chroniclingamber

Corwin throws the door open dramatically and Random staggers in, tired and dirty but fashionable. He reveals that he’s being pursued. He talks about “moving the plane around” as he flew, “trying to subtract them.” Again, he has a power over Shadow that we don’t see in later books. He reveals that there’s four to six people, and that he’d feel comfortable taking on two to three of them but six is too many. He’s just a little guy, 5’6″ and 135 pounds. Corwin’s surprised that a wiry short dude like Random would feel so comfortable getting physical with multiple people, and it opens the suggestion that he’s stronger than he thinks. Again, it’s a pretty good way of sharing information about how inhuman Corwin and his family are. He’s not just narrating thinky thoughts, he’s reacting to what’s around him and learning.

There comes a knock at the door, Random’s pursuers, and Random laughs, pulls off his tie, and grabs the previously mentioned saber from the wall. It’s not just decorative – Flora had a fully functional if slightly rusty sharp saber chilling on her wall within easy access. Random’s actions are pretty action-hero, got to say.

As they studiously ignore the knocking, debating what to do, Corwin asks if the maid Carmella might open the door. Flora states that she has “decided that is improbable.” In other words, she’s worked her will upon the likelihood, in that shadow, of a person doing something. Again, this is a remarkable power that doesn’t show up in later books – or else Flora is far more skilled in Shadow Work than she lets on. Random objects, stating “you don’t know what you’re up against.” The creatures following him are able to work their own influence on that Shadow – influence that allegedly was the sole domain of Corwin and his family.

Corwin does the utterly classic thing of opening the door, taking stock, and then closing it again. It’s both dramatic and darkly humorous. Again, this is cinematic stuff. The fight takes place and it’s an exciting one with huge dogs, gunfire, swordplay, and a little light strangling. Corwin and Random both show off how strong they are.

And then there’s the reveal about their assailants: they aren’t human.

They aren’t human at all.

Random, like Corwin, hates Eric – or else he does in the story that Corwin is relating to his as-yet unrevealed audience. He has the devastating line “of all my relations I like sex the best and Eric the least,” which I’ve seen attributed to Corwin more than once.

“You’re thinking,” he said while I thought, “’How far can I trust Random this time? He is sneaky and mean and just like his name, and he will doubtless sell me out If someone offers him a better deal. ‘ True?”

I nodded.

Zelazny REALLY wants to hammer it home that Random is terrible, and also the best ally that Corwin can scrape together.

And again, we see an Amberite- Random this time – directly control a Shadow that they are in and remain in. The dead bodies are gone, the blood stains are cleaned up, the window is fixed. They don’t travel to a different Shadow where this is the case. He just… does it.

The next day the brothers take Flora’s car for a drive and have the same cagey conversation Corwin keeps having, where he repeats lines he’s heard people say with a bit of conviction to his voice. Random’s a gambler, a card shark, but Corwin apparently has the better poker face. Corwin agrees that he wants to Do The Thing even though he still doesn’t know what The Thing is. He just knows that he hates Eric and something inside him wants The Thing It’s instinct – as strong an instinct as not trusting either of the siblings he’s recently met. Corwin makes small talk and mentions that Flora had tried to walk to Amber but had problems. Random is, uh, not… his response isn’t great.

“She’s a dumb bitch. She doesn’t really deserve to live, but that’s not for me to say, yet.”

Like that’s just… that’s just nasty.

And we come to find out that Corwin is a really unreliable narrator. So did Random really say this? Is Corwin portraying him poorly? Is Random trying to act tough and impress him? It’s out of character for future depictions of him but also there’s quite a bit of authorial retconning of the first book. And then there’s also the fact that Zelazny’s attitude toward women in his stories changed quite a bit over his writing career. It never became GREAT but it improved.

Corwin tricks Random into starting to move them through Shadow, revealing that one person can be physically propelling a group forward while another member of the group is focused on changing the Shadow. We also see that the person Shaping Shadow can alter the vehicle they’re in. This, again, doesn’t come up later in the series. Corwin knows something’s up, and it quickly gets WEIRD, but he pretty much takes it in stride. He’s still figuring out how things work, what things are, and he’s still afraid to say anything or ask any questions.

