Cams Campbell Reads: The Unbelievers

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapters 23–End

Wed, 19 Mar 2025 13:36:13 GMT

This is the last episode in this podcast series. It’s been so much fun to read this book with my best pal, Barge.

I do hope we get to return with The Illearth War. If you’re itching to read that with us, let us know as, you’ll have heard by Phil’s lovely email, a kick up the arse can help!

This is also my first post of a new episode using Substack for hosting. Fingers crossed I’ve set it up right and it comes through to subscribers using the same feed! I guess I’ll find that out myself as soon as I hit Publish.

This article below discusses Philip Chase’s video and Stephen Donaldson’s essays. My research is ongoing and I’m sure it will lead to more ideas and a deeper understanding of just what it is about these epic fantasy novels that keeps me coming back.

So, that’s a wrap on season one of the podcast. Thank you for listening. And remember, be true!

Using Fantasy to Find the Space between Joy and Despair

Thu, 20 Feb 2025 18:30:52 GMT

My favourite fantasy series is Stephen Donaldson’s The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever. It’s a portal fantasy in which the main character, Thomas Covenant, finds himself transported from modern-day USA to a fantasy realm simply known as the Land. Covenant refuses to believe in the Land, instead seeing it as a dreamworld or as a delusion of his illness, leprosy.

The first book in the trilogy is Lord Foul’s Bane and it derives its title from the villain of the series, Lord Foul. Donaldson has created a rich world in the Land, with wonderful races of characters, animals, lore, political systems, geography and history. Covenant is an interloper, and he brings with him his white gold wedding band. This becomes important to the plot. In the Land, Covenant is seen as a redeemer, a Christ-like figure who, it has been prophesied, will save or damn the Land. But a less Christ-like figure you would be hard-pressed to find. Covenant is the quintessential anti-hero, an unlikable character in every way; he does despicable things and is rude to everyone he meets. His catchphrase: Don’t touch me! He does not believe that the Land is real; its beauty to him is dangerous.

What has inspired me to write this piece is that I’ve started a deeper study of these books through the lens of my own healing. In so doing, I’m learning about fantasy as a literary genre in the wider sense, as well as about Donaldson’s motivations and inspirations.

In 2024 I invited an old friend to read Lord Foul’s Bane with me and record a podcast going through each chapter. I thought this would help get me closer to understanding just what it is about these books that keeps me coming back and figuring out why they mean so much to me. And in a way, it did.

In 2022, fantasy novelist Philip Chase put out a video in which he discusses two essays published by Donaldson1. Chase breaks down these essays, focussing particularly on the concept of reintegration, the idea that humankind is connected and that we are all part of something bigger. That’s an idea I fully support.

Donaldson explains that the villain, Lord Foul, is an external representation of Covenant’s flaws, something which comes across particularly in the ending of each of the trilogies—which I won’t spoil, promise!

Put simply, fantasy is a form of fiction in which the internal crises or conflicts or processes of the characters are dramatized as if they were external individuals or events. Crudely stated, this means that in fantasy the characters meet themselves - or parts of themselves, their own needs/problems/exigencies - as actors on the stage of the story, and so the internal struggle to deal with those needs/problems/exigencies is played out as an external struggle in the action of the story.

In her book Stephen R. Donaldson and the Modern Epic Vision, Christine Barkley discusses what Donaldson refers to as the eye of the paradox. Covenant’s rational life in USA is real, believable, indisputable; but, at the same time, he is miserable, unhealthy and lonely. On the other hand, the Land is not real, unbelievable, fictitious; but it is a place of health and vitality, of beauty and wonder, of connection to others, and not just connection, but reverence. It represents all that is good, which makes it seductive and, therefore, dangerous. Covenant, as a leper, has learned to live with austerity because he has had to in order to survive; one single moment of carelessness could lead to infection and death. In the Land, he’s presented with a place where he could be seduced into letting down his guard. He can’t allow that. Hence, his unbelief.

Donaldson’s eye of the paradox lies between Covenant’s belief and unbelief, in the space between his rational mind and the irrational land in which he finds himself.

I’m trying to work out how to apply this paradox to my own life, which is, I suppose, what good literature is supposed to do. Let’s take Resistance. In the Covenant novels, the word used is Despite. It encompasses evil, despair, loneliness, anger—all negative emotions. It’s capitalised throughout, making it the thing of which Lord Foul is a cypher. In his essay, Donaldson cites a lecture he attended by Prof. Hamlin Hill, who himself quotes James E. Miller about American fiction:

Miller argued: that for the first time in our literature, after World War II, the world that dominated our fiction was sick, hostile, or treacherous, and that the recurring stance of the modern fictional hero reflected some mixture of horror, bewilderment, and sardonic humor—or, to use the popular term, alienation. The common pattern of action which recurred was the pattern of the quest, the quest absurd in a world gone insane or turned opaque and inexplicable, or become meaningless. The nightmare world, alienation and nausea, the quest for identity, and the comic doomsday vision—these are the four elements that characterize recent American fiction.

