The Book That Broke the World

“He’d spent a lifetime trapped with the one he had come to need most, and hadn’t known it. Instead, he’d bent his whole being toward escape. And here he was, trailing through the great beyond, discovering it to be no different to the place he’d come to despise.”

Evar’s experience of leaving the library chamber where he was raised makes him reflect on the irony that people so often long to change their circumstances, then find the new realm offers nothing distinct or different from the previous. Displacement marks most of the movement in the initial portions of the novel, and the exposure to new realms offers a different type of knowledge than that of books, leading to a discussion about the comparative value of knowledge and the wisdom gained from experience.

“Her anger was the implacable heat of a planetary core. It wasn’t going away, ever. The wounds had been struck too deep and too early for forgiveness to be an option.”

Though she is given better accommodations at the library, Celcha notes that her status isn’t much different; she is still discriminated against and treated as an inferior. The metaphor of her anger as a “planetary core” and thus molten, emphasizes how destructive the racism and cruelty are, suggesting that these wounds will eventually turn destructive, and foreshadowing the later destruction of Crath City.

“They will come again. […] Or one of our enemies will go there. It never ends well. One world always burns. Or both do.”

Hellet’s observation about the consequences of encounters between the ganar world and what they call the sabber world reflects conflicts between other civilizations in the book: canith and human, skeer and everything else. The novel takes a larger view of the rise and fall of civilizations, viewing them as an endlessly repeating cycle of history propelled by violent conflicts between or among groups.

“The library informs. It does not compel. We share information. It is for the recipients of that information to decide how to respond to it.”

Yute, when he speaks to Hellet and Celcha, makes this case that the library, and by extension the knowledge within it, is objective information and what matters is how the reader chooses to interpret that information. He offers one of several philosophical stances on the use of the knowledge that the novel will interrogate in its exploration of the theme of The Dangers of Incomplete Knowledge.

“All I can tell you is that if hope is to come our way it will be in a stranger’s hands, and if we turn our backs on them, we will never know what we missed.”

Arpix makes a plea for aiding the strangers they see on the plain, appealing not to the humanity of his companions but to their sense of self-preservation and their wish to escape the Dust. Arpix suggests that opening themselves to new knowledge and interactions, despite the risk, can be beneficial, speaking to the productive powers of peace and alliance. Arpix’s willingness to reach out represents one of the first instances of a character recognizing The Healing Power of Peace and Alliance.

“She pressed the anger into the cold ball of hate that sat deep in her chest, that had sat there year after year. The ganar were not warriors. They waited their moment.”

This passage, part of the scene in which Celcha is humiliated and abused by Lutna’s royal cousins, provides foreshadowing and motive for her later act of helping Hellet begin a revolution. The imagery of a “cold ball of hate” emphasizes the uncomfortable and lasting impact of such treatment. She uses identification with her people to help her control her rage, but this identification also highlights the way species are differentiated, and in many cases hostile to one another. Lutna’s example allows Lawrence to propose a larger discussion around questions of complicity if a person, despite their individual beliefs, benefits from a system based on the subjugation of others.

“A fault like this didn’t have neat boundaries. You couldn’t draw a line and say that those standing on this side were blameless and those on the other guilty. It was like the Dust. You might walk until you thought you’d left it far behind you, you might cross the badlands, climb the mountains, put it beyond your sight, build a new house and sleep easy. Only to wake and find that on neglected shelves the dust still gathered, and to know that however far you walked you would never truly be clean.”

The Dust is considered one of the least habitable places on the planet, but here it is a metaphor for Celcha’s condition of enslavement. She might be elevated to a new position at the library, but she knows she will never really be free of the judgment others hold about ganar. The image of a fault line describes the different grades of racist attitudes. Celcha recognizes that not every one of a species might personally hate her, but they still participate in a system that oppresses her people. This passage provides an example of the novel’s prose style, built on brief, rhythmic phrases and vivid imagery.

