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This was always my favorite of the Darkover series, and will probably remain so. It's the sequel to The Shattered Chain, which I will get around to reading eventually, but those events are helpfully recapped in TH so you don't need to read them in order. I would avoid the awful and depressing sequel, City of Sorcery.
This is one of my favorite story archetypes, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." In The Shattered Chain, Terran (but partially Darkovan-raised) agent Magda has to travel across Darkover to rescue her ex-husband, Peter Haldane. Because Darkover is so sexist, the only way she can travel alone is to disguise herself as a Free Amazon (aka Renunciate), which is an organization of women who renounce men's protection and men's names. She gets caught by some real Renunciates, including a woman named Jaelle, who force her to take the Renunciate's oath for real. They all rescue Peter Haldane, Jaelle and Magda bond, Jaelle and Peter get married, and Magda decides to honor her oath and join the Renunciates.
When Thendara House opens, Jaelle has moved into the Terran Zone with Peter, and Magda is about to move into Thendara House with the Renunciates, to stay inside the house (which in many ways resembles a 1970s feminist commune, if some members were mercenary soldiers) for a six-month period of feminist boot camp. Most of the novel is split between Magda's story and Jaelle's, though they interact occasionally within it and there's an adventure story toward the end that they're both involved in. But the meat of the book is two women having culture shock as they trade each other's lives.
For all the unlikeliness of Thendara House, it is MZB's most believable creation. The women's personalities are vivid and the day-to-day tasks are even more so, and Magda's culture shock gives her extra obstacles to struggle with in secret, as only the Guild Mother knows she's Terran. The tedium, petty squabbles, and uncomfortable living conditions in the commune make the women's idealism seem even more convincing and admirable. Like any boot camp story, it's about the protagonist being torn down and built up and becoming a stronger person, and as I read it, mostly I was glad it wasn't me and sometimes I wished it was. Plus, there are martial arts, a sword fight, consciousness-raising sessions, psychic powers, and lesbian sex. Camilla, the emmasca (neutered woman, whatever that means) who falls in love with Magda, is my favorite character, and I am always sorry as I read that Magda loves someone else more. All the same, TH is just about the only place in Darkover where women have sex because they want to have sex, so enjoy it.
Jaelle's counterpoint story is more problematic because Terran society is less internally consistent than that of the Renunciates. Peter Haldane is a narcissistic, controlling sexist pig, so it is incredible that both Jaelle and Magda would have married him. Moreover, all the Terrans are sexist in exactly the same way that 1950s America was sexist: it is impossible for Jaelle to get her name into the computer system as anything other than "Mrs. Peter Haldane," and no one will address her as anything else. People come from all these different planets, some with higher gravity or a brighter sun, but it's inconceivable to them that a woman could keep her own name after she's married? Jaelle reports to a female superior (Cholayna, who is very cool), but all the other female Terrans are either wives or coffee-fetchers for men. At various points Darkovan society is blamed for the inability of female agents to get promoted, as Darkovans won't take them seriously, but since Terrans also don't take women seriously this seems a big cop-out.
Toward the end, Jaelle gets in trouble, Magda goes to the rescue, and then all these characters from The Forbidden Tower show up, rather out of the blue. I never remember this section when re-reading the book until I get to it, and it's because it seems to come from a different book. The heart of Thendara House is the eponymous house and what it does to Magda. However, I have to ask... does Jaelle actually have a child by Damon? Is that Cleindori, or is Cleindori the little blonde girl who makes a brief appearance at the end, or has she not been born yet at that point? This is all going to come to a tragic end, isn't it?
This is one of my favorite story archetypes, "The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse." In The Shattered Chain, Terran (but partially Darkovan-raised) agent Magda has to travel across Darkover to rescue her ex-husband, Peter Haldane. Because Darkover is so sexist, the only way she can travel alone is to disguise herself as a Free Amazon (aka Renunciate), which is an organization of women who renounce men's protection and men's names. She gets caught by some real Renunciates, including a woman named Jaelle, who force her to take the Renunciate's oath for real. They all rescue Peter Haldane, Jaelle and Magda bond, Jaelle and Peter get married, and Magda decides to honor her oath and join the Renunciates.
