TSIASOS Spork: Part 6, Part 1: The Farthest Shore (Poem)

[torylltales]

TSIASOS Spork: Part 6, Part 1: The Farthest Shore (Poem)

 

 

Here we are, folks. The final part of the book. I just want to take a moment to give a shoutout and imaginary fist-bump to everyone who has been part of this, er, project. Whether by sporking a chapter, or commenting, or even just reading and following along. I don’t think any one of us could have done this alone (or been stubborn enough to try, except maybe the Epistler).

 

Epistler: Clearly, you know me too well.

 

There were times I honestly wondered if we would actually get to the end of the story, and not just because the story itself seems to get stuck in a timeless loop of travelling and sleeping and twiddling thumbs and travelling more. It’s a seriously huge effort to spork the entire thing. Even though we’re not quite there yet, we’re close enough that the end is, as we say in Australia, “within cooee”. Or, more vulgarly, within spitting distance.

 

Anyway, here we go into the first chapter of the final section. We’ve just had our big climactic fights, Ctein and the Maw have both been destroyed, and now we only have the fallout and denouement. Theoretically, this should be the shortest part of the novel. Theoretically.
 

The section opens with a poem. Not a “borrowed” poem like other sections have started with, but a Paolini Original™. I had asked Snarkbotanya to contribute, as she has experience with ballads and epic poems, and a different perspective to my own. Unfortunately she was too busy to be able to give it the attention it deserves, so I asked Epistler, who was quite happy to add a few comments.

 

I’m going to quote the poem in full, in case any of you don’t have a copy of the book with you.

…

 

I’ve seen a greater share of wonders, vast

And small, than most have done. My peace is made;

My breathing slows. I could not ask for more.

To reach beyond the stuff of day-to-day

Is worth this life of mine. Our kind is meant

To search and seek among the outer bounds,

And when we land upon a distant shore,

To seek another yet farther still. Enough.

The silence grows. My strength has fled, and Sol

Become a faded gleam, and now I wait,

A Viking laid to rest atop his ship.

Though fire won’t send me off, but cold and ice,

And forever shall I drift alone.

No king of old had such a stately bier,

Adorned with metals dark and grey, nor such

A hoard of gems to grace his somber tomb.

I check my straps; I cross my arms, prepare

Myself to once again venture into the

Unknown, content to face my end and pass

Beyond this mortal realm, content to hold

And wait and here to sleep—

To sleep in a sea of stars.

 

—THE FARTHEST SHORE 48–70

HARROW GLANTZER

 

Epistler’s commentary:

 

I’ve seen a greater share of wonders, vast

A claim I pulled straight from my, ass.

...

To seek another yet farther still. Enough.

Yes. This has absolutely been more than enough. You can stop now.

...

No king of old had such a stately bier,

Adorned with metals dark and grey, nor such

A hoard of gems to grace his somber tomb.

I’m just THAT special.

 

 

Epistler: Now I wait upon the shore, bound to linger evermore.

Sorrow bows my shoulders low, for I know I soon must go.

Into the horror that awaits.

For this book shall not abate, and my throat shall burn with hate.

I curse the day I saw its covers, and more I dragged down too you others.

Into this fate now worse than death.

But in one thing I still take pride, no matter what I must abide,

However far I have to roam, I still can write a goddamn poem.


Torylltales: "The Farthest Shore", also the title of the final book of the  Earthsea trilogy by Ursula K Leguin.


So first up, this poem exists in-universe, and is referenced several times by various characters in the story. So it’s a pretty famous and culturally pervasive poem in-story. So much so that people who were born and grew up on completely different planets all seem to be familiar with it.

 

A quick aside, Paolini is on record as saying that when he wrote this poem, his inspired himself so much that the book was named after the poem. That’s honestly impressive. An impressive new height (or depth?) of pretension.

 

As poems go, it is a vast improvement over the poems of the Inheritance Cycle. It’s not terribly overwritten and purple, nor is it full of tired cliches, or, thank goodness, made up “elvish” words and throwaway cultural references. But it’s also not great.

 

Epistler: It’s clunky as all hell as what it is. It just doesn’t flow. Every time it starts to flow, he breaks it.

 

I know I’m perhaps unfairly biased against unstructured free verse. I prefer a poem to have a strong sense of rhythm, whether metrically or by rhyme, or at least some sense of structure. Random Enjambment is not a suitable replacement for rhythm, rhyme, or structure. There are exceptions, of course, and free verse can certainly work in the right circumstances or for the right subject matter, IF there are enough other poetic elements such as metaphor, heightened language use, or evocative imagery.