“She had meant to add that a tragic ending didn’t erase what had gone before. The shared kisses, the love beneath satin sheets, none of it was a waste, none of it was rendered meaningless, any more than a well-lived life was undone by the inevitable death waiting at the end.”

In a metafictional moment, Livira, while inside one of the stories she wrote, reflects on the message she wanted to embed in the story. In contrast to the timeless outlook held by the assistants, Livira feels that the emotions and experiences of a mortal life matter for their own sake. Her reflection speaks to a larger value attributed to personal, human experience, over and above the information held within books.

“It’s a catalyst. Something that allows a chemical reaction to take place but does not itself take part in the reaction.”

Hellet’s description of quicksilver is foreshadowed by Arpix’s uses of mercury as a weapon against the attacking cratalacs. Hellet’s description evokes other characters who act as catalysts to the action, like the assistants; Hellet, too, can be seen as a catalyst for the tragedy that overtakes the city. This is a parallel to knowledge, which, as other characters debate, can be used to help or to harm.

“When they found themselves unguarded, with all of the city at their mercy, even faint hearts […] would beat with new resolve. The rest of the ganar would take still less encouragement to put down the tools of their labour, strike off their chains, and for the first time claim their own lives.”

Hellet’s plan is intended as a grand gesture to liberate the ganar of the city and elsewhere. The words here are potentially a blend of his voice, what he’s learned from the books he’s read, and the words of Maybe and Starve, who advised him. The irony is that Hellet is an unwitting tool of mass murder, and instead of offering life, he causes death.

“The library puts knowledge in your hands and it’s up to you to understand it, judge it, use it. It gives you opportunity and leaves you to take it or ignore it. We’ve done the same.”

Celcha uses the allusion to the library to explain their plan of liberating the ganar to the work of the library in supplying a choice. She compares having physical freedom to the freedom of knowledge and the power to exercise choice. The metaphor slips when Celcha realizes the consequences of her actions, part of the novel’s message that knowledge can be put to dangerous use. Further events in the novel suggest that the extent of knowledge provided is also an important consideration when making a choice.

“She loved the library, or at least she loved books. She valued the knowledge and the passion they held. The memory of races and species beyond knowing. The culture and achievements of untold millennia. And yet she had seen how access to such riches could accelerate the seemingly never-ending cycle of destruction, the race from pointed rocks to nuclear fires in which worlds burned.”

Livira’s reflection communicates her love for the idea of preserving and communicating knowledge—the ideal purpose of any library, including the magical library in the book. However, her awareness of the violent uses to which knowledge could be put touches on the fundamental conflict at the heart of this library and the novel’s larger warning that knowledge can be used as a weapon or a source of power and control, a danger illustrated by the analogy of weaponry.

“We fight for the people we love. We fight for the ideas we want to be true, whether they are or not.”

Regarding the great conflict of the library, as well as the lesser conflicts between species and individuals, a motif emerges about the motivations for choosing sides. Both Kerrol and Malar, who is speaking here, make a case for choices made on the basis of emotion, not logic. This discussion foreshadows the conclusion in which where each character has to choose a side.

“Like this place [the library], it is built of expectation and imagination. If you had had more fear in you, it would have reflected your nightmare back at you. But you are not scared anymore. You have lost too much for that.”

The Escapes (the “it” referred to here) are initially characterized as nightmares but are revealed over the course of the book to be merely reflections of powerful emotion, fear or joy. Like books, they are tools that reflect the interpretation that is put on them. This contributes to the novel’s larger metafictional discussions on the power of storytelling and the means by which stories are constructed and conveyed.

“Wisdom has to be earned, and no number of words can wrap the gift of knowledge sufficiently to keep it safe from misuse.”

In the philosophical debate about the value of knowledge, Mayland makes the point that knowledge can become a weapon used to exert control or inflict violence on another. His answer to prevent the cycle of violence is to destroy the library, forcing each new civilization to acquire its own body of knowledge. Where ignorance is elsewhere posed as destructive, Mayland makes explicit the message that knowledge is not the equivalent of wisdom, which can only be gained by experience outside of books.