When Thendara House opens, Jaelle has moved into the Terran Zone with Peter, and Magda is about to move into Thendara House with the Renunciates, to stay inside the house (which in many ways resembles a 1970s feminist commune, if some members were mercenary soldiers) for a six-month period of feminist boot camp. Most of the novel is split between Magda's story and Jaelle's, though they interact occasionally within it and there's an adventure story toward the end that they're both involved in. But the meat of the book is two women having culture shock as they trade each other's lives.
For all the unlikeliness of Thendara House, it is MZB's most believable creation. The women's personalities are vivid and the day-to-day tasks are even more so, and Magda's culture shock gives her extra obstacles to struggle with in secret, as only the Guild Mother knows she's Terran. The tedium, petty squabbles, and uncomfortable living conditions in the commune make the women's idealism seem even more convincing and admirable. Like any boot camp story, it's about the protagonist being torn down and built up and becoming a stronger person, and as I read it, mostly I was glad it wasn't me and sometimes I wished it was. Plus, there are martial arts, a sword fight, consciousness-raising sessions, psychic powers, and lesbian sex. Camilla, the emmasca (neutered woman, whatever that means) who falls in love with Magda, is my favorite character, and I am always sorry as I read that Magda loves someone else more. All the same, TH is just about the only place in Darkover where women have sex because they want to have sex, so enjoy it.
Jaelle's counterpoint story is more problematic because Terran society is less internally consistent than that of the Renunciates. Peter Haldane is a narcissistic, controlling sexist pig, so it is incredible that both Jaelle and Magda would have married him. Moreover, all the Terrans are sexist in exactly the same way that 1950s America was sexist: it is impossible for Jaelle to get her name into the computer system as anything other than "Mrs. Peter Haldane," and no one will address her as anything else. People come from all these different planets, some with higher gravity or a brighter sun, but it's inconceivable to them that a woman could keep her own name after she's married? Jaelle reports to a female superior (Cholayna, who is very cool), but all the other female Terrans are either wives or coffee-fetchers for men. At various points Darkovan society is blamed for the inability of female agents to get promoted, as Darkovans won't take them seriously, but since Terrans also don't take women seriously this seems a big cop-out.
Toward the end, Jaelle gets in trouble, Magda goes to the rescue, and then all these characters from The Forbidden Tower show up, rather out of the blue. I never remember this section when re-reading the book until I get to it, and it's because it seems to come from a different book. The heart of Thendara House is the eponymous house and what it does to Magda. However, I have to ask... does Jaelle actually have a child by Damon? Is that Cleindori, or is Cleindori the little blonde girl who makes a brief appearance at the end, or has she not been born yet at that point? This is all going to come to a tragic end, isn't it?
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But yes, I find them marrying Peter to be rather unlikely, too. Also, I have a hard time thinking about Jaelle without thinking of people getting tent pegs hammered into their skulls... (story of Biblical Jael)
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Magda and Peter are already divorced in _Shattered Chain_. And it is suggested that Magda winds up with Peter not because he's such a great guy, but because he's literally the only guy she can see as sufficiently Darkovan to be attractive to her, yet sufficiently Terran to be available.
I agree about the internal consistency problems with Terran society; part of what makes the book so strong is that it is driven by the pain of a woman who was dealing with our own (very sexist at the time) Terran society, but it makes the Terran side of things harder to believe from a modern perspective.
On the other hand, MZB repeatedly points out in _Chain_ that Magda and Peter's sexual socialization is Darkovan, not Terran. And I often thought that perhaps Darkovan sexism meant that those Terrans who wound up working there were generally those whose sexual politics were most backward.
Jaelle's daughter by Damon is indeed Dorilys Aillard, i.e. Cleindori. That's made pretty clear in the second, very expanded revision of _Bloody Sun_.
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Self-selection by sexism of the Terrans on Darkover would explain a lot, come to think of it, though the "Mrs. Peter Haldane" thing is pretty extreme.
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---L.
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Our consciousness-raising did not involve knives or tripe stew, but, same diff.
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... I spent way too much time reading Darkover stuff when I was in grade school.
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