Book 1: Shardik by Richard Adams
1. Shardik by Richard Adams. One of my favorite novels is Adams's Watership Down. I first read it in 1989, the summer before 9th grade, as part of an assignment including a written paper to be handed in on my first day of high school. I got an old hardcover edition of the book at my local library and started reading it. It was an incredible experience. Adams somehow turned a bunch of rabbits into a cast of realistic and identifiable characters, at once making them almost human while simultaneously preserving their rabbit-ness. He created a rabbit culture, language and mythology that permeated throughout the text, and gave greater depth and meaning to the rabbits' struggles. His descriptions were vivid and tangible, as I could see Fiver shivering before the ominous sign, the destruction of the home warren, and the rabbits finding their new home on Watership Down.
I think that my enjoyment of Watership Down was in part due to timing, as I read it at the right age. However, since then I have read the book several times, and each time I find myself going back to a familiar and comfortable place as only a beloved childhood book can be to a reader.
I wanted to read something else by Adams. Aside from Watership Down, the two Adams books I typically found at the bookstores were Tales from Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. While the first promised a return to the setting of Watership Down of which I was fond, and the second, a story about two dogs escaping from an animal research center, sounded interesting, for some reason I was never compelled to get one or the other.
Then I saw Shardik on amazon.com. There was something about the book's cover, a roaring bear and the word "SHARDIK" in bold capital letters across the bottom, that sparked the imagination. Whetting my appetite further was Stephen King's homage to Shardik in The Dark Tower: The Wastelands, which I read last year and reviewed here, where a bear of the same name appears in a memorable passage in the book's opening pages. Having mentioned Shardik to her several times, my wife had the presence of mind that I lacked and actually got the book for me, giving it to me as a birthday present.
I resolved to read the book while we were on vacation in France in December, and finished it shortly after the new year, hence its inclusion on this year's list of books read.
Shardik is the story of an enormous bear that becomes a god among the people living somewhere in the ancient Middle East. The story begins in the woods near the small island of Ortelga, where the simple hunter Kelderek encounters the bear and thinks that it is the reincarnation of Lord Shardik, the ursine incarnation of the Ortelgans' god. It turns out that the Ortelgans were once rulers of all the land surrounding their small island town, their legitimacy substantiated by the Ortelgan priesthood's possession of previous incarnations of Shardik. However, the last Lord Shardik had been killed by a rebel priestess a long time ago, and the Ortelgan empire subsequently declined to the point that all that remains is the small island town and the nearby island of priestesses who practice their now empty rites in the anticipation that some day Lord Shardik will return.
The arrival of Shardik rouses the people of Ortelga, and led by the ambitious Ta-Kominion, they go on a holy war. Kelderek is torn between the charismatic Ta-Kominion, who wants Kelderek to bring the unfettered and very dangerous Shardik with the Ortelgans to war, and the Tuginda, the head priestess of Quiso who wants Kelderek to bring the bear to their island where he was traditionally kept.
Kelderek chooses to follow Ta-Kominion, and the Tuginda is sent back to her island. A series of fortunate occurrences and the timely arrival of Shardik in the midst of battle lead to the Ortelgans reclaiming much of the land they lost, including the capital city of Bekla. Kelderek becomes the priest king of the Beklan empire, ruling as the liaison between the people and the divine Lord Shardik. Despite this newfound prestige, Kelderek is horrified at the brutality of the Ortelgan army acting in the name of Shardik, and finds himself in a perpetual state of self-doubt, trying desperately to understand why he was chosen as Shardik's prophet, and what truth his god wished to impart upon him as that messenger.
Shardik is primarily a theological story. It is about the pursuit of cosmic truth in the face of the savagery of both the wilderness and human affairs. Adams poetically renders the bear Shardik as a force of nature without making him in fact divine, and describes in great psychological detail Kelderek's struggle with his religious beliefs and his quest for an ultimate truth. Kelderek goes from the simple life of a hunter to becoming a priest king, then a pariah, then a slave, from unquestioned devotion to an utter loss of faith. Through the process of suffering Kelderek ultimately achieves a sense of peace, and if not an understanding of the ultimate truth, then at least an understanding of what truths are important.
Shardik is a very different story from Watership Down. Both stories have well-developed mythologies that give them depth and realism. However, Shardik is primarily a story of Kelderek's internal struggle and how he struggles with his beliefs, whereas Watership Down focuses mainly on the hardships of the leporine colonists and how their beliefs sustain them through their struggles. As such, when read together the two tales show somewhat contrasting perspectives on the same subject matter.