“He knew that out past other doors there were books written not just in ink on paper but in knots in string, notches on sticks, collections of different shells threaded on cords, bumps and holes set onto thin sheets of leather, stories and wisdom recorded on whatever medium presented itself to the people of the time.”

Evar’s reflection is the first indication that there are more systems of literacy and record-keeping in this world than words on a page. Ironically, Evar has spent most of his life in one chamber of the library and has not seen this for himself, but his awareness comprehends the vast nature of the library and its symbolism as a timeless repository of knowledge inclusive of all cultures and eras.

“There is a book that is also a loop. A book that has swallowed its own tale. It is a ring, a cycle, burning through the years, spreading cracks through time, fissures that reach into its past and future. And through those cracks things that have no business in the world of the flesh can escape.”

Hellet describes Livira’s book as a time loop, much like one the library poses with its portals, but in this image, the fissures are causing violence, conflict, and fear. Livira’s book becomes a symbol for how knowledge can unintentionally become a destructive force, even if the author doesn’t intend so.

“It had always amazed and saddened him that such a wealth of knowledge and culture, speculation and imagination sat out there, beyond the capacity of mankind to make use of, just waiting for the next fire to sweep through.”

Arpix adds another perspective to the discussion about knowledge and its uses when he reflects on the vast contents of the library and all the undiscovered knowledge it holds. In his viewpoint, knowledge has little value until it is made use of, but in Arpix’s imagination, this information is a type of wealth all on its own. The rise and fall of civilizations, and what drives them, is a larger theme of the book.

“This is a tool, and like any tool it can be both a weapon and a danger to those who wield it if they don’t properly understand its use.”

When Yute explains the nature of the Escapes and their ability to draw on strong emotions, he brings a new definition to the novel’s discussion about the nature of knowledge. He characterizes the knowledge itself as objective, a tool that can be misapplied based on the user, neither good nor evil all on its own. This gives further nuance to the novel’s metafictional discussions about intention, interpretation, and authorship.

“Livira’s advice would be, and always had been, to grab what was before him with both hands.”

Arpix recalls Livira’s advice to relish life experience, which the novel posits as one method for acquiring wisdom. While other action debates the power and beauty of knowledge, Livira’s philosophy advocates for other sources of wisdom, like experience.

“There are rules. […] Rules about what can be said and done in given places and given times. Which lines can cross, which must stay apart. And you ran headlong through all of them.”

While much of the novel contemplates boundaries, barriers, and distance, certain of the relationships propose that boundaries can be bridged. Yolanda, the speaker of this passage, makes a claim for the importance of boundaries and structure. She also hints at an unresolved question in the novel concerning why and how Livira’s book has managed to crack the foundations of the library. Livira figures here as a metaphor for chaos, contravening the library’s rules about order and access.

“Every work that has ever been committed to record by any species made available to all, without the barriers of language or distance. A library with so many doors that it will never be out of reach. A place where all opinion, discovery, and imagination can be summoned in a comprehensible form without delay. Immortal memory to counter the fragility of flesh. A ladder by which intelligence may ascend. With such a gift any species could hardly fail to reach nirvana.”

Irad’s vision for his library uses grand imagery to describe an ideal that both records and stimulates human intelligence. His description characterizes knowledge as a tool of transformation, even transcendence. This image is presented in the novel as a pure ideal, one perhaps unattainable, and certainly subjected to debate.

“Maybe that was the only way in which the indestructible could fail and the immortal come to their ends: through the work of the ignorant. Structures that could withstand any assault might, in the end, fall to mistakes and to the random actions of those not seeking to bring them down.”

While the novel has debated the uses to which knowledge might be applied, Livira reflects on the damage that might be done by ignorance—a lack of knowledge. While her intention in writing her book was never to harm, her book seems to have become, without her understanding how, a dangerous entity. This image counters the argument made by other characters that knowledge is objective.