Why the title in quotation marks? Because we’re talking directly of the title itself.

There was a recent reply of Steven Erikson to some provocations of mine on Tor.com re-read. Lots of interesting topics that are relevant to the genre at large. One was about the use of “magic” in fantasy (a rather broad argument that Erikson handled brilliantly in that reply), another was about the title of the first book, “Gardens of the Moon”.

This is what he said specifically:

Before I get to the matter of DEM’s and all that … now that the series is done, and now that I’ve already said elsewhere that Toll the Hounds provides the cipher for understanding the series, it probably does no harm to reveal what was going on in my mind during the writing of Gardens of the Moon, and how my reality (and sense of it) shaped what I wrote, and gave me the reasons for writing it the way I did.

As any beginning writer well knows, the future is filled with soaring hope and crushing despair. Yes, there are bestselling writers out there making a decent living (or even filthy rich), all happily writing full-time. But they are a minority; and most even published writers need to supplement their habit with ‘real work.’ So, you hope and you fear. You want but you also need to be realistic. And in the bookshops you pick up titles and read a little bit and wonder how in hell did this ever get published? Or you think, ah, here I am in good hands.

And you daydream. A lot. These days they call it visualisation. So, there we were, living on Saltspring Island, unemployed and on welfare (starving in paraidse, we still call that phase of our lives). A baby about to arrive and scant prospects on the horizon.

But I kept looking at those books in the stores, trying to work out why some ever made it into print; trying to figure out the rhyme or reason of publishing. It looked like the biggest crapshoot imaginable. Seemed to me that luck played as big a role as talent. Who you knew, that kind of thing.

Luck. I sat down to write this fantasy novel, thinking about chance and mischance. Thinking about a life in anonymity and a life that wasn’t (refer if you will to Circle Breaker in the epilogue and the novel’s last line). Thinking about writing a tale filled with magic, high adventure and a wild, if not insane, climax. And dreaming of getting it published and actually making a living as a writer.

Lots of dreams went into Gardens of the Moon (hence the title, too, and the invented mythos surrounding it), along with ambition. And the writing thereof became on one level a dialogue with myself (as is the entire series).

At the same time I spotted on Malazan forums a comment written by a reader that not only is coherent with what Erikson wrote there, but also drags it more to the surface:

I’m going to nod my head to the genius of the title, “Gardens of the Moon”, for as perverse as it seems to name a book after a seemingly obscure reference in a single conversation, that reference encompasses a theme of enormous importance in the book and the series.

1. The story of the ‘gardens of the moon’, as told by Apsalar, offers the hope of future bliss. More broadly, you can read redemption or salvation for bliss.

To all those struggling in their day to day lives with the seemingly eternal problems of societies (war, injustice, tyranny[1]) and personal existence (heartbreak, illness, hunger), any hope of future salvation and bliss is obviously of enormous appeal. Readers of later books will recognise where this idea goes. The Chained God’s apparent doctrine to mortals (regardless of his actual intentions) is the story of the gardens of the moon; an offer of future bliss and release from their present sufferings.

2. Apsalar’s telling of the story of the ‘gardens of the moon’ frames it as a kind of fairy story or children’s tale or fantasy.

In other words, it requires a certain naivety or wilful self-delusion to buy into it wholly, so there’s actually two opposed themes derived from it:
( a ) subservience to – or faith in – a wilful self-deception or illusion offering the hope of future bliss,
— versus —
( b ) clearer-eyed experience (or cynicism) teaching a truer but harder reality that hope is often transient (unless you struggle to hang on to it) and bliss elusive (unless you lower your expectations of it).

And that opposition is the crux of the drama in the entire series. Most (almost all?) of the major characters in the series embody the struggle between these notions in some way, and their experiences and personal evolution are an examination of these two competing ideas. (Consider Paran’s path in GotM[2].) That’s what makes the choice of title of the first book so brilliant.

Of course, the longer someone has been around, the closer to the second category they generally fall. In terms of groups, rather than individuals, the embracing of the second ideal isn’t often the result of revelation, but entropy and experience, and although groups don’t encompass the free-will aspect of this idea (see note [1]), the important factor is that they are (largely) without the hope of reward or bliss. Think of the ennui that permeates the Tiste Andii and what led them to that (much of which only comes out in later books, admittedly), or more amusingly, Tool’s often quoted ruminations about the T’lan Imass:

“Tell me, Tool, what dominates your thoughts?”
The Imass shrugged before replying, “I think of futility, Adjunct.”
“Do all Imass think about futility?”
“No. Few think at all.”
“Why is that?”
The Imass leaned his head to one side and regarded her, “Because Adjunct, it is futile.”

