The Book That Broke the World

Several characters in The Book That Broke the World depict history’s progress as a series of civilizations that rise and fall, each destroyed and rebuilt by whichever group succeeds the previous. Mayland describes this cycle as “[e]ach city built on the dust and ruin of the last. A world that’s little more than a cinder, subjected to repeated flashfires as one species burns itself down to make room for the next to have a try” (219). An ongoing cycle of violence underpins this evolution, a self-perpetuating system of revenge and tragedy. The novel examines the inherent destruction of these cycles, the reasons behind their perpetuation, and their consequences on the survivors.

The novel examines how discrimination between species feeds these ongoing cycles. Through Celcha and Hellet’s storyline, it illustrates how these cycles of violence are perpetuated. The narrative introduces the inherent violence of the ganars’ enslavement, which is rationalized by the beliefs of their enslavers. Myles Carstar, who runs the camp where Celcha and Hellet live, “maintained a fiction that the slaves were not only a different species but were morally, functionally, and spiritually no different to any other animal in service to [them]” (3). Celcha notes, “He had constructed himself around the idea that ganar were his inferior in every way” (57), a belief that she sees in Crath City as well, when she is bullied in the streets and the palace. This belief perpetuates an ongoing cycle of violence as newborn ganar are immediately enslaved, manacled at birth. The conflict between Arpix, a human, and Clovis, a canith, illustrates this point as well. Arpix recalls how his human family, along with his city, were attacked by canith, while Clovis remembers, and then is forced to relive, how humans killed her family. The notion that the other group is the enemy feeds their ongoing hostility. 

The novel explores the devastating end of such cycles in the plot by Hellet, advised by Maybe and Starve—Mayland and Starval, in ghost form—to kill the entire inhabitants of Crath City. Believing he is fighting for liberation, Hellet instead commits genocide, and Celcha assists. Instead of interrupting the cycle of violence, Hellet contributes to the fall of an entire civilization, participating in an even larger cycle he never intended. His unintended consequences are also equally destructive to those he was trying to reverse—the next group to inhabit the area are the insectoid skeer, who don’t advance civilization but further destroy it. 

However, the narrative also offers hope through the interactions between Arpix’s and Evar’s groups. Through their example, the novel highlights how working together for a common cause, including survival, can break the cycle and lead to new outcomes. The cooperation between the three canith siblings and Arpix’s group echoes the alliance that prevailed in Hellet and Celcha’s time between the humans and canith inhabiting Crath. On an individual level, Arpix and Clovis successfully navigate their differences and learn to trust and even feel affection for each other. With their example, the novel shows that these violent cycles can be interrupted when the focus remains on the individual, instead of the larger divisions between them.