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New York Times columnist Ross Douthat joins Chris to discuss his serialized fantasy novel, The Falcon’s Children. What inspired one of America’s most important political observers to write a work of fantasy, and to serialize it on Substack? What are his hopes for the project? And why is fantasy such a compelling literary genre?
Show Notes
Ross’s novel, The Falcon’s Children
Ross on Game of Thrones and J.R.R. Tolkien
Ross’s fantasy bookshelf
Patricia Snow on Hilary Mantel
Correction: Bret Easton Ellis did not publish his most recent novel (The Shards) on Substack; it was first serialized as an audiobook. Chris was thinking of Chuck Palahnuik’s latest novel, Shock Induction, which is based on a work he published serially on Substack.
Thanks to our sponsor, Brandybuck’s Tobacco.
Opening and closing music: “Spit It Out” by Brendan Benson, used with permission from the artist.
Christopher J. Scalia
Discussion (3)
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Interesting interview. I have rarely liked fantasy. Did read the Narnia books when younger. Have now read The Hobbit but to my shame I still have the last book of the Lord of the Rings to finish. (Heh I've finally gotten the first two done.) I will be unlikely to read Mr. Douthat's book but interesting to hear about the creative process.
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I'll give it a shot, but the amount of discussion around Game of Thrones doesn't hearten me. My read on Martin, by the way, is that he's too much of a nihilist to write a happy ending for the series, and unable to come up with a different, satisfying ending.
At the very least I'm going to assume that Mr. Douthat can write passable politics into his story. That's not always something you get all the time.
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Alright, having listened to the audiobook first seven (now) chapters, I'll rate it as adequate, not great. As I figured from the outset the politics is well done, the characters are reasonably complex, and I'm never left wondering as to what could possibly motivate someone to do such a thing, unless that is the book hasn't revealed that yet. The prologue in particular is well done.
His prose could use some refinement. It sounds a little too much like someone trying to make himself sound medieval. You can go either way on that, sounding modern in a medieval(ish) world, or properly medieval, but leaving readers halfway is no good. I recognize that that's an extremely difficult thing to amend. His world is a little too modern in sensibilities. The village girl with sights set on the broader world, that is fine. However he illustrates the point by mentioning her objection to village girls with no further ambition than marrying a village boy at age seventeen. That's a modern complaint. The more brutal a society is (as amply demonstrated by the further story) the more getting a husband is important to women. She should be admiring girls who are that quick to settle down, even if she can't stand the local clods herself.
That, and the religion in the book is suspiciously modern. People venerate the archangels, but aside from ritual participation in the religion there hasn't been anything there. Yet. Our age has an extremely rationalistic view of the divine due largely to enlightenment thought filtered through the theologians, but never mind that. I'd expect a fantasy world to have more --- if nothing else --- raw superstition about the archangels than the book has shown so far. In the podcast Douthat stated that a large theme of his world was the existence of neutral powers; good, evil, and the fae. Well, aside from the appearance of the fae in the prologue, we haven't seen any of that. You can do that, a sort of a slow burn, but even so you ought to be hinting at it, building up the importance of these matters. Instead we've got people who refer to the archangels but never change their actions based on the fact that the archangels might be watching.
Speaking of which, if I were the author I might scramble the names around a bit. I'd feel a bit embarrassed to be found writing Azrael fanfic when the angle of death comes for me.
That said, I appreciate the Irish priest character in chapter 7. (I don't know why he's Irish; Douthat gave him that accent in the audiobook and perhaps in the prose. Perhaps I'm missing something there.) Right, the priest. I'll forgive a great deal in a book for an honest priest. All too often the priesthood in any book these days is a clear the-butler-did-it cliche location for the villain. It ain't shocking anymore. Failing that, the most likely scenario is that the author really doesn't understand religion and what it does for people, so the priests bear no resemblance to reality. Douthat hasn't that problem; his priest bears some actual resemblance to the priests I've known. That said, if he turns out to be secretly a cackling demon worshiper I'll chuck the metaphorical book across the room.
My one serious issue from the book comes from the nation named Narsil. That's the name of the Sword that was Broken. When Aragorn reforged it in Fellowship of the Ring he renamed it Andruil, which is the name you're more likely to remember. I'm generally forgiving of name collisions as there's only so many one or two syllable words out there, but if you're writing epic fantasy and you've found you've accidentally pinched a name from Tolkien, you should probably change that.
To sum it up, I'll repeat I found the book adequate, not great. I'll be following it as long as it isn't paywalled. I make no guarantee of ponying up when the time comes.