Golden Fool by Robin Hobb
My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Solid Second Book in a Trilogy While the first book of the Tawny Man Trilogy, Fool’s Errand (2002), sees Fitz getting back in the game of politics and adventure, the second one, Golden Fool (2003), has him developing a variety of old or new relationships as he grows as a father and as a teacher and retreats as a friend. It also features negotiations between the Farseer court and three different cultures: the Outislanders working out a betrothal between their Narcheska Elliania and Prince Dutiful, the Bingtown Traders asking for an alliance, and the Witted Old Bloods trying to coexist with the non-Witted folk of the Six Duchies. Change and intercultural understanding drive the novel: “But change proves that you are still alive. Change often measures our tolerance for folk different from ourselves. Can we accept their languages, their customs, their garments, and their foods into our own lives? If we can, then we form bonds, bonds that make wars less likely.” Instead of sending Fitz on a new quest, this second book presents him with simultaneous difficult and crucial tasks. He must protect Buckkeep castle and himself from the vengeful and scheming Piebalds. He must begin educating the Prince in the Skill and the Wit. He must (he believes) prevent his daughter Nettle from meeting him in Skill-dreams and discovering that he’s her biological father. He must help Councilor-Spymaster Chade do something about the servant Thick, who seems to be a “half-wit” but is really a superpowered instinctive Skill user. He must get himself back in fighting shape after 15 years living as a cottager and hunter. He must prevent his foster son Hap from going bad in town. He has to find out what's really going on with the Prince’s betrothal to the Marcheska. He must continue pretending to be Tom Badgerlock, the servant/bodyguard of Lord Golden (the current persona of the Fool), because he can't let anyone find out that he is the infamous, presumed dead Witted Bastard FitzChivalry Farseer. He must come to terms with the Fool’s belief in “the terrible strength of the White Prophet [Fool] and the Catalyst [Fitz] to shoulder the future from the rut of the present and into some better pathway.” And he must do all that while gutted by the loss of Nighteyes, his long-time bonded wolf partner, without whom he feels truncated and exposed. Apart from a brutal tavern brawl and a vicious fight to the death, the book avoids violent action but is still suspenseful and exciting, because we care about Fitz and his friends. The best parts of this book, as with most of Hobb’s books, are her characters and their interactions with each other. This is especially so with Fitz and the Fool, because the Fool is so enigmatic and sympathetic and because Fitz is still in near homophobic denial that his best friend is in fact (we know from early in the first book of the trilogy) the great love threading in and out of Fitz’ life. Other interesting relationships are between Fitz and Queen Kettricken (before becoming a stone dragon, her husband Verity possessed Fitz’ body so as to conceive their son Prince Dutiful), Fitz and Prince Dutiful (yearning so much for a father and for someone who’ll treat him as a person instead of as a Prince), Fitz and Thick (ugly, lonely, childlike, and powerful with Skill, “playing” a constant Skill-music composed of ambient sounds and a melody his Mam taught him and fearing Fitz), and Fitz and Chade (part of Fitz will ever be the small boy trained to be an assassin by Chade, who is too excited about learning to Skill). Fitz and Starling and Jinna are less interesting, because Hobb lapses into melodrama with them. Hobb continues to almost perversely deny Fitz public recognition for his vital and self-sacrificing service to the realm and the Farseers. Supposedly if the news got out that Witted and Skilled Fitz were alive, civil war would rive the six Duchies, but you’d think that the Queen, Chade, and Fitz could find a good way to get the truth out there. Fitz says he doesn’t want Molly and Burrich to know he's alive because he doesn’t want to threaten their happy married life. But wouldn’t they want to know he's alive and couldn’t he give them his blessing? Fitz’ reluctance to return as himself to the world must partly be due to his trauma in the Farseer Trilogy, and I tip my cap to Hobb for not giving us much sugar, but Fitz is one of the most unfairly unsung heroes in epic fantasy literature. A plot contrivance flaw in the novel occurs when Hobb maintains Fitz’ obtuseness vis-à-vis the Lady referred to by the Outislanders. From the second chapter of the novel, I’m suspecting that she’s none other than the Pale Woman who was a malevolent force in the Farseer Trilogy and who in the first book of the Tawny Man Trilogy is explained to Fitz as being a false White Prophet trying to make a bad future for the world. If I suspect that early on, Fitz, a highly experienced, observant, and intelligent assassin/spy, would too. He wouldn't say lame things like, “That woman remained a complete cipher to us. Her references to a Lady were unclear, unless she referred to an older female relative with authority over Elliania.” Hobb is capable of turning out some mediocre prose: “I took a breath. ‘Only some of what you tell me is news to me. Only a few nights ago Piebalds stalked me on the road from Buckkeep Town. I am only surprised that they let me live.’” But most often her writing is fine, as in the following examples. Lost in the Skill: “It was like watching a child wading in the shallows suddenly caught and born away on a current. I was at first transfixed with horror. Then I plunged into it after him, well aware of how difficult it would be to catch up with him.” Alien telepathy: “Then her thoughts abandoned me as a retreating wave leaves a drowned man on a beach. I rolled to the edge of my bed and retched dryly, more battered by that prodigious mind contact than by the beating I'd taken from Rory. The foreignness of the being that had pressed against my mind disrupted me, gagging my thoughts as if I had tried to breathe oil or drink flame.” Pithy sayings: “One man armed with the right word may do what an army of swordsmen cannot.” Psychology: I walked wounded through my life in the days that followed, unaware of just how mutilated I was. Golden Fool is a solid second book in the trilogy. It takes care of a few loose ends from the first novel, develops some new mysteries for this one, and sets up the big quest of the third one. View all my reviews
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