WiC Reads: The Witcher Saga—Time of Contempt by Andrzej Sapkowski

Chapter Two

Geralt mostly sits out Chapter Two as the focus shifts to Ciri and Yennefer, who arrive in the city of Gors Velen. Yennefer is on her way to the isle of Thanedd, where she’ll take part in a grand meeting of sorcerers and sorceressess. On the way, she intends to drop Ciri off at the sorceress academy of Aretuza, where she’ll learn to hone her magical gifts; it’s also a great place to keep her on lockdown away from the prying eyes of all the people looking for her. The strong-willed Ciri does not like the idea of being under house arrest, even if it’s for her own good.

The chapter revolves around Ciri as she works through what to do. Does she obey Yennefer and go to Aretuza, or does she make a break for it and try to reunite with Geralt? She contemplates this as she gets a tour of the city from Fabio, a young page. Ciri’s adventurous spirit is on display as she wolfs down local delicacies, gets lost in the crowd, and challenges a charlatan trying to pass off a wyvern as a basilisk. We also see her witcher training in action after the wyvern inevitably breaks free of its cage and she has to kill it, afterwards giving the credit to  some rando lest she draw too much unwanted attention.

It’s a good showcase for Ciri’s character, although I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the clever, clinical prose; there’s something impersonal about the way Sapkowski writes (or the way the books are translated) that keeps the characters at a distance. And the anachronistic language…when Yennefer meets her old associate Giancarlo to discuss some business, he calls her “drop-dead gorgeous.” I can’t help it, it pulls me right out of the flow.

I also have to mention Sapkowski’s preoccupation with female beauty, which borders on the fetishistic. Whenever I read — in any fantasy novel, not just this one — about a female character described as impossibly curvaceous and sexy beyond the power of words to convey, my eyes start to roll. And this chapter gets especially bad in an extended bathhouse sequence where Yennefer and the sorceress Margarita — two women who are decades older than their appearances would suggest, mind you — tittle like schoolgirls and “assume exotic and extremely provocative poses” to shock someone who’s about to enter the room…but of course they fail, because that someone happens to be a women, and women are all part of the same secret sexy club and can’t be shocked by nudity, right Sapkowski?

The energy is very 13-year-old-boy-imagines-a-girls-sleepover. It’s at odds with the serious tone Sapkowski is trying to strike; is this an epic fantasy series or a PG-13 Penthouse letter?

Anyway, the chapter ends with a vivid stretch where Ciri flees the city and tries to reunite with Geralt, only to be met with a string of disturbing visions and an otherworldly encounter that suggests grim times to come. At least things end with the family back together.