 

Epistler: Evocative imagery in a Paolini novel. Now there’s a laugh.

 

In the story, characters have been described singing and humming this poem, so I suppose it was at some point set to music. Given the lack of rhythm or rhyme I’m not sure how this could work, unless the words become secondary to the accompanying music, which is kind of the opposite of what you want from a ballad.

 

Just to compare, here’s a famous iconic Australian poem that has been set to music many times, and has a similar (or greater) cultural impact within Australia as To Sleep’s poem is supposed to have had on that universe:

 

I had written him a letter,

which I had, for want of better

Knowledge, sent to where I met him,

Down the Lachlan, years ago.

He was shearing when I knew him,

So I sent the letter to him,

Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows:

Clancy of ‘The Overflow’.

 

And an answer came directed

In a writing unexpected

(And I think the same was written

with a thumbnail dipped in tar)

‘Twas a shearing mate who wrote it

And verbatim I will quote it:

“Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving,

And we don’t know where he are”.

 

(By the way, I wrote that out completely from memory, because it’s that strongly ingrained in my memory).

 

Enjambment and line breaks are used not just randomly, but to emphasise the rhyme and the rhythm of the piece. The rhythm is made stronger by the harmony of the rhyme and enjambment. Certain words and phrases are highlighted by the line breaks.

 

And yes, this poem has been set to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN-k5CUmAMc

 

In university, my Poetry 201 friends used to play the Random Enjambment Game, by finding some random paragraph from a book, magazine, or even a brochure, and turning it into Poetry by adding random line breaks.

 

In university, my

Poetry 201 friends

used to play the Random

Enjambment Game, by

Finding some random paragraph

from a book,

magazine, or even a

brochure, and turning it into

Poetry

by adding random

Line breaks.

 

 

As you can tell, the results were frequently not very poetic. Because poetry is much, much more than just throwing line breaks around. Paolini’s poem is prose that has been subject to the Random Enjambment Game. For fun, let’s try the opposite, and turn it into prose:

 

 

I’ve seen a greater share of wonders, vast and small, than most have done. My peace is made; my breathing slows. I could not ask for more. To reach beyond the stuff of day-to-day is worth this life of mine. Our kind is meant to search and seek among the outer bounds, and when we land upon a distant shore, to seek another yet farther still. Enough. The silence grows. My strength has fled, and Sol become a faded gleam, and now I wait, a Viking laid to rest atop his ship. Though fire won’t send me off, but cold and ice, and forever shall I drift alone. No king of old had such a stately bier, adorned with metals dark and grey, nor such a hoard of gems to grace his somber tomb. I check my straps; I cross my arms, prepare myself to once again venture into the unknown, content to face my end and pass beyond this mortal realm, content to hold and wait and here to sleep— to sleep in a sea of stars.

 

 

It reads like some pretentious pseudo-Dickensian scientist’s diary, not a poem forced into prose form. More importantly, putting it in prose form really highlights how flat and emotionless it is. There’s very little in the way of poetic technique. No particularly heightened language, only a handful of metaphors sprinkled around, and no real sense of rhythm.

 

If we go back to Clancy of the Overflow for a moment, and try the same thing:

 

I had written him a letter, which I had for want of better knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan years ago. He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows: Clancy of ‘The Overflow’. And an answer came directed, in a writing unexpected (and I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar): ‘twas a shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: “Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.”

 

The rhyme and rhythm of the original poem still shines through and almost forces a particular rhythm in the prose form.

 

Epistler: Because Banjo Paterson was brilliant is why. Anyone who hasn’t heard “The Man From Snowy River” recited over a campfire has missed out on something truly special. (The dude is so revered here in Australia they put him on the $10 note, and for good reason).

 

The Man from Snowy River is so good that it not only was turned into music by a bunch of different singers, but was also adapted into a novel, an hour-long silent black and white film in the 1920s, and then into a 1982 feature film that won several of that year’s Australian Film Industries Awards and the Montreal 1982 Film Festival’s “Most popular film of the festival” award, and was nominated for a Golden Globe.

 

A poem has to be pretty darn good to get that much attention. And Paolini’s poem, to put it politely, isn’t.

 

Part 6 Chapter 1 will be up next weekend.