————————–

[1] One of the more amazing notions that appears in the series is that all forms of society, even the smallest community – is a form of tyranny. From anyone else, this’d sound like pure cynicism, but from an anthropologist (as Erickson is), it is – at least in the context of the Malazan series -something to bear in mind. Now I think this idea is first spelled out, albeit in passing, in MoI (in reference to the Jaghut’s self-imposed personal isolationism), although it utterly dominates some later books. What’s of interest (to me, at least) is the way in which this notion of tyranny as a social force appears reflected in the two opposed themes of the ‘gardens of the moon’ story: a personal subservience versus a rejection of the consolations of companionship.

[2] Paran has given over control of his life to an ideal of service to the Adjunct (early on in GotM) – in part a wilful self-delusion; that by following rather than making his own choices he can be absolved of the myriad challenges of free will. But new friendships undermine his isolation, casting him adrift as a pawn of other powers who test him sorely, and only by finally seeking to break his subservience to them does he begin to leave behind his illusion of hope granted by unthinking service; and now has to face the nasty idea that redemption (of any kind) will not come from any self-deception, and that new forms of more freely given service to others (and other ideals) – while being more ethically true to his heart – are without (illusory) guarantees of redemption. It’s the hard road – no more gardens of the moon for him… apparently.

Many other characters touch upon this idea in different ways. Compare Lorn’s path with Paran’s: after being tested, and tempted to leave her illusions behind, she appears to return to the path of the gardens of the moon – in action at least, but what about her heart?

Or consider Whiskeyjack, Toc the Younger, and Rallick Nom (what do they really trust in? and how have their outlooks evolved with their allegiences/friendships and experiences?).

I should also mention that this is STRONGLY related to “Disciple of the Dog” that I think I could safely define as the most extraordinary book I’ve read.

The enlightenment is right over there. One just has to figure out if it’s desirable or not.

“Mock’s Vane” is the object whose description opens the Prologue of Gardens of the Moon. I was briefly discussing its description on Westeros forums when I noticed that on Tor reread it was interpreted in a completely different way, without triggering any debate. So I thought it was worth elaborating here.

This is the paragraph with the description:

The stains of rust seemed to map blood seas on the black, pocked surface of Mock’s Vane. A century old, it squatted on the point of an old pike that had been bolted to the outer top of the Hold’s wall. Monstrous and misshapen, it had been cold-hammered into the form of a winged demon, teeth bared in a leering grin, and was tugged and buffeted in squealing protest with every gust of wind.

And this is Bill interpretation on Tor’s site:

Hardly a cheery start, but an appropriate one. I like to think of that vane as synonymous with the Bridgeburners: their armor also rusted and stained (albeit with real blood), balancing atop a sharp point (between loyalty to the Empire and defiance towards the Empress), hammered into its current shape by a cruel forging, and buffeted by the winds of war and politics.

It makes sense but I think my interpretation is more accurate and convincing. I’m not a particularly intuitive guy and these things usually defy me, but in this case I used a rather simple framework. I took the object and divided its basic qualities. Those traits will probably qualify what the vane stands for/symbolizes.

In particular, it’s the fact it’s a century old that makes things clearer. What is also a century old? You just have to glance above the first line of prose:

96th Year of the Malazan Empire

As to say “a century old”. It already defies the Bridgeburner interpretation as the Bridgeburners were most likely created much later.

This particular vane is then featured again in “Night of Knives”, the Esslemont book. It appears twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of the book.

On its pike at Temper’s side, Mock’s Vane, the winged demon-shaped weathervane, shook and hummed as if caught in a steady gale. Temper frowned at the old relic; the winds were calm this evening.

Down the wall, Mock’s Vane stood silent on its pike. Temper eyed it – the damn thing appeared frozen athwart the wind.

