Tohu Bohu

Again, it won’t surprise Gentle Readers to learn that I picked up Paladin of Souls for rereading, not only because I am now curious about my reactions to other books by Lois McMaster Bujold in the wake of her visit to this Tohu Bohu but because I do seem to read the thing every Spring. I’m not sure why. It’s not a Spring book. Not even metaphorically, really; the late blossoming of Ista is much more October then May. I suppose the likeliest thing is that I do more rereading of favorite novels at that time of year, something to do with hitting the library less often due to the weather, etc, etc. Although, yes, I do work in a library, but the books I pick up from my employer’s shelves tend to be more serious, dense and take longer to get through. So it’s perhaps a combination of fewer, shorter public-library visits and a late Spring mood.

Or it’s just possible that it’s a coincidence.

This time through, anyway, I was of course going into the re-read with an eye out for representations of ethnicity and difference, but I must admit that I didn’t sustain that eye for the duration of the book. I already know that her world is much deeper than it appears (if you know what I mean). There two major religions, and the hostility between them plays an important part in the plot, but then there are a variety of heresies and variants in practice and levels of piety and so on. There are geographic differences, local foods (although that comes out somewhat less in this book) and languages and habits, within Chalion as well as between Chalion and its neighbors.

I could bring back my taxonomy, and argue that whether this is a Category Two book, clearly a fantasy version of Medieval Spain (or from the representations thereof in our culture) rather than being a Category Three book, simply drawing on that cultural background but at enough of a distance to blur the representation. I actually place it in Category Three, though. Either way, I don’t feel that the ethnic differences (between Ibrans and Chalionese, for instance) are underplayed to the point of invisibility, or that the (questionable) responsibilities of pseudo-history are abrogated.

Oh, and to answer Jere7my’s flippant comment from two years ago, which has stuck in my mind all that time, it turns out that Ista does not molest the guy in a coma. Or rather, she does strip him and kiss him, but in a dream. Which it turns out he shares, but she doesn’t know that at the time. She does kiss him and force her tongue into his mouth, but I am disinclined to count that as molesting, under the circumstances. It’s the demon-possessed woman who actually jacks him off—Ista doesn’t touch him in the dreams, which at the time she has no reason to believe are anything other than metaphors (or dreams, even).

Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.