“Well, I’d heard him speak of “adding” and “subtracting,” as though the universe in which he moved were a big equation.

“I decided-with a sudden certainty– that he was somehow adding and subtracting items to and from the world that was visible about us to bring us into closer and closer alignment with that strange place, Amber, for which he was solving.”

Seeing this kind of magic as an equation, as adding and subtracting things to create reality, really does pave the way for Merlin and his computer magic down the line.

It’s interesting that Corwin looks to see if Random is doing something with his hands, as thought hang gestures or movement or whatever would somehow explain what’s going on. “He must be USING HIS MIND.”

They encounter some problems, of course, because they’re on the literal journey part of The Hero’s Journey, and that includes encountering some horrific stuff and also being run off the road. Random continues to be a fucking sociopath as he tries to murder the guy they nearly vehicularly manslaughtered. But it’s ok, because Corwin is a weirdo sociopath comfortable with murdering people over points of honor too. They lapse into a formal-ish High Fantasy way of speaking and cap it off with “well, whatever,” which I love.

We also once again see just how strong Corwin is. He’s not just strong enough to throw men around, he’s strong enough to pick up (half of) a car and carry it across the road. So is skinny little Random.

They stop to get gas and we once again see that Random is able to alter items that they have in their possession. Specifically, he changes their Earth money for whatever the Shadow currency is. Later, we see Merlin actively using the Logrus to make this sort of change. Random’s doing the bulk of the work here and Corwin acknowledges his efforts, praises him… which really throws Random for a loop. He’s very much The Youngest Kid, eager for attention, unused to praise. He’s quick to ask for payment, though: “A Regency.”

A regency can have one very specific meaning – the person who holds the throne until the person with the actual rights to the throne can rule. The position often involves an adult governing the country until the ruler comes of age, or a trusted advisor/family member holding the position while the ruler is away at war. However, a Regent can also be someone who governs a specific area of a larger kingdom. In those cases you’ll have several Regents who gather together to rule the larger area. It’s interesting that Random asks for a Regency and not, like, a duchy or something.

“Our parents had tried to discipline him in the past, I knew, never very successfully. And I realized. with that, that we had shared common parents, which I suddenly knew was not the case with me and Eric, me and Flora, me and Caine and Bleys and Fiona. And probably others, but these I’d recalled, I knew for sure.”

Either Corwin is remembering wrong or else Zelazny just… straight up changed this later. Or both! Random does not have any full-blooded sibling in canon (a sister is mentioned in “The Visual Guide to Castle Amber,” but that wasn’t written by Zelazny), while Eric and Corwin are actually full siblings – as is Deidre.

Again, we get a little more information about Shadow – We find out that The Forest of Arden is closer to Earth than it is to Amber, which doesn’t feel quite right to me. We also find out that an Amberite can track another Amberite through Shadow, so they can’t just run from the brother Julian because he’d be hot on their heels… or maybe an echo of him, a Shadow of him, would pursue them.

Let’s talk about Julian’s amazing horse-creature Morgenstern! “Morgenstern” is a German, generally Jewish, surname that means “Morning Star.” “Morningstar” is sometimes used to refer to angels, and sometimes specifically to Lucifer/Satan. Morgenstern is basically a horse version of a hellhound.

Horse height is measured in “hands,” where each hand is four inches. If Morgenstern is “six hands higher than any other horse” that means it’s TWO FEET TALLER than other horses. The average horse size is about 15 hands, so Morgenstern is… really big. That’s a big horse.

I don’t understand “his eyes were the dead color of a Weimaraner dog’s” because from photos I’ve seen they tend to just have… dog eyes. Very light colored eyes generally but… they’re eyes.

“He did create Morgenstern, out of Shadows, fusing into the beast the strength and speed of a hurricane and a pile driver.”

is lovely. This is lovely.

It’s also FASCINATING that Julian was able to create a creature, a living creature, a magical creature. And he’s created others! Morgenstern is “the fastest horse he has ever created,” implying that he’s created other less-fast horses. That’s just so cool! And also not brought up again!

Julian smiling and waving jauntily is just so perfect.

