Hagabula | A Review

Hello everyone, I am the bewitching, and bewitched, G.E.M.Simov, a fellow so in tune with the mystic arts and the world itself, that only I can tell you about Todor P. Todorov’s book, “Hagabula”.

Disclaimer - I read the book around 13 months ago, which is also when I wrote this review. I'm just now getting around to publishing it.

Simple review details - I rank books on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it.

Content

Hagabula is a book about points of view. It is about how things seem from one side are not always the same as they are when they are seen from the other, but it is also about how the truth is found in both sides, and how both sides are correct angles through which the events that transpire can be observed.

They are correct, and each is true - but, at the same time, there is a great contradiction between them, there is a staggeringly unpleasant feeling of dissatisfaction within them. The contradiction between one point of view and the other appears impossible to overcome, it can not be subsumed. That is, in part, owed up to the fact that things have already happened. No matter what is said about them, they have already come to pass, and the point of view is just a memory, an interpretation.

So the book is about interpretations, about how each interpretation is correct in its own right, about how the context of the interpreter as he performs the interpretation is key in the creation of the interpretation itself, and how the interpretation winds up being true, due to its subjective nature.

Perhaps interpretations can be altered as time passes, as more information is obtained and the point of view is expanded, post factum, but that is left up for debate. The clarity here is that people do not have the desire or will to engage in self alteration or correction. It is only possible in the event of violent external pressure, which is quite sad.

The book is also about stories, about how the same story can be told once, twice or thrice, and each time it can be different and new, in a sense. That coincides with the main subject of the book - points of view - but it takes a slight detour, because the book, itself, is a story, one that is told through stories, which in turn means that the book is about many things - about human nature, about right and wrong, about what drives people to do what they do, about understanding and knowledge, about borders and the transcendence of those borders, and it is also about man versus nature, in this man versus woman way.

The book does not tell anyone what is right and what is wrong, but in its exploration of points of view it presents difficult situations that do inquire whether what was done in them was right or wrong, and the answer that might wind up being found has a lot to do with context and with the points of view themselves, rather than with some cosmic arbiter determining what is and is not right, or an absolute state of rightness and wrongness.

Then there is a lot about the drive of human beings, and that drive is mostly attributed to desire. Men want to eat, drink and fuck, and that does not simply apply to men, it also applies to women. They may have everything, but they feel a drive towards another, a need, a desire. Whether it is the desire of someone's company, or love, it matters now.

That goes hand in hand with human nature - which this book asserts, or at least implies, is based on whether one is a man or woman, and men desire to subjugate and control, while women desire to remain as they are. That is, of course, just point of view - but when the Main Character of the book, a man, winds up adopting the idea of subjugation as he has a revelation of sorts, it becomes clear that there is, indeed, a baffling line in the sand between men and women. On top of that, the line is firmly drawn - there is no room for men whose nature is womanly, with a single exception that is somewhat suspicious, and there is no room for women whose nature is manly.

All women are victims to the subjugation of men, and all men are subjugators of women and nature. A rigid, unflattering view that indicates that humanity leans towards evil, that there is a foulness in humanity that is there apriori, and that seems to be a failing of the book.

Naturally, understanding and knowledge contribute greatly to the idea of the point of view, to the interpretation. But all of that seems to be very secondary - no matter how much knowledge one accrues, their point of view does not change. As an example, in the eyes of William the White, Rupert is good, no matter what. Even as Rupert admits to doing terrible, horrible things which leave William repulsed, even as Rupert admits to having made a mistake, to having started ‘a war’, somehow William winds up convinced that vengeance for Rupert is the correct approach, regardless of the fact that the wronging that Rupert admits to having committed, the wronging that Rupert recognizes as a wronging, indicates that vengeance should not be sought for Rupert.

Again, this reinforced the idea that Points of View, interpretations, do not change. It indicates that knowledge, and even understanding, are useless when it comes to changing one's mind, and that only great violence is capable. It underlines the idea that humanity is rotten by default, for is it not an indication of foulness to disregard the truth?

Then there are the ideas of borders - there is a border that should not be crossed and that one is not meant to cross it, and that is constantly compounded upon. The witches can not, or do not want to, cross the border of the old world, of Europe. The Egyptian cannot cross the border into the new world. Long John's luck is confined to the game, defined by the act of playing a game, the border is there and it is insurmountable. Even for the Main Characters the border that should not be crossed remains a border that should not be crossed, and the only way to ‘cross it’ is to recognize it as being there and to completely define oneself along it?

This whole thing appears to lend even more credence to the rigidity attributed to humanity - there are confines to what human beings are, what they can be, how they can be, and these confines, which are not only almost impossible to pass through, are deadly for those who do attempt to pass through them. Maybe not directly deadly, in the corporeal sense, but they certainly mean death of the mind, of identity, or of something, a transformation that is not additive, not dialectical, but simply subtractive. There is something that is left after the operation, and it is meant to be discarded.

