Posted: June 17, 1997 at 22:53:13: by Richard Frahm
: The Worst Witch World Book
: Within the last year, I have read or re-read
most of the Witch World books. I still have never
read The Crystal Gryphon (1972), Trey of Swords
(1977), Zarsthor's Bane (1978), Gryphon in Glory
(1981), Horn Crown (1981), 'Ware Hawk (1983), and
Gate of the Cat (1987). I cannot believe that any
of them could turn out to be better than The Witch
World. It is possible that one of them will turn
out to be the worst Witch World book . . . but I
doubt it. I confidently nominate We, the Women,
by Patricia Mathews, in On Wings of Magic, Witch
World: The Turning Book 3.
: For those of you who haven't read it, this is
the story of Arona Bethiahsdaughter of Riveredge
Village, one of the villages of Falconer women,
somewhere at the margins of Estcarp. Life in the
all-female village is plagued by occasional visits
from, and constant fear of, the Falconers. It is
further disturbed by the appearance of women and
children, including some teenage boys, who flee to
Riveredge from an Estcarpian village destroyed in
a raid from Alizon. The newcomers are constantly
showing ridiculously out-of-place patriarchal
sentiments; the boys are regularly annoying Arona
and others with their harassing adolescent
sexuality, behaving like bad memories of American
high school boys. One of the boys, Egil (rhymes
with evil?), insinuates himself into the village
and usurps Arona's expected position as village
recorder/ historian. He also seeks both to rape
and to marry Arona. Worst of all, he changes the
records to change the meanings of the village's
(and its female Falconer forebears') "herstory.
Arona flees to Lormt with the most precious
records and is nearly casually raped (or
prostituted) along the way. But, before reaching
Lormt, she ends up in a cavern with a Toad
creature, who turns out to be male and whose
example teaches her that not all men are wolves.
: Why do I nominate this as the worst Witch World
book? I like its topic; I don't like its writing,
its mood, its message, or its tone . . . and
there's more.
: As to the writing, much is decent, but Mathews
gives in to an affectation that ultimately becomes
annoying. She has her villagers speak a language
stripped of most male-based words. She thanks the
inventor of this Laadan in the acknowledgments.
It is clever and interesting for a while, but it
grows annoying and, unforgivably, makes reading
hard.
: The mood is consistently dark. My strongest
recollection of the book is that everything seemed
to be happening at night. On glancing at it
again, I see that's not entirely true, but
everything seems to happen at night because the
mood is so uniformly bleak. .
: The message conveyed throughout the book seems
to be that all men, at least all raised in
traditional societies, are scum. And the actions
of her male characters bear that out even when
they aren't affirmatively evil, they are
unthinkingly brutish and annoying. I consider
myself a feminist and, as such, I can see how one
could take that view. But as a man I don't think
it is a fair one and it is not one I want to
invest time reading about. (Feminism in the Witch
World books is an interesting topic worth
exploring on its own, but not in this post.)
: The tone is unpleasant. Arona is whiny; the
author is preachy.
: The four criticisms I've made above are
personal; reasonable people might differ,
particularly if they enjoy dark, depressing,
anti-male tracts. But I think the worst problem
with the book transcends questions of taste its
climax is ludicrous.
: Fleeing toward Lormt, Arona is pursued by
bandits (to be precise, she discovers that three
riders are riding fast behind her she assumes,
with no more information, that they are bandits
pursuing her). She finds a sentient
cavern/refuge, in which many bodies were in
suspended animation. The cavern wakes for her a
toad-creature, former recorder of Grimmerdale.
They share information about their worlds. The
toads appear to stand in for Americans watching
movies and television, playing sports, "rac[ing]
noisy machines at very high speeds over rough
country roads often crashing them into each other
or against rocks or trees, or fought each other
for pleasure." Their "Gormvin" (govrmin/
government?) even experiments on other life forms.
Arona learns to like the Toad, despite its
differences, but is shocked when the toad reveals
that it is a sperm-sprayer, not an egg-layer.
"Not all men are wolves, Arona realized, and not
all women are people. Was that the lesson of the
cavern and the toad?" And a paragraph later she
reaches Lormt.
: This is an annoying warping of the Toads of
Grimmerdale and, I think, a completely incredible
way for Arona to learn tolerance. Even in the
suspect tradition of deus ex machina, toad in
cavern ranks low. If I had been looking to read a
gloomy ideological story, I think I still would
have disliked this ending.
: I am tempted to say that the lesson I drew from
the cavern and the toad was to avoid books by
Patricia Mathews. But, in fact, she contributed
two decent stories to the Tales of the Witch World
series. I liked Darkness over Mirhold in Volume
II and I found Falcon's Chick in Volume III, the
"prequel" to this book, interesting and worth
reading. Those stories share this book's emphasis
on violence against women, but at least they work
better as stories. I did not find We, the Women
worth reading. The failure of We, the Women, I
believe, is a failure of overreaching, of ignoring
the story in favor of the message. The lesson I
ultimately drew from the toad in the cavern is
that story tellers need to focus first on their
stories. Messages are best sent through other
media.
: Coming next: The Least Good Witch World Book by
Andre Norton
Ah Hank!! When you messaged us about the worst
Witch World Book I was ready to black list We, the
Women. But you have listed all the reasons that I
could have offered in excellent form. I was also a
bit afraid of being considered an anti-feminist if
I did but can now stand in your shadow as the
slings and arrows approach.
Richard
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