The main reason why I criticized this book in my review, is that Esslemont is like Erikson stripped of all subtlety and we see a good demonstration in those two quotes. The symbol is stripped of ambiguity and reveals its meaning all too plainly: the vane moves, without wind, at the start, and is still, even with wind, when the night is over. Why? Because its symbolic meaning is more important than it being a weathervane and so pointing the direction of the wind.

“Night of Knives” is the book with the story of the night that the Prologue of Gardens of the Moon anticipates. Mock’s vane is there to represent the old empire under Kellanved. Its description and physical properties are “thematic” and analogous to that sort of empire he built. The vane is restless because a convergence is close (but the reader doesn’t know this yet), in Night of Knives it moves before the convergence, then stops when the night is over. Mock’s Hold, in Erikson’s own words, represents a position of power and control, in this case it “observes” from above.

An old thing stirring. An emperor that comes back. A misshapen, grotesque imitation of life (movement).

There are lot of things and meanings packed there. In just a few lines. All the various meanings are directly connected with the prologue and what the prologue stands for (the “Night of Knives”). It works really well because it is coherent with everything Erikson wanted to do with that Prologue. You can accuse it of being maybe too plain and obvious, but here we got that piece interpreted in a different way, or considered by other readers as being pointless or not having any real meaning.

From a side Erikson is accused of being too obscure, and when instead symbols are more obvious then he’s accused of being too plain.

One has to consider in particular how that part is approached by a reader. A first time reader doesn’t know what is about to happen, doesn’t know what happened to the emperor. One doesn’t know the rules of Ascendancy and gods can be only considered on a level that is entirely separated from human affairs. This “disconnection” allows Erikson to do some of the most obvious foreshadowing and brilliant sleight of hand. Things are spelled so clearly and yet the readers are so masterfully deceived. The vane can only be registered as ominous foreshadowing that can’t be placed yet (and that aspect was well commented by Bill). Its real meaning isn’t even revealed if one reads the whole book because what happened that day is the apex of a long story involving the matters of the “old empire” and “old guard” that the reader pieces together in the longer term. It takes maybe up to House of Chains to get the whole picture.

Good foreshadowing = when some vague hint acquires a much greater import in retrospective.

And in that, Bill’s interpretation is actually incorporated by the greater one. The Bridgeburners are caught in bigger situation and just one of the parties involved. That day, foreshadowed by the vane stirring, has a much bigger impact. And so, depending on the level of awareness of the different reader, it adapts its meaning.

Another wonderful gift from Steven Erikson. He wrote some comments for Tor ongoing reread about why new readers struggle reading his books, his style of writing, how to approach the series and some specific aspects of Gardens of the Moon.

I think there’s a rule that is true for all books and writers: we can only hope to understand and appreciate a fraction of what is offered. This is an even bigger problem with Erikson because the text is dense and one doesn’t even expect that every word and every scene is so strongly charged of meaning and metaphorical intention. If there’s a description we approach it as a description, and most of the layers and delicate complexities are lost. If instead one wants to dig, soon he’d find himself swallowed whole. Erikson has the range of the greatest writers.

It takes some modesty to admit of not having fully understood a book. It also takes a different point of view to realize we haven’t fully understood one. If we see nothing we are sure that there is nothing. But the truth, and it’s a truth valid for all writers, is that we may be closer or far, but we always understand a fraction. Bigger or smaller, still a fraction.

Two times I reread that book, so much I’ve treasured, and I feel like I could still only glide on the surface.

Hello all,

The great thing about having a cold is the privilege of sitting round for days doing nothing and not feeling guilty about it. Having read through the chapter commentary from the beginning, I’d like to take you all back more than a few pages, and talk about why these novels seem to thrive in the context of re-reads, and why first-time readers are often left feeling bewildered. I think the two are very much related.

It goes back to how I first started writing fiction. I was in a Master’s program in archaeology when I came second in a local short story contest in Winnipeg, a tale called ‘Wooden Trucks.’ On the weight of this one venture into writing I applied to attend a creative writing program at the University of Victoria. I recall being in a sweaty phone box in Belize, on the phone with my mother back in Winnipeg, as she opened the envelope telling me I’d got in. From that moment onward, my entire world changed.

The writing program at Uvic at that time was at its zenith. When I showed up it was as a wide-eyed neophyte with a secret love of genre fiction (one keeps these things secret if one wants to be taken seriously). What I learned, almost from day one, was that I knew nothing about anything; that my writing to that point had only ‘worked’ because I was instinctively consistent, with emphasis on the word ‘instinctively.’

