Book Review: "Into the Narrowdark"
The third volume in Tad Williams' "The Last King of Osten Ard" heightens the stakes of this sprawling epic tale.
Readers of this newsletter know that I have long enjoyed the fantasy works of Tad Williams. He has the ability to bring his best to every work that he undertakes. I’ve been particularly enamored of his newest series, entitled The Last King of Osten Ard, which is a direct sequel to Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the next installment of the series ever since I finished Empire of Grass a couple of years ago. In fact, there were times when I thought that it would never come but, at long last, it was release day for Into the Narrowdark.
To put it bluntly, I couldn’t be happier.
The novel begins where its predecessor left off, with our various heroes and heroines scattered to the various corners of Osten Ard. Both Simon and Miriamele have to contend with their own misfortunes–Simon believes Miri has been slain while fleeing from Nabban, while she has survived an attack from bandits but soon finds herself imprisoned by a strange man who wants to make her his wife. Meanwhile, Prince Morgan struggles to escape from the ruins of an ancient city of the Sithi in the company of the Norn warrior Nezeru, who has to deal with her own crisis of identity. Elsewhere, Nezeru’s parents, the Norn Viyeki and her mortal mother Tzoja both find themselves having to do the bidding–often inscrutable and almost certainly deadly–of the Norn Queen Utuk’ku–who has resumed her efforts to bring about the end of all of humanity. Sundry other characters add their own perspective to the unfolding crises.
There are, to be sure, quite a few storylines that are constantly intersecting with one another, and that is one of the things that I’ve enjoyed the most about . While Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn was very much a traditional epic hero’s journey–with some subversive elements, as has been amply noted–the sequel series is something both like and unlike. Of course, it has most of the trappings one expects of an epic fantasy, but it is far more about the aftermath of an already-completed quest than it is about a quest, per se. What’s more, it largely eschews the good vs. evil narrative pattern, particularly since it gives us the viewpoint of so many widely-scattered characters.
Of particular note is the way that this novel gives us more insight into the inner workings of both the Sithi and the Norns. Though there were glimmers of this in the original trilogy, now we actually have several characters who hail from these peoples. I particularly enjoyed the various chapters from the viewpoint of both Jiriki and Tanahaya, two of the most notable of the Sithi. We’ve known Jirki from very early in The Dragonbone Chair, but it’s nice to get to spend some time inside of his head as he has to contend not only with the ongoing invasion of the Norns but also with the limitations of his own people, who seem infuriatingly unwilling (or unable) to see beyond their own obsession with death and oblivion to launch an effective defense against their own sundered kin.
In this regard, Nezeru is arguably the most fascinating of the many new characters. As one of those born in the aftermath of the Storm King’s War from the union of Norns and mortals, she finds herself caught between two different worlds. While she shows no loyalty to the human side of her identity, she does feel a great deal of skepticism, and sometimes downright hostility, toward the lies she has been told since she was a child. Though she can be cold and distant–to both us as readers and to the various characters that she encounters–it’s also very easy to sympathize with her as she finds everything she thought she knew about the world turned on its head.
The same is also true of her father, Viyeki, who struggles to see the reasoning behind his Queen’s wishes. In the rigid and strictly hierarchical society of the Norns, to challenge her rule in any way is almost always punishable by death, which makes Viyeki’s struggles all the more wrenching to witness. And, thanks to Williams’ great skill as an author, he allows the Norns to become something more than just the white-faced menace they were in his other series. Instead, they are fully-fleshed-out characters with their own dreams and struggles and desires. What’s more, we come to see that there are, after all, very good reasons for their hatred of mortals, who have taken over the entire continent, pushing the immortals further and further into exile.
And, as is often the case with Williams’ fantasy works, history has a very large role to play in the events of the present. Indeed, for a character like the immortal Norn Queen Utuk’ku history isn’t really in the past at all. As the oldest living being in this world, she feels the years acutely, and one gets the sense that she has decided to bring about an end of mortals, and possibly all living beings, simply so she can be freed from the torment of her perpetual existence. It goes beyond this, however. Time in Osten Ard, as in our world, continues to hurtle the characters forward, for both good and ill. Nothing, not even the magnificent peace that has governed the High Ward, can forever remain in a state of equilibrium. Just as our own world seems to be hurtling back in time to confront battles we long thought finished, so the residents of Osten Ard have to contend with the fact that evil–or at least menace–is never fully vanquished. It will always return to trouble the present.
I have to say, though, that two of my favorite characters are and will always be Simon and Miriamele. This makes sense since, after all, this is the second series of books that we’ve spent time with them. I feel particularly sorry for Simon, who spends the entire novel convinced that his wife–the woman with whom he has built a kingdom and a life–has been taken from him. Indeed, by the end of the novel it seems as if the entire High Ward is on the verge of collapse, as he has been the unfortunate and unwitting victim of one of his own chief advisers, the cunning Pasavalles. It’s an exquisite use of dramatic irony, The same is also true of Miriamele, who, in this book, comes to believe that Simon is also dead, once he has what appears to be a stroke on the field of battle. One can only hope that, in the concluding volume, they can at least have the peace of mind of knowing the other survives.
The entire story is buttressed by Williams’ extraordinary command of language. He has the power to paint a scene in such vivid detail that you truly feel as if you are standing right there bearing witness to the events unfolding, whether it’s the blood and thrill of battle or the eldritch terror of seeing the long-dead Sithi prince Hakatri brought back to life. Indeed, the interludes from Hakatri’s perspective are particularly haunting, as they give us the perspective of a person brought back from the peace of death to a living death and torment.
Some have occasionally accused Williams of creating characters who aren’t especially likable. However, this bit of criticism, to me, sort of misses the point that he’s trying to make with his work. Are some of his characters in these novels absolutely exasperating? Yes, definitely. This is particularly true, for example, of Prince Morgan, who is only slowly coming to realize that the world doesn’t in fact revolve around his desires and needs. However, it is precisely because we get to see him grow and change as a character that we come to identify with, or at least sympathize with, his plight.
Overall, I found Into the Narrowdark to be an absolutely riveting sort of read. It is something of a cliche to say that a book keeps you up past your bedtime for multiple nights, but that is in fact something that happened with this book. I found myself drawn into the pages of this book, inhabiting the magical, dangerous, beautiful, and deadly world of Osten Ard. This is a fictional universe that is as fully fleshed out as any you’re likely to find in fantasy and, even after so many books, there are still elements that remain enigmatic to us. Indeed, there is a central mystery to this entire series that has only slowly come into focus with each subsequent entry. While it’s not clear just what the Norn Queen intends to do, or whether she will succeed, she will certainly give it her all. Nor is it clear just what we, as readers, want to happen. In Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, we were always fairly certain about who we were supposed to be cheering for. In The Last King, however, things are far less clear-cut.
Only time will tell whether our heroes emerge triumphant and, indeed, whether their world survives at all.