Comments

[epistler]

Am I the only one who thinks this poem sounds way more like it's out of a fantasy novel? All that crap about kings and Vikings and whatnot.

I'm also thinking of something SwankIvy once said:

If you're tone-deaf, I can't teach you to sing. All I can do is wince, possibly feel sorry for you, and suggest you leave singing to those of us with a sense of pitch. Not to sound like a brat, but if you're doing something professionally, you have to not suck at it, or people with a sense of pitch for writing, so to speak, are going to smack you silly.

She was right, and Paolini is still hopelessly tone-deaf, and I don't think that's ever going to change.

[ultimate_cheetah]

Paolini still has people talking like in the IC. It's really weird. And he has written bits that sound like fantasy sprinkled through.

[epistler]

Yeah, he hasn't altered his style all that much in the scheme of things. And then there's the ending, which is pure "high fantasy" to an absolutely ridiculous degree.

[ultimate_cheetah]

It's like the Galadrial scene from LOTR, except at the end, and without the impact.

[torylltales]

He even admitted he was tone deaf, in an early interview. He envied writers who could hear the rhythm in words and sentences. And yet he keeps trying to be some epic bard whose poetry should be admired and celebrated.

[epistler]

Sounds like another example of his well-known false modesty to me.

I sometimes wonder if the fact that I'm a trained musician has had an effect on my own prose - I can sing and play an instrument, and I do know I have a very good sense of pitch and rhythm. Interesting to consider.

[hidden_urchin]

"Man From Snowy River" made such an impact the theme from the 1982 film was used in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. IIRC, it showed up in both the opening ceremony and the equestrian events medal ceremonies.

[torylltales]

On the one hand, it takes serious balls to write, of your own fictional character, that he is "a household word today". On the other hand... he is.

[hidden_urchin]

It's pretty awesome. :D

[epistler]

I once knew a guy who could recite the entire thing off by heart! It was amazing. :D

[torylltales]

A librarian I worked under at my first library job used to randomly burst into various classic Australian poem/songs, such as "He was a wild colonial boy" amd "'Twas Mulga Bill from Eaglehawk / Who caught the cycling craze".

One of my favourite Australian poems is Henry Lawson's "The Glass On The Bar", though. Not as sing-songy as Banjo's, but Lawson had a poignancy of his own.

...
They thought of the far-away grave on the plain,
They thought of the comrade who came not again,
They lifted their glasses, and sadly they said:
‘We drink to the name of the mate who is dead.’
And the sunlight streamed in, and a light like a star
Seemed to glow in the depth of the glass on the bar.

[epistler]

It's so evocative, isn't it? And it manages it without any of that flowery bullshit Paolini is so fond of. True poets know how to find poignancy in the small and simple things, which gives them far more impact.

[hidden_urchin]

I could do that when I was twelve, but I've since forgotten it. One of the weird side-effects of being a horse-crazy kid.

[torylltales]

I still can't get over the fact that he took the title of his poem from an Ursula K Leguin book. And one of the most recognisable fantasy trilogies out there.



Wait... something about that seems familiar...



Hmm...


Nope, I can't place it. I'm sure it will come to me when I'm trying to sleep tonight.

[epistler]

Why is he referring to "shores" when we're meant to be in outer space anyway? They're not called spaceships because they sail the high seas, y'know.

[torylltales]

Are... Are you saying Disney's Treasure Planet... lied?!

[epistler]

Certainly not! It was set in an alternative universe where things work differently. *sniff*
That movie is so underrated it's downright criminal.

[torylltales]

It certainly deserves a better reputation than "the movie that almost bankrupted Disney". Whimsical and a touch ridiculous, but at its heart it was a solid emotionally satisfying story.

And the music score was flawless.

[epistler]

It certainly deserves a better reputation than "the movie that almost bankrupted Disney".

The Disney higher-ups completely screwed the movie over is why. Remember how utterly pathetic the marketing campaign was? Yeah, that was on purpose.

There's a very good documentary about it on YouTube if you're interested in the details. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9sycdSkngA

And the music score was flawless.

GOD yes. The instrumental score is some of James Newton Howard's finest work, which is saying a lot. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiqJjxQiNbY
It is not physically or emotionally possible to listen to this track alone without feeling a wonderful, fierce urge to go out into the world and seek adventure! :D

Literally the only thing I would change about that movie if given the chance would be to get rid of the obnoxious comic relief robot. At least they had the sense to only use him very sparingly.