Confessor

Confessor is the last book in the 'Sword of Truth' Series by Terry Goodkind. It was released around end 2007, but is yet to reach India. I'd been looking on the bookshelves for months but with little success. Then my thoughtful hubby ordered it from firstandsecond.com for me in June. It took 2 months to arrive, but arrive it did yesterday afternoon to my utter surprise (my hubby never told me he had ordered it...in fact he had almost given up on it!)

It had been a long long while since I had read the last book - Phantom. But I remembered the plot and was dying to open Confessor. Took me 6 hours (ended at some 4:30 in the morning) of continuous reading to finish it. Goodkind's books look enormously fat, but are extremely absorbing. Confessor, being the last of the series, and a conclusion for the plot and its many sub-plots was utterly un-put-downable!

It didn't really matter that I had read the earlier books a long time ago. The author manages to recreate main plot elements every time he refers to situations in the earlier books and making the connections to the events happening in this book. I loved the Boxes of Orden plot loop taking you back to the first book in a spiral which completes the plot circle and yet takes it to a much higher, even grandiose level. The Ja'La - Game of Life, is fun, reminiscent of football or rugby knockoffs. The symbolism of Richard playing against the emperor, both in the sports game and in the larger plot is made increasingly obvious, focusing on the use of strategy on Richard's part and brute force on Jagang's part. Actual magic, spellwork and their intricacies are far fewer than the earlier books.

Characterization is Goodkind's strong point. I liked the fact that the seemingly infallible are also human, demonstrated by Zedd and Ann, both humbled by Nicci's reasonings at different points in the book. Richard, the hero, of course, remains infallible; though his love for Kahlan, and struggle to express his love versus maintain a 'sterile field' give a human touch to the character. The revelation of the book is really Nicci, coming through both in her thinking, her devotion and her restraint. Her redemption reminded me of Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books. Her dignity in the face of brutality from Jagang, temptation from Ann and treading the fine line between sorrow and respect for Kahlan, I thought this was dealt with superbly!!

Not so well dealt with were Kahlan, Rachel and the Sisters of Light. I felt all of them got the short shrift, especially the first two. Kahlan's character for me was mostly a spectator throughout the book, despite her central role in the entire plot, especially the climax. How she maintained the sterile field and fell in love with Richard again, was a critical plot component, yet largely left to the imagination of the reader. Not only that, she just meets Richard a handful of times from a distance, never speaks to him directly. Yes there is a connection between , but the book's expectation from the reader to accept seamless-love-at-first-sight-from-a-distance seems a bit too optimistic! Especially when Nicci explains earlier that emotions need to be allowed to grow on their own. That sure was some fast growth!

Rachel, I felt was the most underdeveloped character throughout. She plays an important role here, yet her background is left to a brief few liners in the epilogue. Her importance, though hinted at by the characters, is never full developed. Her character, apart from her skills again is large a void. I thought this was a character, with the potential to start a complete new story arc, but woefully underutilized. Jillian, the other little girl, too was a disappointment. The dream casters vs dreamwalkers I thought was a very interesting sub plot, but very cursorily dealt with.

In this battle of good versus evil, I felt the author was very squeamish in killing off the strong characters. Before he does kill off one good character, we're treated to a long discourse by the character, revealing her mistakes, making us like her a little lesser, and generally not particularly affected when she is bumped off. Others come close to death, but not close enough. The bad guys are generally done with in the end, the Sisters of Dark providing the perfect oppurtunity for Richard to explain how he had grasped it all while others sat expecting doom. This, a recurring event from all books, is a bit exasperating really. There are some clues, but mostly the hero works it all out in his head, and the reader is told the solution in the end of the book, instead of allowing the reader to pick up clues and start building towards a solution in the end, even if the final key may rest in the hero's final speech. This made the novel a bit patronising to me. Not to forget the long ideological essay on life, freedom and other good things which Richard embarks upon after vanquishing the evil. I can't tell you much about it, I skipped the pages (yes pages not one page). It elongated a well-begun climax to the point of nothingness for me.

The final chapters, epilogue really, tells us where everyone is and gives an insight into their lives post all the turmoil. I love epilogues. Its a joy to see your favorite characters in a normal setting, not fleeing for their lives, getting out of trouble, getting into trouble and killing people all the time. For me, this really ties the final knot.

In the end, I do recommend the entire series. The biggest plus is the plot arc, which swoops, swerves and comes a full circle. The characterization is done well, the plots are intricate and in the beginning feel unconnected. But the connection of the plots, the slow emergence of the larger picture, is the high that thinking readers look for. The writing style is crisp except in places where it goes into interminable ideological monologues. There is brutality, but remarkably less actual killing of the strong characters. Denna, keeps coming back from the underworld anyway, so death isn't much of a character stopper here. Some books are more readable than the others. The Confessor works, because it completes the arc, because it connects the dots, because it's Richard's final triumph...and because by the end of the series, we all love Richard.