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Sabriel (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCCXXVI

We're continuing our blog-through of Garth Nix's Sabriel starting at Chapter 24. The image is of The Clayr, who I thought deserved stained glass (or Conte marker on the backing of a pack of Bic pens). We're getting closer to the end now, so if you don't want to what Nix penned 23 years ago (under no circumstances is it moving back in with Mom and Dad! -that would be weird...) really, really don't keep reading.


Ok, you're still reading. Nix keeps the pressure up as Sabriel goes into shock (nice touch of Realism, that) and the scavengers from earlier begin hounding her and Touchstone (Mogget went awol when Abhorsen slipped his collar). When Sabriel is wounded, Touchstone gains super-powers and runs all the way to the top of the hill before collapsing. If we've read the prequel, Clariel, we know that berserking runs in the royal family. At the top of the hill, as promised, Sabriel encounters the Clayr. The Clayr are apparently a family of mystics that can see the future through scrying glasses made of ice. In this volume, they function much like the Fates or Hecate: the three-who-are-one (or two-who-are-one in this case). They are also the closest we get in this book to creatures of High Fantasy; as much at home in William Morris as they are here. Whatever else may be true of the Clayr, they're a nice airplane-bringing, location-knowing deus-ex-machina that doesn't feel like one. No, really, Nix does a great job handling the arrival of the Clayr so that it feels organic and not like a trick to get his heroes out of jeopardy and to set up his end game. Getting out of jeopardy also means going back to the beginning: Ancelstierre. I hadn't expected this nice piece of book-ending, but it's good writing and the fact that I didn't see it coming means that it's even better writing.

Chapter 25 opens with another Nixian perspective jump to Col. Horyse. While p.o.v. jumping is a bad habit, it does give Nix a chance to re-familiarize us with Ancelstierre while at the same time re-introducing Sabriel to Ancelstierre as a Heroic Figure. In true Hero's Journey fashion, Sabriel has risen from death to return to her community with The Elixir (and Sir Hot-bod-short-kilt!). We are now firmly in a WWI novel and for the rest of the book, Garth Nix's military background is going to pay off in spades. The hunt for Kerrigor's tomb is going to have the feel of an Algernon Blackwood story mixing English pastoral with supernatural thriller.

We're getting closer to the end, so hang in there as we start back up with chapter 26!

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