Uvic taught me the craft of writing; it taught me to be mindful. The key though is this: it made me a short-story writer. Short stories are a particular beasts. In them, not a single word is superfluous. Everything carries extra weight, or at least that’s how I saw it.

Track forward a few years and scores of short stories later, and I begin writing novels, only to discover that my ‘muscle memory’ is now absolute — the obsessive adherence to multifunctional, multilayered writing (line by line, word by word) is not something I can relax — when novel writing in fact demands just that: an ease with wandering, with transitive passages, with a gentler hand taking hold of the reader, etc. Instead, novel-writing for me is the building of ever more elaborate structures, designed to carry ever more weight.

A long ramble to get to this: on one level details in making a setting carry the more obvious virtues — placing the characters somewhere, giving them things with which they can interact; in creating an atmosphere and a tone; and in painting a picture for the reader’s imagination. But other levels are possible. Setting as ‘animated environment’ can feed your sense of the characters in it; can foreshadow elements of plot; can reveal theme.

Take some opening scenes in Gardens as examples, and see how they relate to subsequent scenes for those select characters. Whiskeyjack and Fiddler on Mock’s Hold: high above a burning city, in a place of power. There’s smoke and the smell of carnage — they are above it but only moments from descending into it. But we don’t see that bit. They are on stonework, but it’s cracked, and their backs are to the sea. All of these details shapes the reader’s sense of them to some extent. When next we see them, they are on the ground, far away from Malaz City, surrounded in destruction and desolation. It’s a different place, but their descent began in the prologue, if you see what I mean. And even then, they were only a short time earlier under the ground itself.

If we look to Kruppe, things get a little more complicated. Kruppe and his city are the same things; just as his language and attitude (and mystery) reflect the exotic, byzantine confusion of Darujhistan, so too his half-mocking smile and spark in the eye invite you into the labyrinthine cityscape (and the literally over-the-top assassin/Crokus chase). Kruppe is both flashy but on close examination somewhat scuffed, stained. He has a cherubic face, but plenty hides behind that. And so on. His voice is the city’s voice, and it begins in a dream, as all great cities do.

Where is all this going? It goes here. Three storm clouds converging over Lake Azure, into which Whiskeyjack and co. are headed. A reader comments that I’m too smart to now say that there was deliberate portent in the detail of three clouds warring over the lake. Hmm. It’s been too many years since that for me to be more specific than this: I could have written ‘there was a storm over the lake,’ and left it at that. The foreshadow is obvious enough. But, if I’d written that description, I would have immediately seen the foreshadowing element — it’s almost too cinematic and verges on cliche. I could then have changed it to two storm clouds, but then, that wouldn’t have made sense; or rather, it would have been suggestive but inaccurately so. There are three forces converging on the city. Two storm clouds would have been lazy and misleading; careless.

Of course there are three storm-clouds. Of course this detail is relevant. It’s how short stories work.

Uh oh. This ain’t a short story though, is it? And therein lies the problem. I know what I’m up to; I know how I think and how I write. And to make matters worse, everything I put into a narrative is saying (pleading, begging) ‘you can trust me, honest.’ But I’m not taking the reader by the hand. I’ve invited them into a place, left them standing, looking round, wandering a bit but not far, not far at all. And every now and then I tap a shoulder, point, nod to over there, or here. And that’s it.

Re-readers will nod and smile. First-timers will blink, bewildered — and will decide to either trust me or not. I really want them to trust me, but I don’t know how to manage that… beyond making sure that everything fits, that everything has meaning.

A virtue or a flaw in my writing? Maybe both. You see, I already know that world, but the only details I show you are the important ones. There’s no filler. And that’s not fair.

And the structure is such a crazed, manic machine, an engineer’s nightmare, a spider’s acid trip, it’s really no wonder that readers will doubt, and on occasion give up on the effort, on the trust I so desperately ask for.

So, to all you new readers on this, I am ever amazed and slightly astonished to find you staying with me. I tell myself that what is happening is a kind of education process: read me this way, it’s the only way. Pay attention! You will be tested on all of this, I guarantee it. Stay with me and in turn I will promise you that it will be a blast.

And even better, then you’ll have all those re-reads, when things will really get wild.

Cheers for now
Steve