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The Warrior Prophet (The Prince of Nothing, Book 2)
 | The Warrior Prophet (The Prince of Nothing, Book 2) R. Scott Bakker Date: 13 January, 2005 — $16.98 — Book Rating: |
Reviewing the second book in a series always seems like a bit of foolishness, especially when it's a positive review that you want to give. Who reads the second book in a series without reading the first? And if you've read the first, you probably have your own ideas about whether or not the second book is likely to be worth the trouble. With a final book in a series, at least you can make overarching judgments about the series as a whole, but it's a bit premature to try that in the second book, now isn't it?
Suffice it to say that I continue to enjoy this series (I reviewed the first book here). Our characters and our conflicts continue to be developed. If anything, this book moves a bit faster, relieved as it is of the necessity of setting things up. We learn new things, of course, but Bakker doesn't have the same monumental world-building task that he had in his first book.
So instead of a review, I thought I'd throw out some quotations from the novel that struck me. Obviously these are not representative--the ones that get selected tend to be thoughtful and thought-provoking, which is only one facet of the 600 quality paperback pages contained herein.
Most [men], by and large, were born narrow, and cared to see only that which flattered them. Almost without exception, they assumed their hatreds and yearnings to be correct, no matter what the contradictions, simply because they felt correct. Almost all men prized the familiar path over the true. That was the glory of the student, to step from the well-worn path and risk knowledge that oppressed, that horrified. Even still, Achamian, like all teachers, spent as much time uprooting prejudices as implanting truths. All souls were stubborn in the end.
There was also this interesting bit about books themselves:
A book was never “read.” Here, as elsewhere, language betrayed the true nature of the activity. To say that a book was read was to make the same mistake as the gambler who crowed about winning as though he’d taken it by force of hand or resolve. To toss the number-sticks was to seize a moment of helplessness, nothing more. But to open a book was by far the more profound gamble. To open a book was not only to seize a moment of helplessness, not only to relinquish the jealous handful of heartbeats to the unpredictable mark of another man’s quill, it was to allow oneself to be written. For what was a book if not a long consecutive surrender to the movements of another’s soul?
The last one is an exchange between the teacher Achamian and the prince Proyas (sometimes affectionately called Procha):
Doubt. In a sense, this had been Achamian’s single lesson. Geometry, logic, history, mathematics using Nilnameshi numbers, even philosophy!—all these things were dross, Achamian would argue, in the face of doubt. Doubt had made them, and doubt would unmake them.
Doubt, he would say, set men free… Doubt, not truth!
Beliefs were the foundation of actions. Those who believed without doubting, he would say, acted without thinking. And those who acted without thinking were enslaved.
…
“Faith, the Schoolman repeated, as though recalling the name of a hated foe. “Ask yourself, Prosha… What if the choice isn’t between certainties, between this faith and that, but between faith and doubt? Between renouncing mystery and embracing it?”
“But doubt is weakness!” Proyas cried. “Faith is strength! Strength!” Never, he was convinced, had he felt so holy as at that moment. The sunlight seemed to shine straight through him, to bathe his heart.
“Is it? Have you ever looked around you, Prosha? Pay attention, boy. Watch and tell me how many men, out of weakness, lapse into the practice of doubt. Listen to those around you and tell me what you see.
He did exactly as Achamian had asked. For several days, he watched and listened. He saw much hesitation, but he wasn’t so foolish as to confuse that with doubt. He heard the caste-nobles squabble and the hereditary priests complain. He eavesdropped on the soldiers and the knights. He observed embassy after embassy posture before his father, making claim after florid claim. He listened to the slaves joke as they laundered or bicker as they ate. And in the midst of innumerable boasts, declarations, and accusations, only rarely did he hear those words Achamian had made so familiar, so commonplace… The words Proyas himself found so difficult! And even then, they belonged most to those Proyas considered wise, even-handed, compassionate, and least to those he thought stupid or malicious.
“I don’t know.”
Why were those words so difficult?
“Because men want to murder,” Achamian had explained afterward. “Because men want their gold and their glory. Because they want beliefs that answer to their fears, their hatreds, and their hungers.
This doesn't even cover all of the passages I liked, but it's some. Feel free to comment on any of them that strike your fancy. Oh, and go read this series!
Do you read all these books in your dream? Or do you sleep at all?
Sorry, I submitted my previous comments accidentally before completion. I
was going to add, you should join our book club. :)
You would be a fabulous book club member. I don't know how you do
all you do either. I guess it is the getting by on six or less hours of
sleep a day?