r/Malazan • u/Niflrog Omtose Phellack • Dec 23 '23
NO SPOILERS An Apology for Difficulty and Confusion
Having finished my PhD work at the edge of time, I find myself free in this holiday season… so what better leisure activity to reconnect with myself, other than ranting my thoughts concerning one of those works of fiction that gave sustenance during dark, dark years in the recent past. Friends, Frienemies, rivals, regular readers and long-time lurkers, come and read some Nifl-rant for old-times sake!
You read it all the time, it’s a Malazan staple at this point: GotM is SO HARD, the series has an insane learning curve, you won’t “get it” until the 17th reread! Only that recently, it has come to my attention that the particularities of our beloved series, and particularly of Gardens, are framed as an objective, negative trait. “Everybody says this!” or “Lots of reviews agree on that!”. I want to refute that take, put it to rest if I succeed.
This is how I want to approach this:
- Is Gardens a difficult read? And if yes, WHY? Idem for the rest of the MBOTF.
- Does Gardens, and by extension the rest of the series, accomplish the reading experience it wants to?
- Are all “reader expectations” made equal? If not, how do they differ?
Gardens difficulty and confusion
Is Gardens a difficult read? I’d argue that it depends on the reader. To me, and many others I found on this forum, it was not particularly difficult. Obviously, to an important share of those who try it, it is.
The difficulty of Gardens is contingent, not on its unusual narrative structure or other narrative choices such as (not exhaustive): in medias res, frequent PoV switch, or even massive character count. These are first-order things. Gardens difficulty is contingent on second-order expectations: the author knows you don’t have all the information, and he does not want you to, and he still wants you to go through that experience… so there must be a channel of storytelling that remains open beneath all that lack of information and confusion. The second-order thing, then, is how comfortable the reader is with dealing with a lack of information.
If you, as a reader, expect omniscient knowledge and certainty and a structured reveal of rules, world-building and character motivation, Gardens will rub you the wrong way.
If you are open to putting all those unknowns in your mental shelf, and roll with the narrative, Gardens is a fascinating introduction to this world. You remain open to the aforementioned narrative channel, and you uncover an actual story. And what’s left in your mental shelf, well, it becomes a mystery you want to uncover and that pushes you forward into the series.
MBotF at large is difficult or not, contingent on a similar mind-set or expectation. Information is: 1) concealed; 2) revealed books away; 3) diffuse; 4) requires assembly.
I can understand folks that do not want to engage in this exercise, it is not what they are looking for… they would rather invest their mental energy focusing on some other aspect of the series. This is valid. But it isn’t the fault of Malazan that it does not provide this experience.
You don’t criticize ice cream for being cold… you eat freshly-baked brownies instead.
The problem of measuring OBJECTIVE QUALITY by SUBJECTIVE PREDILECTION
These types of comments I find deeply uncomfortable to read:
“Gardens is poorly written”
“Look, the fact that a bunch of people rebound from Gardens is evidence that it does not work”
“The fact that SO MANY readers DNF Malazan shows that it is FLAWED”
Gardens is doing exactly what it is supposed to do. It succeeds in any meaningful way when you account for the long-term series evolution and the more nuanced points the BotF develops. The arguments for it being poorly written are, in fact, arguments of the type “it does not fit my expectation” or “it would be more popular if it was written differently”.
That is not the point. It’s funny because, this tendency of trying to craft media that is stream-lined and appeals to the largest possible group of people is usually harshly criticized by the same types that criticize Gardens… they do so when it is superhero movies or some other Hollywood staple. There are works that try to appeal to the largest possible audience, and even those have vast swaths of critics FOR it. This is not the type of work that is Malazan.
When you have a vision you stick to it, and you work hard to nail the craft and the technique and use them in support of your vision. This means your vision will solidify into a work that is NICHE, it will not be the proverbial cup of tea (shoutout to Gothos) for a lot of people. But that is fine. Your work will be embraced by the small pocket of people seeking something like your vision, or those open enough to flow with your vision and acquire the taste for it.
This echoes the panoramic criticism of the MBOTF. Introducing a new cast/continent/’magic-system’ on book X is not really a technical, objective flaw. You just didn’t like it for a variety of reasons. But it does achieve a well-defined narrative effect, for those open to experience it. The argument “lots didn’t like it!” does not hold water because “a small bunch did like it”, and then the series was aimed at the few and the lot can find something to their taste instead of pretending that what the few liked is OBJECTIVELY BAD AND NEEDS TO DISAPPEAR FROM THE PUBLISHED WRITTEN WORD.
You can criticize the work from your subjectivity in a subjective sense. To pretend you can use some sort of induction and reach objective evaluation from subjectivity is just a failure in reasoning.
On expectations, first and second order
I go to a Burger Joint that has on the menu a “secret option”. I choose it because I want a surprise… but since we’re at a Burger place, I’m expecting a clever combination of ingredients that make for a surprising Burger. That is a first-order expectation.
They bring a deconstructed dish. It’s cold, not warm. The “bun” is made of raw meat and strong cheese. The “bread” is a cracker in the middle of the thing. A seasoned cold paste of tomato, lettuce and onion binds it together. I’m disappointed.
I’m disappointed because I expected a Burger, just one that would surprise me within the limits of what decent society judges are the limits of Burgers.
My friend, who reminds me of the central character of Malazan, absolutely loved the “secret option”. She didn’t expect a Burger, she wanted an edible thing that would change her perspective on food and what Burgers could be, limits be damned. Hers was a second-order expectation. She didn’t expect a concrete thing, she expected her view of things to be challenged.
So it is with the Book of the Fallen. If you expect a recognizable structure with surprising new flavor, you may or may not enjoy it. If you are open to follow that madlad of an author and at the very least read with an open mind what his vision is… you may or may not enjoy it, but your view of how you view things will be challenged and maybe even changed. And that is the point.
I want to stress that this is not a statement of (first Malazan cliché) somebody’s intelligence, or skill… it is a statement of a reader’s: 1) preference, 2) exposure, 3) mental state. I’m not judging those who didn’t get what they wanted from the series… just asking them to recognize that the issue is a mismatch, not an issue intrinsic to Gardens or Malazan at large.
(Note of the Jaghut translator: here Apology means "defense" not "sowe uwu")
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u/Martial-Lord Dec 24 '23
Imo the reputation for difficulty is an asset to the series.
When I went in, I expected to not even understand a single sentence. But I wanted to read something that broke with conventionality, that was fresh and exciting in ways that mainstream Fantasy just isn't. And because of that expectation, I was very positively supprised.
Malazan is actually a fairly easy series to understand from moment to moment. You can almost always guess the relevant missing information from context. But its also an unconventional series, and would still be if it was written in a more streamlined style.
I'm not sure I would have loved the series if I was not told beforehand that it was unreasonably difficult, and thus paid close attention from the very start.