[Fenner]

I started reading Toll the Hounds eagerly when I first bought it. A return to Darujhistan? Fantastic; the beautifully realised city wasn't nearly exhausted in previous novels and there was plenty more scope for new stories. More about the Bridgeburners? Awesome again, those borderline sociopaths were some of the most entertaining characters the series (and I as a reader) have seen. And Rake! I could not get enough of Anomander Rake in Gardens and Memories.

But as I turned page after page, my initial elation at reading an Erikson began to fade. And roughly two hundred pages in, I was reading mechanically.

Now, there's more than a few reasons as to why that is, and some of them are plain as day. But one stood out above the others: Cutter's romance subplot with whatever-the-heck her name was. (See how eminently forgettable she is? Okay, I know her name is Challice really, but still...) Anyhow, it seemed totally unconnected to any events in the wider world and the book itself. It added nothing but whole heaps of chapter where I fought hard the urge to skim.

I found both halves of the couple utterly unsympathetic and thought they should just man up - other characters have gone through much, much worse and thrived. They embodied the worst excesses of self-pitying western behaviour and I was honestly happy when Challice popped herself.

So... I'll be honest. I read rapidly, sometimes verging on skimming, because I wanted to get back to stuff that was actually interesting (Bridgeburners, Rake, even those emo kids of his were more engaging, because at least they got on with killing stuff..) This has left me with a few questions.

1. Did I miss anything? I'm talking background, forshadowing, etc - not evocation of theme. The story of the ill-fated romance was well-told, it just belonged in a separate book. A separate universe, even.

2. Following on from that, does anyone else think that the whole book would be better (more streamlined, more focussed, more indicative of an artist in mastery of his form as Erikson has displayed himself to be in the past) if the whole segment were just cut, and Cutter simply grew up and moved on from Challice? It really made me hate him... not just as a character, but as a human being.

3. If it did relate and is a valid part of the book, how to do you defend it? I know I'm going to reread the series at some point and I honestly might just skip a fair few hundred pages of Toll the Hounds to get to the world-shattering ending. Is there some nuance of theme that I'm not picking up on?

Cheers in advance...

[SpectreofEschaton]

I for one think that that subplot was integral to Crokus/Cutter's development, symbolizing the last tie to his childhood that he severs by the end of the book. He struggles to return to the world he once knew, only to find that he doesn't fit there anymore. (Why does that sound so Campbellian?) Also, it leads to Murillio's death and Cutter's "duel" with Gorlas (echoing Rallick's duel with Orr in GotM) which was easily one of my favorite parts of the book.

As for foreshadowing and such, most of that info you'll find in the Rake/Endest/Spinnock chapters, and with Kallor and the Andii kids, especially when they visit Gothos. I can't remember too much in the Cutter/Challice plotline that had that kind of significance for the bigger picture.

Also, TTH is my favorite novel in the series (so far), for what it's worth.

This post has been edited by SpectreofEschaton: 11 December 2010 - 11:25 PM

[Ceda Cicero]

While I sympathize with the notion that it's tough to turn the page from a scene with Rake and Dragnipur to the existential crises of Challice and Cutter, I do feel that the subplot was intensely relevant. Perhaps not to the arc of the book that was mostly devoted to the final convergence, but it was extremely loyal to some of the most recurring themes of the series. Most notably...

...In my mind, Crokus's character in GotM is in many ways an exploration of raw innocence even in the face of some brutal realities (his chosen profession as a thief, his proximity to Rallick - whom "no one can mistake for anything but a killer," and later his brush with Sorry and his witnessing of a Soletaken Tiste Andii ascendant killing an axe-wielding demon Lord.) At the end of the novel when Apsalar and Crokus are staring at the moon and she relates to him the myth about the gardens thereon, that to me is the crescendo of Crokus's (and at this point, Apsalar's) story (and incidentally the scene from which the book derives it's title.) Apsalar's waxing on how lovely it would be to live in those gardens and never have to worry about war is in many ways an expression of a longing to remain innocent, forever. Which is clearly not a possibility for these two, thus the scene is incredibly poignant.

Fast forward to TtH. In some of Challice's earliest appearances what is she tinkering with? IIRC some kind of snow globe-esque device with a moon trapped within that reminds her of her childhood, a time before moral compromise and ambiguity. I mean, the connection to the themes of GotM couldn't be more blatant, or profound. In comes Crokus, now Cutter, and beneath the apparent dross of their whining and moaning, we see two people that we were introduced in the very beginning, when they were on the precipice of enormous, respective falls from innocence.

To me, their entire affair is about trying to regain that innocence. But it's shot through by the fact that they can't be those people anymore - Challice is a heartless aristocrat, and Cutter is a murderer.

The fact that the subplot ends with maybe some of what I regard as Erikson's finest prose (the series of Challice POVs where her moon shatters at last and she muses on the "dust of dreams" and how the "dust, alas, does not command the wind") brings it all home for me. Not to mention made me have an entirely new appreciation for the title of the next installment.

So there you have it. Did Cutter seem a little irrelevant on my first read-through? Yeah. But hell, we do have two volumes in the series that derive their names from his sub-plots.

This post has been edited by Ciceronian: 12 December 2010 - 04:04 AM

[worry]

It was certainly relevant to Crokus.

[D'rek]

IMO, Ciceronian's got it exactly.

This subplot is indeed nothing but character development. I think that's a good thing, and no one deserves it more than Crokus. You don't realize (nor does he himself) how much he's changed since GotM until his return in TtH. These revelations show Crokus who he is and what he needs to do - go and search for Apsalar. And whether that is ever shown in a book or not, I'm still glad he went through what he did in TtH to make those realizations, as I of course want him and Apsalar to be happy together again!

[The Seguleh 46th]

D, on 12 December 2010 - 01:27 AM, said:

IMO, Ciceronian's got it exactly.

This subplot is indeed nothing but character development. I think that's a good thing, and no one deserves it more than Crokus. You don't realize (nor does he himself) how much he's changed since GotM until his return in TtH. These revelations show Crokus who he is and what he needs to do - go and search for Apsalar. And whether that is ever shown in a book or not, I'm still glad he went through what he did in TtH to make those realizations, as I of course want him and Apsalar to be happy together again!

Ditto.

Also, i highly doubt anything is irrelevant when it comes to SE and the world he has written for us. I mean, sure, you (addressing the OP) may get bored from time to time, and as you said, wanna get to the killing and action, but that hardly makes the other scenes not worthwhile. For example, Mappo and Iccy's wanderings/meanderings tended to drift me away every now and then in earlier books, but they obviously serve a purpose. The TA kids in this book much the same (still haven't reread TTH, so i'm looking forward to paying much closer attention the next time around!), but they also served a greater purpose as well. Cutter's purpose may not be there yet, but an author is not going to spend that much time with him for something to not happen, so breathe easy and read on bro! (is it that apparent that i really like Cutter's characer?)

[Fenner]

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for character development... just as long as it relates to the piece as a whole. Ciceronian's comments about the books named after Crokus' subplots is interesting; I hadn't made that connection. Maybe when I read the series as a whole at some later date it will all fall into place.

But I still think Toll the Hounds itself would lose nothing were it stripped / cut down / moved someplace else. If the subplot is indeed 'just character development'... well, that isn't good enough. The purpose (show Crokus how he's changed, propel him to go and find Apsalar) could be accomplished elsewhere. Toll the Hounds is the slowest-paced book so far, to have one of the slowest-paced subplots show up in it seems excessive.

[HoosierDaddy]

Toll is different than the rest of the series, and Erikson calls it his "best" book and the "cypher" to the series. I wasn't gung-ho for Toll until I re-read it, and realized that while it didn't have the bang-kaboom-explody awesomeness of the previous 7 (until the end), it had much more to it. If you catch my meaning.

While MT is the best re-read of the series, Toll improves the most on re-read. When you don't worry about the slow grind towards the massive convergence, you are free to delve more deeply into the prose and connections.

[D'rek]

Fenner, on 12 December 2010 - 02:03 AM, said:

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for character development... just as long as it relates to the piece as a whole. Ciceronian's comments about the books named after Crokus' subplots is interesting; I hadn't made that connection. Maybe when I read the series as a whole at some later date it will all fall into place.

But I still think Toll the Hounds itself would lose nothing were it stripped / cut down / moved someplace else. If the subplot is indeed 'just character development'... well, that isn't good enough. The purpose (show Crokus how he's changed, propel him to go and find Apsalar) could be accomplished elsewhere. Toll the Hounds is the slowest-paced book so far, to have one of the slowest-paced subplots show up in it seems excessive.

If it were moved anywhere else, you'd just complain about it in that book, with the further addition that you'd wonder why the heck this weird Darujhistan subplot wasn't included in the book that was about Darujhistan.

It's not entirely irrelevent, anyways. Crokus', Barathol's, Gaz' and the retired Bridgeburners' storylines all show Darujhistan in a light very different from Gardens of the Moon. GotM didn't have any snide guilds thwarting aspiring entrepeneurs, secret gods or ominous backgrounds for the city. In GotM Darujhistan is almost idyllic and seems like it will always be there. TtH's Darujhistan is an ominous city with a dark history, murders in the night, unjust assassinations and random slaughter of innocents when the ascendants or a new religion come to town.

[Fenner]

Quote

If it were moved anywhere else, you'd just complain about it in that book, with the further addition that you'd wonder why the heck this weird Darujhistan subplot wasn't included in the book that was about Darujhistan.

Disagree. While I've some problems with the plot itself, it's still well-written and tragic. Part of being a good author is cutting parts of your book that, while 'good', don't add sufficiently to the book as a whole. As for having additional problems due to location, that's a fairly specious argument as many of the books feature vast differences in time and place, and I've no problem with, say, Karsa Orlong taking up a big chunk at the start of House of Chains (because it's relevant.)

Maybe it's too soon to discuss it; I do accept we've not got the series to consider holistically.

[worry]

That seems like a pretty reductive, narrow definition of relevance. If SE wants to spend some time on Theme, Setting, and Character without particularly focusing on Plot 100% of the time, I think he's earned our patience and understanding. If he were writing a short story that might be one thing, but it's a novel in a huge cycle of novels with any number of simultaneous threads with numerous destinations. What threads in any of our lives will see it through to that final convergence? I don't know.

[ShadowRaven]

For me the Crokus narrative doesn't seem irrelevant, but I did have some problems going trough those parts. My main problem was that I didn't really like (and still don't really care about) Crokus that much after DG, especially in his Cutter persona. TtH did add some badly needed depth to his character but it came a little too late for me to feel it was completely enjoyable. Also, the fact that the book is written with Kruppe as narrator adds to the length as SE's regular style is slightly more concise IMO, whereas Toll is more like Kruppe's monologues/conversations in the other books. Although it's longer, it does work very well, much better than Kruppe as a character does for me.

However, the whole Cutter storyline in Tth feels like a huge foreshadowing for things to come. Throughout the series, he has usually been portrayed as the most "average" non-badass human in the bunch who witnesses all these extraordinary things and sometimes even ends up making a difference. Essentially, his whole TtH part seemed like it was setting him up to be in the center of action in a later book, so needless to say I will be sorely disappointed if he doesn't appear in tCG and play a crucial part in how things will work out. If that doesn't happen, then his part in TtH will feel irrelevant.

[Fenner]

Agreed, ShadowRaven. Having been considering the points raised in this discussion, I think a later vindication would make me feel much better about the subplot.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

Fenner, on 12 December 2010 - 03:57 AM, said:

Quote

If it were moved anywhere else, you'd just complain about it in that book, with the further addition that you'd wonder why the heck this weird Darujhistan subplot wasn't included in the book that was about Darujhistan.

Disagree. While I've some problems with the plot itself, it's still well-written and tragic. Part of being a good author is cutting parts of your book that, while 'good', don't add sufficiently to the book as a whole. As for having additional problems due to location, that's a fairly specious argument as many of the books feature vast differences in time and place, and I've no problem with, say, Karsa Orlong taking up a big chunk at the start of House of Chains (because it's relevant.)

Maybe it's too soon to discuss it; I do accept we've not got the series to consider holistically.

There's no reason to believe that Crokus/Cutter won't play some similarly major role in the finale (considering the 1/3 of a book tangent that was Karsa's backstory, it's a pittance) that we have yet to divine with our collective Malazan Hive Mind (patent pending).

[zenMichael]

Also -- and I mean, I guess this is going against Fenner's OP that said "Did I miss anything? I'm talking background/foreshadowing, not evocation of theme." But since in these books theme is often the whole point (nearly everything that foreshadows the ending is a thematic foreshadowing, not a straightforward one), I don't feel it's wrong to point out that, for me, TtH seemed to be, thematically, a huge exploration of the question 'Whom do you choose to serve? And why?' We have tons of different takes on that, from the most self-indulgent (Kallor, who seems to serve no one but himself) to the most self-sacrificing (Rake. I still don't quite understand how or what he did--I understand what it accomplished, just not ... how exactly he did it or what it cost him, beyond death, obviously--but everyone seemed pretty shocked at it, so I'm going to assume it was a hell of a sacrifice). And, of course, we see this explored from the highest echelons (Hood, Rake, etc.) down to the everyday (Torvald, Challice and Cutter fall in here, I'd say). I think Challice's whole dilemma over whether to serve Vidakis (sp?) and sleep with his friends vs. sleeping with Cutter (and, relatedly, whether to attempt a real murder/coup of her husband or just serve him and take joy in what she can in life) echoes the same theme. And of course Gorlas (OK I didn't know how to spell his first name any better than his last so that was a fail there) is brought down by the same thing we keep seeing pop up in this series (the idea that gods should be afraid of mortals, or that masters should be afraid of those they perceive as servants): he overestimates his power and is taken down by the same trick that he's used to bring others down, in a way. So this whole subplot to me seemed just a minor echo of the bigger ripples in the water we're seeing throughout the whole book. Challice doesn't choose very wisely & feels trapped by these choices, so she takes the only way out she sees available by the end. Crokus chooses Apsalar, but then later seems to kind of grow up & realize even killing Vidakis doesn't mean he HAD to choose that route (by telling Karsa his original name & saying 'I used to be a thief' rather than 'I'm a super badass killer!'). So to me, this seemed incredibly relevant.

