Fool's Errand by Robin Hobb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Fitz Back in the Game In Robin Hobb’s Farseer Trilogy (1995-97), the royal bastard FitzChivalry Farseer recounts his growth to maturity via a series of traumatic experiences and arduous adventures, learning to be an assassin/spy and trying to save the Six Duchies from an Outislander invasion and a villainous usurper. Fitz had to “die” as the Farseer heir and adopt an alter-ego as the nobody Tom Badgerlock, because too many people thought he had killed King Shrewd and knew he had the Wit (verboten “Beast Magic”). Fool’s Errand (2002), the first book in Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy (2002-04), begins fifteen years later, as Fitz is living a quiet, simple, free life with his adopted son Hap and Wit-bonded wolf Nighteyes in a small cottage far from the machinations of court. His goals involve guiding Hap to become a good young man and writing a history of the Six Duchies (though he usually ends up writing about his own life). But Fitz and Nighteyes are sensing a change coming. The first emissaries of that change are three old friends who visit the cottage: Starling Birdsong, Fitz’ minstrel lover; Chade Fallingstar, Fitz’ mentor, father figure, and teacher in the arts of assassination and spycraft; and the enigmatic Fool, Fitz’ not completely human more than best friend. It takes about ten leisurely chapters to involve Fitz again in Six Duchies and Buckkeep politics: a delicate and vital mission to find and return the missing Prince Dutiful, who is the secret son of Fitz’ body, which King Verity possessed in the Farseer Trilogy to conceive an heir with Queen Kettreckin. The Prince must be back at Buckkeep in a fortnight, because a delegation from the Out Islands is coming to work out a betrothal between one of their Narcheskas and the Prince as prelude to an alliance between the two former enemy cultures. There will be adventure, pursuits, fights, confrontations, choices, and revelations. There will be interactions between characters we come to care deeply for as real people. There will be magic, from the charms of a hedge-witch to the animal bonding and communication of the Wit and the telepathic manipulation and communication of the Skill. There will be no cardboard villains. The antagonists have understandable motivations. The ruthless Piebalds, a Witted faction, have had enough of being persecuted for their natural magic and are out for violent revenge against the Farseers. Complicating matters is the presence of the main Witted community, whose members call themselves Old Blood and are trying to negotiate with the Queen for protection from persecution. The story is about duty, love, loneliness, communication, relationships, fear of the other, and father and son relationships. Fitz is a complicated and appealing character, having sacrificed and suffered so much for the Farseers and the Six Duchies, with only a few people knowing of his heroism or even that he is alive, and his body and heart being so scarred that he has convinced himself that he doesn’t want to contact the people who loved him as Fitz and think that he’s dead, like his loving step-mother Lady Patience, his first love Molly, and her husband Burrich (who raised Fitz), let alone either of the two children he fathered but never parented, Prince Dutiful and Nettle. Nighteyes is a great character, too--lupine and yet human via his relationship with Fitz. He has a dry sense of humor and is the wiser of the two. Their italicized telepathic “conversations” are pithy, funny, or moving, especially when Nighteyes calls Fitz “little brother,” because Fitz is older than the wolf, but the wolf's lifespan is shorter than a human’s. One of the poignant parts of this novel is our awareness that people usually live longer than their animal companions. “Little brother, do not treat me as if I am already dead, or dying. If you see me that way, then I would rather truly be dead. You steal the now of my life away, when you constantly fear that tomorrow will bring my death. Your fears clutch cold at me and snatch all my pleasure in the day's warmth from me.” The Fool is a fascinating character: androgynous, wise, and enigmatic, believing that he’s the White Prophet tasked with changing the course of the world into a better track with his Catalyst, Fitz. His persona as Lord Golden, a wealthy foreign merchant treated like a visiting royal celebrity in Buckkeep, is tiresome, like a wannabe Oscar Wilde without any good bon mots, but the relationship between Fitz and him flirts with same sex love, though Fitz is very heterosexual and nearly homophobic in his allergic reaction to anyone suspecting that he and the Fool are bed-partners. Supporting characters like Councilor Chade, Huntswoman Laurel, hedge-witch Jinna, and Prince Dutiful are good to spend time with. The one unappealing supporting character is Starling Birdsong. To help immerse readers in the fantasy world, each chapter begins with an italicized excerpt from some “historical” source that explains things and people like the Wit, the Skill, hedge-witches, stable masters, the Elderlings, hunting cats, the Piebald Prince, the Red Ship War, public executions of Witted people, and so on. There are many poignant, funny, scary, or fine moments in the novel, and much vivid writing-- Wisdom: --“If a man does not die of a wound, then it heals in some fashion, and so it is with loss.” Psychology: --“I found that having strangers regard me benevolently for no reason was more unnerving than having them distrust me on sight.” Magic: --“I drew a deep breath and cautiously let my Wit unfold into a general sensing of the day around me. My awareness of both Malta and the huntswoman’s horse sharpened, as did their acknowledgement of me. I sensed Laurel, not as another rider beside me, but as a large and healthy creature. Lord Golden was as unknowable to my Wit as the Fool ever was. From even that sense, he rippled aside, and yet his very mystery was a familiar one to me. Birds in the trees overhead were bright startles of life amongst the leaves. From the largest of the trees we passed I sensed a deep green flow of being, a welling of existence that was unlike an animal awareness and yet was life all the same. It was as if my sense of touch expanded beyond my skin to make contact with all other forms of life around me. All the world shimmered with life, and I was a part of that network. Regret this oneness? Deny this expanded tactility?” Hobb imagines a vivid fantasy world with a history and different magics and cultures and complicated and appealing characters and develops those elements gradually so that by about halfway into the book when the action ratchets up it becomes difficult to stop reading. After finishing the book, I couldn’t wait to start the second one in the trilogy. View all my reviews
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