The Book That Broke the World

“Hellet’s crime, the one that earned him the official cruelty, had been curiosity. He had looked inside a book. What had truly broken him, however, was pride. Not the bold, swaggering pride of the slavers but that quiet, confident sense of self-worth which no slave can afford to keep.”

Illustrating The Costs of the Ongoing Cycle of Violence, Hellet’s punishment provides a founding motivation for his resentment toward his condition of enslavement and those who enslave him. This passage establishes early on the idea that possessing knowledge can be dangerous, which will emerge as a central theme of the novel. By juxtaposing “crime” and “curiosity,” the narrative highlights the absurdity of his punishment.

“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