![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kalinara posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
i_read_whatSorry for the delay! I was distracted primarily by my new cat. She's currently in the "hiding" stage of our relationship, so I haven't really gotten to see her much yet. But she's eating and drinking and doing her thing and it's still very distracting!
But I'm back now, and ready to start on the finale of the Dark Elf Trilogy: Sojourn.
I remember a bit more of this book than I do Exile, so that's good. I remember it being quite fun: Drizzt's adjustment to the surface is an interesting story. And the bigotry that he faces, while NOT REMOTELY equivalent to real world racism, still makes for a good obstacle and source of pain for him.
This is also the book that, toward the end, will give us our first look at many of the Companions of the Hall. I don't recall if Regis appears, and of course, we met Wulfgar for the first time in Crystal Shard. But I do remember enjoying the first meetings of Drizzt and Bruenor and Drizzt and Catti-brie, and getting to see the birth of such important bonds.
So without further ado, let's get this party started!
So our prelude starts with Drizzt. He's indulging in some angst and subtle masochism of course:
The dark elf sat on the barren mountainside, watching anxiously as the line of red grew above the eastern horizon. This would be perhaps his hundredth dawn, and he knew well the sting the searing light would bring to his lavender eyes-eyes that had known only the darkness of the Under-dark for more than four decades.
The drow did not turn away, though, when the upper rim of the flaming sun crested the horizon. He accepted the light as his purgatory, a pain necessary if he was to follow his chosen path, to become a creature of the surface world.
We get some heavy handed symbolism in the way his piwafwi (cloak) is disintegrating with the sunlight. The sun is burning his eyes, causing tears to fall. His boots are also falling apart, and his scimitars are likely to be next. I'm actually pausing at this, because I don't actually remember Drizzt explicitly using scimitars in the earlier two books.
I don't object to this really, because of course he uses them in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but it's surprising because I'd thought I'd remembered some important moment where he chose these particular weapons. Clearly I must have dreamed that up in my own head.
Drizzt is understandably worried about Guen. The cat girlfriend is, after all, his only constant companion. The figurine SEEMS solid, but he doesn't know who made it. If it was made by elves, then is it in danger as well. (We know, of course, that Guen will be hale and hearty a decade or so from now. But Drizzt isn't psychic.)
Drizzt wonders what pitiful creature he'll become and ponders the wisdom of deciding to come to the surface. I mean, you could have hung around with the swirfneblin. But the surface is symbolic to Drizzt, and he will not surrender.
Even if Drizzt believed that the sun would burn him away, as it burned away his boots and his precious piwafwi, even if he became no more than insubstantial, gray smoke blowing away in the chill mountain breeze, he would retain his principles and dignity, those elements that made his life worthwhile.
Drizzt can be a pompous tedious little fucker, but I have to admit, he's got a fine sense of drama. He's accepting his fate.
We also get a hint of plot here: on a different mountain, a dude named Ulgulu serves as narrative parallel. He's been banished from HIS home (Gehenna), and he's gaining strength via murder. I'm guessing he'll be our villain.
Now unlike the other books, we actually START with a pontificating journal entry before chapter 1. So I'll recap that here. It's basically the same as we just read, except in monologue form. As we see here:
This sun, for all the anguish it brought me physically, came to represent my denial of that other, darker world. Those rays of revealing light reinforced my principles as surely as they weakened the drow-made magical items.
See, basically the same thing. Only with more paragraphs, because Drizzt's like that.
Still, it ought to be interesting to see if the surface world lives up to all of Drizzt's hopes and aspirations! Perhaps we'll start finding out next week!
But I'm back now, and ready to start on the finale of the Dark Elf Trilogy: Sojourn.
I remember a bit more of this book than I do Exile, so that's good. I remember it being quite fun: Drizzt's adjustment to the surface is an interesting story. And the bigotry that he faces, while NOT REMOTELY equivalent to real world racism, still makes for a good obstacle and source of pain for him.
This is also the book that, toward the end, will give us our first look at many of the Companions of the Hall. I don't recall if Regis appears, and of course, we met Wulfgar for the first time in Crystal Shard. But I do remember enjoying the first meetings of Drizzt and Bruenor and Drizzt and Catti-brie, and getting to see the birth of such important bonds.
So without further ado, let's get this party started!
So our prelude starts with Drizzt. He's indulging in some angst and subtle masochism of course:
The dark elf sat on the barren mountainside, watching anxiously as the line of red grew above the eastern horizon. This would be perhaps his hundredth dawn, and he knew well the sting the searing light would bring to his lavender eyes-eyes that had known only the darkness of the Under-dark for more than four decades.
The drow did not turn away, though, when the upper rim of the flaming sun crested the horizon. He accepted the light as his purgatory, a pain necessary if he was to follow his chosen path, to become a creature of the surface world.
We get some heavy handed symbolism in the way his piwafwi (cloak) is disintegrating with the sunlight. The sun is burning his eyes, causing tears to fall. His boots are also falling apart, and his scimitars are likely to be next. I'm actually pausing at this, because I don't actually remember Drizzt explicitly using scimitars in the earlier two books.
I don't object to this really, because of course he uses them in the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but it's surprising because I'd thought I'd remembered some important moment where he chose these particular weapons. Clearly I must have dreamed that up in my own head.
Drizzt is understandably worried about Guen. The cat girlfriend is, after all, his only constant companion. The figurine SEEMS solid, but he doesn't know who made it. If it was made by elves, then is it in danger as well. (We know, of course, that Guen will be hale and hearty a decade or so from now. But Drizzt isn't psychic.)
Drizzt wonders what pitiful creature he'll become and ponders the wisdom of deciding to come to the surface. I mean, you could have hung around with the swirfneblin. But the surface is symbolic to Drizzt, and he will not surrender.
Even if Drizzt believed that the sun would burn him away, as it burned away his boots and his precious piwafwi, even if he became no more than insubstantial, gray smoke blowing away in the chill mountain breeze, he would retain his principles and dignity, those elements that made his life worthwhile.
Drizzt can be a pompous tedious little fucker, but I have to admit, he's got a fine sense of drama. He's accepting his fate.
We also get a hint of plot here: on a different mountain, a dude named Ulgulu serves as narrative parallel. He's been banished from HIS home (Gehenna), and he's gaining strength via murder. I'm guessing he'll be our villain.
Now unlike the other books, we actually START with a pontificating journal entry before chapter 1. So I'll recap that here. It's basically the same as we just read, except in monologue form. As we see here:
This sun, for all the anguish it brought me physically, came to represent my denial of that other, darker world. Those rays of revealing light reinforced my principles as surely as they weakened the drow-made magical items.
See, basically the same thing. Only with more paragraphs, because Drizzt's like that.
Still, it ought to be interesting to see if the surface world lives up to all of Drizzt's hopes and aspirations! Perhaps we'll start finding out next week!
no subject
Date: 2023-04-27 02:32 pm (UTC)Also, an encounter with a skunk that isn't tied to the pain.
NEW KITTY!
Date: 2023-04-28 12:22 am (UTC)= Multi-Facets.
Re: NEW KITTY!
Date: 2023-04-29 12:21 am (UTC)