Donaldson goes on to say about these four elements with regard to his main character:

But for a modern man, a leper, the quintessential exemplar of "The nightmare world, alienation and nausea, the quest for identity, and the [distinctly un-] comic doomsday vision," Covenant's ultimate affirmation of life is not a trivial victory. Despite his own sick, stupid, painful, rejected, alienated existence, he learns to accept his life, affirm his spirit—to acknowledge the value of the things he loves and believes in, the things that seduce him, the epic vision.

In my own life, Resistance would be a component of that. It’s something about which Steven Pressfield writes at length in his book The War of Art. As I was reviewing that book, I found myself disagreeing with Pressfield’s premise that Resistance was a thing to be fought. The subtitle of the book is Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles. So we’ve got War and Battle. Throughout the book, Resistance is capitalised; it’s portrayed as something real, something to be fought.

My history of alcoholism and recovery has taught me that fighting the urge to pick up a drink will ultimately lead to picking up a drink. It’s known in the rooms of AA as white-knuckling. Recovery is not about will power; it’s about digging deeper, about doing the work on one’s self, on one’s very identity, until the urge to drink is simply removed—there’s no need to fight something that isn’t there.

Covenant’s wedding band reminds him of a happy time in his life, before leprosy took everything away from him. In the Land it’s seen as representing the wild magic, something not of the Land, something that could be used as a tool for good or evil, a paradox. The whole series of books repeats this paradox over and over, reminding the reader that it represents a space where both real and unreal, belief and unbelief can co-exist.

“It is possible for Despite to wear the guise of truth. Perhaps the wild magic surpasses truth.”
Atiaran Trell-mate, Lord Foul’s Bane

To go back to Resistance—and I will capitalise it for now—let’s say I want to get up early and go swimming. I know I’ll feel great when I get back. I know I’ll enjoy it when I’m there. And yet I’ll often roll over and go back to sleep. That’s Resistance. Do I fight it? The tool I like to use is an affirmation, which is to say, “not today.” It’s not a fight or a battle; it’s an acknowledgement that it’s not real. It has no power. I am the one with the agency. And yes, my wedding band is also of white gold, now on my finger for 23 years. I should know how to wield it by now, ha ha!

White Gold Wielder

Could it be that the white gold provides a connection to the source of all power, to the universe, to God, to the source? That’s how I think of it.

I’m only partway through the introduction to Barkley’s Critical Study and I’m excited to read the rest of it. The essays that Philip Chase discussed are both excellent, as is Philip Chase’s video.

I’ll cap this here to keep it reasonably short. I just had a shower and another idea came to me that gives me a throughline in my understanding of these novels right through to my other favourite fantasy series, Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings. Stay tuned as I work that out!

https://www.stephenrdonaldson.com/EpicFantasy.pdf (1986)
https://www.nyrsf.com/2015/03/fantasy-is-the-most-intelligent-precise-and-accurate-means-of-arriving-at-the-truth-s-p.html (2015

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 22 - The Catacombs of Mount Thunder

Fri, 26 Jul 2024 07:00:00 GMT

In this episode, we cover Chapter 21 of Lord Foul's Bane, the first book of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever, by Stephen R. Donaldson.

Hosted by Cams and Barge, two old friends of many years. Cams has read all of these books, most of them multiple times. It's Barge's first time.

If you'd like to read along and participate in our discussions, we've set up a read-along on The StoryGraph.

Join the read-along here: Lord Foul's Bane Read-along

If you'd like to buy your own copy of the book, here are some affiliate links that would help to support the show:

Cams Campbell Reads: The Unbelievers

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapters 23–End

Using Fantasy to Find the Space between Joy and Despair

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 22 - The Catacombs of Mount Thunder

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 21 - Treacher's Gorge

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 20 - A Question of Hope

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 19 - Ringthane's Choice

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 18 - The Plains of Ra

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 17 - End in Fire

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 16 - Blood-bourne

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 15 - The Great Challenge

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 14 - The Council of Lords

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 13 - Vespers

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 12 - Revelstone

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 11 - The Unhomed

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 10 - The Celebration of Spring

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 9 - Jehannum

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapter 8 - The Dawn of the Message

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapters 6-7

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapters 4–5

Lord Foul's Bane, Chapters 1–3