than something that applies to everyone. Thousands of books are published every year where authors use italics for emphasis and pepper exclamations throughout their prose, but I find it unpleasant, and somewhat amateurish.
Which is why it's surprising that his prose gets so much credit.
Anyrate, the novel mostly works. There's action, adventure, competing ideologies, and on and on. The worldbuilding is also very interesting. It promises a lot of depth and a deep and well rounded sense of history. There are some elements of worldbuilding that actually bother me a lot, and seem to be a fulcrum of the series.
Kellhus may not be the main character, but he's definitely the center of the novel, or at least its focal point. But the abilities he has are kind of nonsensical. Granted, he's sort of an ubermensch, but Bakker tries to give a rational and grounded explanation of his abilities. Like his ability to read people through intense scrutiny of their faces and a superhuman attention and perception of musculature in the face. I mean, I buy that. Honestly, I can get behind it, especially in a fantasy novel. The problem comes from the society he comes from, which is a society of ascetic monks who deny themselves any attachments to the physical world. So they're basically a bunch of impassive monks who show no emotion, unless they choose to, and who respond to physicality in a completely inhuman way.
So this is where things break down. If he's raised in an emotionless society and all his abilities stem from his ability to superhumanly perceive emotions...you see where I'm going with this? Even if his perceptions are so acute and superhuman, his unfamiliarity with emotional expressions should severely hamper his superhuman ability to apprehend the emotions of people through their facial expressions.
Anyrate, we can get past that, yeah? The bigger problem with the novel is that it's very emotionally flat. Obsessively so, I think, and I think this goes with the philosophical underpinnings of the novel, which are also quite silly. So even when you should probably have an emotional reaction, you're left at such a remove--despite how much internal monologuing there is--from the characters that the novel is really more an intellectual exercise than a fully fledged experience.
And, unfortunately, that intellectual exercise is mostly in the service of something quite silly, quite hateful, and also somewhat shoddily thrown together.
It's possible I'll try the next book anyway, though. I mean, I did read this quite quickly, so I found it interesting enough.
dark
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
Complicated
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Did not finish. I won't say it was bad, but I just didn't enjoy Bakker's method of storytelling and there are so many other great books to read it is not worth struggling through it.
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
DNF - Couldn't get used to Bakker's writing style.
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced