Clariel, Garth Nix
It’s a bit surprising to me to see the disappointed reviews of this, because I quite enjoyed it. Of course, it’s a different world to the one Sabriel enters, and different even from the world that Lirael and Sameth have to navigate as Sabriel and Touchstone work on restoring the Old Kingdom. This one doesn’t feature any contact with Ancelstierre, and is set before even Touchstone/Torrigan’s time. So naturally, the concerns of its people, the politics, are all quite different. It’s interesting to see an Abhorsen clan which is much larger than that of Sabriel’s time, but which is decidedly weaker; it’s interesting to see in Sameth the diffidence of earlier Abhorsens.
But in fact, I like Clariel herself rather more than Lirael or Sameth. She has goals and she pursues them, and she doesn’t have to take on responsibility, but she does. Of course, all her choices go wrong, unlike Sabriel or Lirael’s. If you think about the guiding words of these books, “Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?” — you could almost say that Sabriel, knowing her choices, chooses her path. Clariel’s path chooses her, because she’s not given the information she needs to make her own choice. In neither case is there really an alternate way, but Sabriel’s path is knowing and Clariel’s is forced.
It’s interesting to get a look at the bloodlines in the land and how they work out in a time of peace. Because of the strength of Sabriel and her father, and Touchstone and Sabriel’s rule, it’s easy in the trilogy to think that when the bloodlines are in the right place, everything will be alright. Clariel shows us that it isn’t, and gives us a picture of the other troubles of the Old Kingdom. There are no Dead creatures here in this book; instead we see the Abhorsens and Charter mages needing to deal with the other threat, of Free Magic.
One thing I really loved, on a character-level, is that Clariel is explicitly asexual. She’s not interested, she’s not going to change her mind for the right person or something, and like many ace people, she’s even experimented a bit to try and figure out how that all works. It’s awesome that she doesn’t really have conflict about this, and while people think she may be mistaken, nobody’s pushing her to “fix” it, or guilting her because she doesn’t want that.
In a way, the story feels very incomplete, because it’s just a fragment of a life, a tiny piece of the history of the Old Kingdom, and it doesn’t connect up the dots between this book and the original trilogy. There is plenty of room for many, many more stories, even ones featuring the same characters, should Nix choose. But we do have the shape of Clariel’s life sketched out for us, between this book and the original trilogy; I think it may be more satisfying seen that way, rather than read as a stand-alone.
Rating: 4/5
Asexuals are “ace people?” I love that!
I agree with most of what you say but was disappointed in the book for other reasons entirely; I found it remarkably unsubtle and the pacing was way off; acres spent with Clariel being baggage (a necessary thing but not requiring so much time spent on it) then a rushed denoument. Overall the book seemed bloated.
I was also a bit disappointed that we don’t see Clariel’s complete transformation; I felt like the ending was a cop-out avoiding a braver decision to make the book a full-on Tragedy.
My major hangup with the novel was the pacing. It moved so slowly and I felt like I was going no where, making no progress. It took me most of the summer to finish this one because I would read a chapter or two, get bored, move on to something else, finish it and come back for a few more chapters.
I do hope to go back and re-read the original trilogy. Perhaps then I will appreciate Clariel more.
Terri M., the Director
Second Run Reviews
Weird, because I read it all in one go and found the pacing better than Lirael, which I got frustrated with! Different things please different people, I guess.
Yep! I have an awesome t-shirt with an ace of hearts on it, and only people who’re clued in actually get it while it still looks cool.
Hmm, see, I expected to find the pacing off, because I wasn’t so happy with the Old Kingdom books in retrospect — but actually flew through Clariel in one go. Odd!
Yes, it’s true, but I think that’s also related to the pacing issue — the complete transformation would be several books long at the rate of time passing in the book.
I’m glad you’ve pointed out the many positives in this, Nikki, in view of the general disappointment (me included) that this seemed not to match the excitement of the trilogy. She is a determined figure, certainly not wishy-washy in the way Sameth was, and certain that whatever was planned for her was not what she wanted. In a way the path really did choose her as much as she chose her path: she didn’t want to be hidebound by Belisaere’s rituals (nor by people she rightly despised) but wished to be free to wander the wilds; but, in the way that prophecy often works, her path to ultimately becoming Chlorr is predetermined, mapped out for her, just not necessarily as expected.
So, in a fashion, it is in our own world: our predestined future is each to go from birth to death — that much is certain — but how we get there, that is largely of our own choosing. One hopes.
One hopes, indeed. Neurobiology might hint otherwise…
Reading about autism has made me realise that a lot more of what we normally call a person’s character may be genetically predetermined/predisposed than I would have guessed.
Ditto in terms of general neurology. By the time I’m a neurologist, I’m not gonna believe in free will anymore at this rate!
How are you getting on with the task of becoming a neurologist?
Well, in the best case scenario, it’s ten years off! But I sat a science exam yesterday that’s the first step in getting to medical school… (Three hours of science and math, no break. Gah.)
This is the med school “aptitude” exam you’ve mentioned previously?
Not even! It was my Open University exam, on the course that’s hopefully preparing me for the aptitude exam. Gaah.
Oh! Well, I hope you did well.