Brad's Reviews > Lord Foul's Bane

I read Lord Foul’s Bane once in grade seven (the same year I first read Macbeth and Lady Chatterly’s Lover, and The Lord of the Rings for a second time). It was a good year for me and reading. And an important year for who I would become. But I didn’t know until now how important Lord Foul’s Bane was to all of that.

This story has stuck with me in the most amazing ways. After nearly three decades, I recalled an amazing amount of detail in the pages I reread. I remembered minute details about Thomas Covenant’s attitude towards his leprosy, especially when it came to the VSE (Visual Surveillance of Extremities) rituals that sustained him in our world and the new rituals he developed during his time in the Land. I remembered Atiaran’s stone knife and the way Covenant tempted the fate of his leprosy with its keen edge – the edge that never dulled. I remembered the way Covenant – hero? anti-hero? villain? weakling? coward? simply flawed? – raped Atiaran’s daughter Lena. I remembered the diamond draught of Stoneheart Foamfollower and the image of the impaled Waynhim in the Waymeet and the death of the Unfettered One trying to save the beautiful wraiths of the Andelainian Hills and the wedge formation of the ur-Viles. I remembered it all with the sort of clarity one has when they read a book dozens of times or reread a book very shortly after having put it down, but I didn’t expect to have anywhere near the clarity I had all these years later.

Thomas Covenant himself has stuck with me. He is frustrating, spiteful, ugly, tormented, cynical, dark, brooding, and infuriatingly self-pitying. He is every bit the Unbeliever he names himself. And Stephen R. Donaldson wants him to be that way. He needs him to be that way. Covenant has to fight his belief in the Land at every turn because the Land is impossible, and as a rational man suffering from leprosy in 20th century North America, all that allows him to cling to his life is his rationality and sanity – no matter how tenuous both are.

But the Land –- at least in this first book of the Chronicles –- is unbelievable. It has to be one of the strangest, most frightening, and surrealistic fantasy worlds ever created. Donaldson describes it with achingly beautiful prose (and sometimes that beautiful prose is dense and slow and plodding, mirroring the motion of Covenant through the Land itself) to reveal wonders that are just slightly different from everything we’ve seen before in every high fantasy that Tolkien gave birth to, but Donaldson’s slight shift in perspective, his offering of the place through the decaying lens of a leper, his constant overturning of expectations, makes his fantasy world unique. His giants are not what we’d expect, nor are his wraiths, nor his Cavewights, nor his landscape, nor his weather, nor his incarnadine corrupted moon, nor his magic.

And the most disconcerting difference between Donaldson’s Land and the other fantasy realms we know is that his Land feels entirely unpopulated. Covenant never stops travelling as he tries to escape his “dream,” yet his contact with the Land’s denizens is minimal. He passes through four centers of population -- Mithil Stonedown (a town of Gravelingas who are rich in stone lore), Soaring Woodhelvin (a tree town of Lillianrill who are rich in wood lore), Revelstone (the seat of the High Lords), and the Plains of Ra (where the nomadic Ramen serve the Ranyhyn, a kind of uber-horse). He sees great sights, bizarre rituals and happenings, and he interacts with a person here or there, but the first two towns seem home to mere dozens of people, Revelstone seems empty, and the Ramen are so hidden in their poisonous plains that we never get a sense of how many there are. And even those people and races Covenant spends much time with, such as the Haruchai Bloodguards and his Giant friend, are isolated from their vital populations. Two score set out to fight Lord Foul’s desecration. Where is everyone else?! The Land feels empty, and this is another disconcerting moment in an already disconcerting novel.

But that’s why I love Lord Foul’s Bane. It isn’t easy. Donaldson challenges us whenever and however he can. And he does it with transcendent prose and unflinching devotion to his problematic protagonist.

I’d much rather read Mordant’s Need. It is more hopeful, more lively, more real, but I don’t know if that makes it better. In fact, it probably isn't.

If you've read both, I ask you this (especially you Jon): “Is Mordant's Need better?”

I really don't know. But I do know this: Stephen R Donaldson is my unsung hero of fantasy greatness. He is up there with the best. But damn is he a lot of work.