Sabriel (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCCXXIII
Ok, that said, today's drawing is on a bit of boarding pass I found (yep, I'm down to portions of boarding pass now) and features Touchstone imprisoned as the figurehead of a ship (the king is the figurehead of the ship of state? Nice one, Garth). We'll begin our analysis of the book at Chapter 13 where...
Glory, Hallelujah, it's raining men! You know it! Where there's wood and ships in holes, there's bound to be sailors. This one stands forever erect in all his eyebrow raising nudity sustaining the (burial)ship of state (there can be no overt necrophilia in a YA novel, thank goodness!). Sabriel's reaction to finding her very own enchanted, frozen, handsome, very naked man in the middle of a deep dark hole perfectly matches a "hee, hee, giggle, giggle" lunchroom conversation I once overheard a number of my female colleagues having about museums in Italy. The admin was saying something in a thick Houston accent about "well if I see one more uncircumcised...". The table dissolved into stifled guffaws and I took that as my cue to smile, wave and depart with my coffee before I started pointing out that the Ancient Greeks prefered to make such items less-prominent in their sculpture to emphasize moderation and then ask if anyone had read The Frogs (brek-kek-kek-kek-koax-koax!). Anyhow, that does lead me to wonder how sexuality should be handled in YA literature. Sabriel is 18, which means that the publishing company will expect the average reader to be 15. Sex, and particularly the fear of ones parents having sex, is on a 15 year old's radar. The question is: "is light fiction the place to handle it?". As a teacher of the classics, it's quite up front in such 9th grade readings as Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, and portions of the Bible (we had all those parts memorized by age 13). Nix handles it gently (as to be fair, my feminine colleagues did), and adds a little feminist reversal in that it is the black-haired, white-skinned princess who must break the prince's enchantment with a kiss -Sabriel prefers to just breathe on him, which strikes me as more realistic. The whole scene is reminiscent of the Marble Woman in George MacDonald's Phantasties. In fact, though Touchstone introduces the question of sex into the book, Sabriel keeps her Edwardian reserve and Touchstone his sense of honor throughout the book. It is the awareness of sex that is handled, not its reality. Of course, where there's sex, there's water imagery, and Sabriel has to wade through the waters of death to find Touchstone's spirit and restore it to life. Nix likes his traditional symbolism, and its all over this chapter to a degree that might even please Umberto Eco -if he weren't so snooty?
Chapter 14 takes a more practical turn as the arrival of Touchstone allows Nix to infuse his narrative with a fresh round of Story Questions. For instance, Touchstone seems to be bound by the same spell of silence that binds Mogget, frustrating Sabriel's attempts to get even the most basic idea of how the magic of the Old Kingdom works and what role it plays in the current crisis. We do learn that Touchstone tried to stop whatever is going on 200 years ago and failed -but he can't tell us what exactly is was he was trying to stop. We also have a chance for Sabriel to demonstrate that she prefers working alone and is uneasy about any permanent relationships when she refuses Touchstone's oath. Like a good wingman, Mogget the Magical Abomination, attempts to do some damage control, and Touchstone settles down to win the socially isolated Lady in the typical fashion: quiet, faithful acts of service without any pushing or scary emotions until she decides how she feels. One thing that makes Touchstone fit it to the growing Fellowship is that he too is a liminal character: displaced in time and, via amnesia, displaced from himself and his own name. Like a Touchstone, he will also reveal Sabriel's true character. We can't leave the chapter without noting that it essential to Nixian Realism that Sabriel have to wash, mend her bruised nose, and find a bush to poop.
Chapter 15 shows us the ruined village of Newstowe; a village besieged by the Dead. It's a sign of the novel's long shadow that my first thought was the village of Redcliffe in Dragon Age: Origins. The scene with the cremation of the dead healer is also the first opportunity our heroes have to touch... just holding hands... just to cast a spell... it was weird... stop talking about it...
Chapters 16 and 17 bring us our first contact with the average denizens of the Old Kingdom. The villagers of Newstowe have holed up on an island against the besieging Dead. As Sabriel hunts for the vampire-like creature among them, we get to see Nix write adeptly in the vein of an old-fashioned witch hunt. Sabriel takes the place of other occult detectives like Robert E. Howard's Solomon Kane. He uses the incident well on multiple levels. First, we get to see what an Abhorsen's normal business looks like. Second, we get to see just how useful Touchstone can be, not only as bodyguard, but also as a culture-broker for someone raised in Ancelstierre. Finally, the incident confirms Sabriel in her role as the new Abhorsen. She has risen from the graves of Holehallow having harrowed them for the soul of Touchstone and now returns in power to free the spirits in chains. Any sense of victory, however, is cut off by the return of the Mordicant and Sabriel's principled, but ignominious retreat.
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