Reread of The Aspect-Emperor Series
Book 1: The Judging Eye
by R. Scott Bakker
Interlude: Momemn
Welcome to the Interlude of my reread. Click here if you missed Chapter Sixteen!
Kelmomas is listening to a riot from a balcony. He watches the moon and the clouds drifting around it. “The Nail of Heaven flared white from a sailing summit.” He hears more shouts and cries.
He had no name for his rapture. Clam and slow breathing. Stationary. Stationary amid the clash of all things. The repose of a soul peering out from the world’s shrouded centre. The unmoved mover.
The ruler unseen.
As he hears the sounds of fighting, the voice in him murmurs, “You made this.” His mother asks what he’s doing and he says he’s scared. “Her smile was too fraught to be reassuring.” She tells him he’s safe and holds out her arms. He hugs her the way little boys did. Then they head to his bed. It’s dark because his new nurse, Emansi, had snuffed out the candles. Only a lantern burns.
Esmenet tucks in Kelmomas. Her gentleness was “yet one more thing he cherished with the ferocity of tears.” She slips in with him and holds him tight. He reads her emotions and thoughts. She thinks she’s here to give him comfort for the loss of Samarmas because of “how intense their bond had been in infancy!
This was what she told herself, he knew.
He starts to fall asleep encased in her love. He finds it an “oblivion indistinguishable from bliss.” He has no cares. There’s here and now. He doesn’t care about anything else. He turns over to lie on his side and stare into her eyes. This is the only thing that can be real. He lies that he misses “Sammi.” She does, too.
A part of him, the snake-sneaky part, laughed. Poor Samarmas. Poor poor Samarmas.
He comments he didn’t get to see Kellhus. She explains it’s the war and everyone, even “darling little boys” have to make sacrifices. She falls silent and he reads her thoughts that Kellhus feels nothing that Samarmas is dead.
Hesitantly, Kelmomas brings up Uncle Maithanet. And she asks what about him. He hesitates as she presses him until he says, “He [Maithanet]… watches you funny.” She asks what he means. He asks if Maithanet is angry at her. She says no, but he sees her worried. She adds Maithanet is her brother and then cups his face with her left hand, “the one bruised by what she called her ‘ancient tattoo.’”
The Prince-Imperial fluttered his lids as though overpowered by warmth and weariness. “But he has more power…” he whispered, pretending to fall asleep. He would open his eyes later, when her breathing slipped into the long trough of dreams.
Unseen rulers never slumbered, not truly.
My Thoughts
The riots are the people angry about the Matriarch’s death. And since Kelmomas killed her, he most definitely caused all that pain and suffering. But as we see, nothing is real to him but Esmenet. Nothing else matters but her. It’s all just a game.
Now we see him manipulate his mother. Twisted the dagger of her grief, driving a wedge between her and Kellhus, then throwing fuel onto the fires of her own fears and doubts about Maithanet. Kelmomas sees himself as the real ruler of Momemn, his mother his puppet. He needs her all to himself. Everything else can burn. He doesn’t care. They’re just amusements to be crushed.
And thus ends The Judging Eye.
I had to wait a few years to read this. I had the good fortune of finding The Darkness that Comes Before just when all three books of the first series were out. I could read from one to the next. But I had to wait for The Judging Eye. I had just lost my job in the middle of the Great Recession, but I still bought this book. I was reading the middle of it sitting at St. Claire’s emergency room after driving my roommate there. He ended losing a gall bladder. I can still remember sitting in that uncomfortable waiting room to find out what was going on and trying to distract myself.
It mostly worked.
This book sets the stage. It wasn’t what I expected. I found Sorweel’s character to be a strange choice, but seeing his entire story now, I get it. And he’s our outsider POV to get us into the Great Ordeal.
It was a delight to read this book. To see the story threads being set up. I remember all the speculation about the book: we’d see a crazy Dûnyain, a female one. There was all the speculation about what Kellhus would be doing. Achamian. The twenty-year jump works, but there are a lot of questions I have about what went on between. In the final book, there’s an expanded glossary and a lot of people die in the same year.
Wonder what that’s about?
This book does a great job of setting up what is to come, has some amazing sequences, and does one of the most brilliant things: denies us a Kellhus POV. Of the “surviving” major POVs of the last book, Kellhus, Esmenet, and Achamian, we only are given those two. We do not know what Kellhus’s intentions are with the Great Ordeal. His conversation with Moënghus at the end of The Thousandfold Thought echoed in my mind.
The Dûnyain will always side with the Consult because it’s the most logical course of action. The Shortest Path to escape Damnation and to make that world where they can become self-moving souls. How can you be a self-moving soul when the Outside destroys Cause and Effect. When the Darkness can come AFTER.
So that is the Judging Eye. I’ll be heading into The White-Luck Warrior. Thank you all for the encouragement. It’s what’s gotten me this far in the reread after all these years. I hope you’ll keep leaving a comment every now and then. It really, really helps.
JMD Reid, 3/17/21
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
…Ary’s people have little chance.
Can he find a way to defeat them?
At 19, Ary has spent ten years mourning his father’s death. The aftermath of the attack still haunts him. Now, on the eve of the draft he faces his greatest fear, being sent to become a marine.
He knows the cost of war.
All he wants is to marry Charlene, who he has loved since they were kids. Building a farm and starting a family sounds perfect. There’s just one problem, his best friend Vel adores her, too. He’d give anything for peace.
But wanting the Stormriders to stop attacking…
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JMD, you spend sooo much time on this reread project and I think you have no idea how much I appreciate it!
Thank you so much for your effort, blood and sweat.
It is my second reread and I remember feeling lost, especially during the later books. I can’t find any help online AT ALL, no chapter discussions- so this is my “fall net”, it helps a lot.
When I first startet getting into this series, you were just starting, so seeing all the progress and reread all your posts, gives me great inside. It’s really a shame this series (and Reread) it so underrated.
I hope you will continue and find time to finish
greeting from Switzerland
I did fall out of habit for a few weeks, but I have been working on the next chapter most days. I am knee deep in writing this 12 book fantasy series, but I try to make th etime every day to get through more of it. I am pretty deep into the next chapter.
Your words are great to read. I’m glad it helps.