Plus keep in mind, this series is the Malazan Book of the Fallen. I think in many ways that section where Hood walks the streets and Kruppe is like, 'no, we will not brush over the dead, we will honor them with at least a mention' is THE cypher to the entire series. Yes, we're constantly introduced to different characters who might not last that long, but that's the POINT. There is a nobility to all the life in this series, no matter how ridiculous or petty it might be, and we're going to hang out with damn near everybody who kicks it for at least a little bit (part of why I feel all the resurrections & Hood & Army of Everyone Who Died are a BIT of a cheat to this theme, but still, I think it adds to the chaotic feel of the world).

Again, I'm one of those people who just thoroughly enjoyed TtH, so I'm obviously biased (there could've been like a dozen truly unrelated subplots in here, and if they were written in the same style I would've soaked it up -- I'm probably one of the few who likes the first 3/4 of the book better than the last quarter; all that plot just kind of gets in the way of talking about the way of the world, really). I do get what you're saying, Fenner, but now that we've got as much perspective on the series as a whole as we do, you could kind of say, you know, what purpose does book 2 serve that a few paragraphs in a later book wouldn't really do justice to the plot with? This series is about the small mortal struggles amplified and echoed elsewhere.

(Also, as a side note, I'm assuming Crokus will show up in ICE's Daru novel, since they've talked about plans for him in that one, but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if him calling himself Crokus again was the end of his arc in SE's books. Hell, he might even be being set up to do something awesome, but it doesn't really seem to, plotwise, tie into the main CG plot, and we know SE is content to leave us hanging about badass stuff that doesn't fit in--ahem, Tattersail and her undead army heading off to Assail and all that awesomeness).

[HedgeWalker]

Not much to add to the splendid up-thread points other than;

For me, Crokus/Cutter represents an invaluable human perspective. He seeks the reputation/heroic position/status in GotM, and that starts him on a journey of growth and experience that I find quite interesting, I.e. "It ain't all that you think it is mate". It can certainly be understood how this part of his journey might seem boring, especially with all the other characters and shenanigans going on elsewhere, but I was really interested to see how he would respond to Chalice the Slapper, and how he would roll up into the convergence.

His is a unique story since he starts with very little back-story (due to his age), and as such, rather than tantalisingly working out and hearing about the legendary deeds/behaviour of the past (see: Rake/Whiskeyjack/Dassem/Quick Ben etc), we are actually seeing the growth of great character fro the start. It's a personal opinion, but whether or not he has huge influence in the remainder of the story doesn't detract for me - he's already had considerable impact on development of Not-Apsalar, Cotillion, Rallick Nom, Murillio, Kruppe, Pusty, Gorlas <etc etc>... I'm looking forward to finding out what's next for the fella.

Cutter - Bitter Lessons for a Bitter World, or, Dude, where's my Apsalar?

We shall see...

[Fenner]

Cheers guys. Good discussion, and I feel like the subplot has been successfully sold to me now; at the very least I won't feel such trepidation when I pick up Toll the Hounds and that's always a good thing with a series I enjoy.

[zenMichael]

Fenner, on 16 December 2010 - 01:07 PM, said:

Cheers guys. Good discussion, and I feel like the subplot has been successfully sold to me now; at the very least I won't feel such trepidation when I pick up Toll the Hounds and that's always a good thing with a series I enjoy.

glad to be of some help, at least. of course, having said all this, i get (i think) how the mybhe subplot adds to the theme/plot of MoI and I still skipped it on a reread. /chagrin/
I'm starting to reread the books I've only read once at this point, and I'm already half-fearing, half-looking forward to MT since I REALLY disliked it the first time around, but I'm hoping on a reread I can kind of focus on the "hidden" bits rather than the main plot & get more out of it.

[MTS]

I actually found MT to be the best book on a re-read by far, followed by TTH and MoI. I think it's probably his best-written book to date, and I think the main reason people dislike it at first is that the change in setting and characters is fairly jarring. Once you get over that you can enjoy the book for what it really is.

[Ceda Cicero]

MTS, on 16 December 2010 - 05:33 PM, said:

I actually found MT to be the best book on a re-read by far, followed by TTH and MoI. I think it's probably his best-written book to date, and I think the main reason people dislike it at first is that the change in setting and characters is fairly jarring. Once you get over that you can enjoy the book for what it really is.

Agreed on the rereads. MT was actually my favorite on my first read-through as well, the writing style and story arcs just felt so fresh. The prologue hooked me right away - I loved being able to glimpse the Tiste invasion and Gothos, and on the whole I enjoyed the shift to an entirely new setting and cast. For me it was like taking a breather after bouncing back and forth between 7C and Genabackis with the first four books, and it felt refreshing.