Man versus nature, obviously, bears the markings of the point of view - it is exclusively about how one sees the world. Oh, the world is so beautiful as it is - womanly point of view, wrong for men, and so Ernan, throughout the whole book, sees the world as beautiful as it is an appreciates it greatly, but there is something that others see as wrong within him, and at the very end, as the most vicious violence looks over him, he changes his tune, and suddenly the world ‘will’ be beautiful, so long as it is changed, ordered, subjugated. No longer is the world beautiful, it has the potential to be.

The relation of this idea to the rigidity of the world and humanity is, I hope, clear to the reader and needs no pointing out. The book does not even imply that there is a chance at making things ‘right’ through peaceful means, through cooperation and coexistence. It states that for the reclamation and restoration of nature a violent revolution is needed, so that things can begin anew, and nothing of the old must be left. Now, if that is read through the lens of environmental concerns - that might be right, as humanity is falling behind very, VERY quickly on that front… But is that the only way? And the relation that it has to the discrepancy between man and woman leaves a very concerning hint in the reader's mind, as though there is no opportunity for a bridging of the gap, as though the pit between one and the other will remain.

In a sense, it will, but the violence that is added in the relationship is baffling and unsettling.

One other thing - this book is very horny. It concerns itself with sex a lot, which would not have been a bad thing if it was used appropriately, but it appears as though many of the uses for sex in the book are simply… There. There is gratuity to them that is not needed, even if the characters are all men and everything is told through the lens of men who have not had sex in a year. Every time it is evoked it is meant to be ugly, which it can be, but it appears to be done with the sole goal of reinforcing this harrowing difference between men and women and the evil that dwells within the heart of every human being, and which can not be overpowered by their goodness.

I suppose I mean to say I found the descriptions of women's bodies through just that, the sexual, bothersome. It could be that the intended effect was just that - still, I did not enjoy them, and in the context of the book itself, the stories being told, I felt as though they were ill fitting.

2/3

Richness of Expression

This book flexes a lot of lexical muscles, and also shows off some nearly intimate knowledge of the dictionary, which is not just fine and dandy, but quite engaging and pleasant.

However, in that I can find a very disheartening issue. The manner of the book is peculiar - as it is a story told through a plethora of other stories, but the vast majority of those stories is presented through the direct speech of other characters. The main issue therein is that there is no difference between each character's approach to telling the stories, there is no discernible alteration from one to the other. Not only that, but their manner of expression is identical - they do not speak differently enough, which is really bothersome, in the sense that they are all exceptionally eloquent and their prose is, all of it, staggeringly flowery.

Aside from that, which is something that can really yank the reader out of the magic circle, to pull the reader away from their immersion in the book, there are no other issues.

2/3

Story

In regards to its story, this book is terrible, seeing as the reader has absolutely no way of getting their hands on a synopsis of the book’s events without going online. No matter how intently I look at the cover, at the pages adjacent to the cover, I can not find a synopsis. The book just has pointless quotes from complete nobodies, which do nothing to spark any interest in the reader or inform the reader what they're about to spend the equivalent of three doners’ worth of money on. Put a synopsis of your book’s story on the back.

In other news, this book is about Ernan Cortes going to America, but America is exactly as, if not more mythical than, what it was described as. Blood sacrifices, a land so inhospitable it is literally impossible to live in, magical monsters, inexplicable weather events, so on and so forth. Also, witches and fairytale creatures are real even in Europe, and a decent chunk of the story is about a witch who did some stuff in Europe and literally everyone on Cortes’ voyage was directly affected in some way or another. There's also a Swedish man.

Without spoiling things, the story does everything in its power to somehow grab the myths, legends and misconceptions about Cortes' trip to America, about the human presence there, and says to itself: “why not?”

As a result, everything is amped up to eleven. There is no staggering, well oiled civilization there - there are random, mythical tribes that are barely human, which exist in some kind of harmony with one another and nature, and feed into the stereotypes of ‘barbaric’, ‘uncivilized’ ‘savages’ who were in need of conquering, who are barely human… Now that's a decently big gripe yours truly has with this book - it takes something that is almost completely unknown in the East, the Middle and even the West, and then decides to have some fun with it as an exceptionally lose basis for a funky exploration story.

So the depiction of the New World… I did not like. However, the Old World? Now that was very interesting. Now that was very scrumptious - witches, succubi, ice people, hashishins, dark kings and queens, mythical beasts, all of them woven into the world in a decently plausible way. Astoundingly, when the book takes its detours from the adventure into the New World and reminisces about the Old World, that is when it is most captivating and engaging.

Now, as mentioned, this book is a story told through many stories. That leads into trouble - namely the fact that it has an exceptionally rocky, difficult start, but it then picks up the pace and becomes very enjoyable and entertaining. The other troublesome thing is that some stories are told more than once, and the reader is left with the impression that they have already read what they are reading, even if they haven’t. This was most noticeable with the two sections that take place at the shore of the sea/ocean, for it wound up being exceptionally easy to believe that the reader is thrust into a chapter that takes place earlier in the chronology of the story (as had already happened), but then it winds up not to be the case, leaving the reader with a bit of confusion.