Shardik is not a warm and fuzzy book like Watership Down. It is a difficult book to read. The conclusion is not entirely satisfactory, mainly because it is about an internal conflict in oneself and in one's beliefs, and such conflicts are rarely ever resolved, much less resolved in any manner resembling a happy ending. Instead, the narrative ends and the reader is left to take what one can from the telling.
I think that my enjoyment of Watership Down was in part due to timing, as I read it at the right age. However, since then I have read the book several times, and each time I find myself going back to a familiar and comfortable place as only a beloved childhood book can be to a reader.
I wanted to read something else by Adams. Aside from Watership Down, the two Adams books I typically found at the bookstores were Tales from Watership Down and The Plague Dogs. While the first promised a return to the setting of Watership Down of which I was fond, and the second, a story about two dogs escaping from an animal research center, sounded interesting, for some reason I was never compelled to get one or the other.
Then I saw Shardik on amazon.com. There was something about the book's cover, a roaring bear and the word "SHARDIK" in bold capital letters across the bottom, that sparked the imagination. Whetting my appetite further was Stephen King's homage to Shardik in The Dark Tower: The Wastelands, which I read last year and reviewed here, where a bear of the same name appears in a memorable passage in the book's opening pages. Having mentioned Shardik to her several times, my wife had the presence of mind that I lacked and actually got the book for me, giving it to me as a birthday present.
I resolved to read the book while we were on vacation in France in December, and finished it shortly after the new year, hence its inclusion on this year's list of books read.
Shardik is the story of an enormous bear that becomes a god among the people living somewhere in the ancient Middle East. The story begins in the woods near the small island of Ortelga, where the simple hunter Kelderek encounters the bear and thinks that it is the reincarnation of Lord Shardik, the ursine incarnation of the Ortelgans' god. It turns out that the Ortelgans were once rulers of all the land surrounding their small island town, their legitimacy substantiated by the Ortelgan priesthood's possession of previous incarnations of Shardik. However, the last Lord Shardik had been killed by a rebel priestess a long time ago, and the Ortelgan empire subsequently declined to the point that all that remains is the small island town and the nearby island of priestesses who practice their now empty rites in the anticipation that some day Lord Shardik will return.
The arrival of Shardik rouses the people of Ortelga, and led by the ambitious Ta-Kominion, they go on a holy war. Kelderek is torn between the charismatic Ta-Kominion, who wants Kelderek to bring the unfettered and very dangerous Shardik with the Ortelgans to war, and the Tuginda, the head priestess of Quiso who wants Kelderek to bring the bear to their island where he was traditionally kept.
Kelderek chooses to follow Ta-Kominion, and the Tuginda is sent back to her island. A series of fortunate occurrences and the timely arrival of Shardik in the midst of battle lead to the Ortelgans reclaiming much of the land they lost, including the capital city of Bekla. Kelderek becomes the priest king of the Beklan empire, ruling as the liaison between the people and the divine Lord Shardik. Despite this newfound prestige, Kelderek is horrified at the brutality of the Ortelgan army acting in the name of Shardik, and finds himself in a perpetual state of self-doubt, trying desperately to understand why he was chosen as Shardik's prophet, and what truth his god wished to impart upon him as that messenger.
Shardik is primarily a theological story. It is about the pursuit of cosmic truth in the face of the savagery of both the wilderness and human affairs. Adams poetically renders the bear Shardik as a force of nature without making him in fact divine, and describes in great psychological detail Kelderek's struggle with his religious beliefs and his quest for an ultimate truth. Kelderek goes from the simple life of a hunter to becoming a priest king, then a pariah, then a slave, from unquestioned devotion to an utter loss of faith. Through the process of suffering Kelderek ultimately achieves a sense of peace, and if not an understanding of the ultimate truth, then at least an understanding of what truths are important.
Shardik is a very different story from Watership Down. Both stories have well-developed mythologies that give them depth and realism. However, Shardik is primarily a story of Kelderek's internal struggle and how he struggles with his beliefs, whereas Watership Down focuses mainly on the hardships of the leporine colonists and how their beliefs sustain them through their struggles. As such, when read together the two tales show somewhat contrasting perspectives on the same subject matter.
Shardik is not a warm and fuzzy book like Watership Down. It is a difficult book to read. The conclusion is not entirely satisfactory, mainly because it is about an internal conflict in oneself and in one's beliefs, and such conflicts are rarely ever resolved, much less resolved in any manner resembling a happy ending. Instead, the narrative ends and the reader is left to take what one can from the telling.