Now, characters - this book doesn't do characters, because they all stay largely the same, with one exception (Ernan Cortes, the Main Character), and even then he barely has the time to do anything or to be a character. Every other fellow in the book is just a dude who has already had a billion adventures more treacherous than this one, and they do not grow or change at all - not even when their shadows are consumed and they are given an indeterminate amount of time left to live.

The reader can get a general idea of what Aguilar is like, but Cortes is far too passive for that. Rupert is another character who does show off his character, but he is an exceptionally contentious fellow, and so it is not hard to get that. But everyone else is the same - Long John is lucky at games, grew up in a seaside town and likes drinking, but that's as far as it goes. There's not enough meat on the bone, and sure, the reader can extrapolate that his conditions of life prior to meeting his benefactor and getting to go on his way were such and such and they contributed to him becoming such and such kind of person which could explain why he acted the way he did, but at the same time it is not enough. He is just some guy with a few interesting tidbits thrown in, but he is just that - some slightly interesting, but ultimately monstrously shallow guy.

Every character is like that - what is William the White like? I don't know, but he knows a lot, has a lot of money, and a peg leg. Maybe he is calm and collected, maybe he keeps a cool head on his shoulders, but what is he like? There's not enough there. Even the Swedish man - he's some guy with an axe who killed his dad, but who is he? Well… I don't know.

All of these characters do things. Many of them tell long stories - but, as expressed in the Richness of Expression section - these characters are the same. They are just vehicles for the stories they are telling. There is no difference between how William the White tells his stories or how Aguilar tells his. They just tell stories in the exact same way and there is not a single iota of their character spilled into the story that is being told.

As such, there is something harrowingly unsatisfying about the whole ordeal. The story, too, is unsatisfying in the sense that it ends rather abruptly, it feels a bit rushed, but it is also exceptionally drawn out and has overstayed its welcome. That is owed up to the fact that the vehicle for the stories being told - the characters - die out rather constantly, until everyone is dead, and the only thing left to do is deal with the New World Expedition, which winds up being the most uninteresting part of the whole book, for reasons previously stated, but also because of the overwhelmingly formulaic nature of it. They go through this trial, then that other one, then the next one, and they just keep going and they are so unfathomably incapable of doing anything, and they are always at the end of their ropes, but they just manage to make it. The rapidity of trials going past increases, the frequency of stories being told seems to decrease, and all that the reader is left with are these non-characters trudging along and trying to do something, but then the reader can't really give a damn about these non-characters because they're not characters, and also that guy is just dead in a few moments, so who cares?

Ultimately, the story is interesting when it tells the reader about Europe, about Africa - which also seems to get the touch of: “there are largely barbarians here and no one knows anything about it”, but it is not as intense as what is done to Mesoamerica - even about ‘the ice world’, but it plays its cards somewhat improperly and winds up delivering a very unsatisfying ending that nearly disregards all the themes of the book, except one, and jarringly plows through with it.

2/3

Legendary Point

Does this book get the Legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time? I had a fun time reading the book, but I am left more unsatisfied than satisfied. I really like witches, ancient things, secret things - so the Egyptian, the witches, the mystery of these fellows who knew what was what - that was stupendous. Alas, it teetered off rather quickly, and this particular style of writing, which is exceptionally flowery with its prose, but winds up not describing anything that sticks, did not earn the book any favors.

That, coupled with the themes and the insistence on humans being more bad than good by nature, which I got from the book, and the themes of borders that could not be overcome, and also witches just being evil and hunted and even though they were not that totally evil they were still evil so they kinda deserve what was coming for them… Also the way the Moor died was absolutely baffling, implausible and inconsistent - oh he dances like a dervish in the wind, a master of this plac– Oh no he's blinded by sand. But he's so skilled he knows everything even while blinded, and– Oh no, nevermind, he missed. But his opponent is so weak the book literally says he can't move, so– Oh wait, nevermind, the dude lunged at him with such speed and ferocity that not only was the Moor caught off guard, his fucking neck got ripped to shit and he fucking died. Okay, contrivances that bother me a little can have an effect.

Thus, NO, Hagabula does not get the Legendary Point. It had some very good moments, but alas… It failed to bottle lightning.

0/1

Conclusion

6/10 Hagabula is a decently good book. It's a fun read, but only for people of a certain proclivity. I would not recommend it to my grandma, and seeing as it is not a book that just anyone can pick up, I'd argue it's for serial readers. Big fellows, perhaps appreciators of literature overall, folks who are interested in experimentation… But these fellows would, potentially, find some flaws in the way the book handles characters or certain parts of itself. It's decent, but not great.

In the bag of mediocrity I chuck it, though it seems to not want to stay in there, animated by some unfathomable, eldritch power. It will not gather dust, but it will not shine at my belt, either.