References:

Gabardine is a tightly knit, waterproof wool used to make outerwear.

Mercedes, or Mercedes-Benz, is a luxury automobile. Flora isn’t rich, she’s wealthy.

“All Roads Lead to Amber” is a play on “All Roads Lead to Rome.” Per https://italianstudies.nd.edu/news-events/news/all-roads-lead-to-rome-new-acquisitions-relating-to-the-eternal-city/ The proverb “All roads lead to Rome” derives from medieval Latin. It was first recorded in writing in 1175 by Alain de Lille, a French theologian and poet, whose Liber Parabolarum renders it as ‘mille viae ducunt homines per saecula Romam’ (a thousand roads lead men forever to Rome). The first documented English use of the proverb occurs more than two hundred years later, in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Astrolabe of 1391, where it appears as ‘right as diverse pathes leden diverse folk the righte way to Rome.’

The proverb’s origins may relate to the Roman monument known as the Milliarium Aureum, or golden milestone, erected by Emperor Caesar Augustus in the central forum of ancient Rome. All distances in the Roman Empire were measured from this point and it was regarded as the site from which all principle roads diverged. As such, artists such as Giacomo Lauro, whose rendition of the Milliarium Aureum appears in this exhibit, often used it as a metaphor for the intensely cosmopolitan culture that has long been present in Rome.

Zunoco is possibly a reference to Sunoco. This is kind of just… a vibes/gut check thing though.

“Wee covir the werld” is possibly a reference to an old Sherwin-Williams ad, a globe with red paint dropping down it and the slogan “cover the Earth.” Again, this is just a hunch.

Charles Fort wrote about Weird Shit like rains of frogs, poltergeists, UFOs, etc.

Esso bubble headed gas pumps were produced in the 1940s and 1950s. They were last manufactured in 1956.

The Forest of Arden is referenced a lot in folk lore and fantasy and Shakespeare set plays in it.

It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, beautiful and wise, all around me. I always feel better when I can see that there is something to hold back the shadows.

Corwin wakes up alone, again, but this time he knows where he is for all that he’s still working on who he is. He knows he’s in danger and he’s back to investigating. He heads into the library to take stock of the situation and luckily for him his sister has a big library full of interesting and memory-jogging things. He knows so much about himself without knowing himself, like the fact that he thinks better when occupied with other stuff. Zelazny again delivers information in a sparse, economical way. Corwin knows medical stuff, he knows sword stuff, he knows how to toss a drawer, he knows how to pick a lock.

What he finds in that drawer is a deck of Tarot cards.

Tarot cards are special cards that are sometimes used for playing card games but are also used as a tool of divination. Corwin et al are featured as the Major Arcana, or “Trumps.” Trump is also a card game specific term, where a card that usually has a lower rank is elevated to a higher rank. It’s why we have the expression “to trump something” – to defeat someone/thing or outrank, to win in some way, usually publicly. It’s interesting that Zelazny uses the term “trumps” instead of “major arcana.”

What’s unfortunate is that although Corwin uses the cards as a divination tool, and later we see a few examples of scenes directly referencing Tarot cards (a woman blindfolded and tied to a pole a la the eight of Swords, a youth suspended upside down from his ankle as The Hanged Man) we don’t see the tarot cards actually used as tarot cards much.

The cards give us the first hint that unicorns are important, as there’s one on the backs of the cards and not recognizing the import of it bothers Corwin. He knows that it’s a unicorn, sure, but he doesn’t know what it means… only that it does mean something, mean something incredibly important. They’re COLD which is fascinating, a detail that elevates them. They obviously aren’t just cards. It’s not simply that they were hidden, have a unicorn on them, and have weird super realistic and compelling art. They are cold to the touch. They are unearthly.

This brings us to another bit of info-dumping. There’s a pretty big cast of characters and someone like George R. R. Martin might just include a family tree in the back of his door stopper novels. Instead we get some family photos shuffled in front of us, impressions and observations.

It’s noteworthy that all the women are lumped together in one paragraph. Interestingly, moist and sad Llewella has green hair.

So cocky little Random was in trouble! I had a feeling it shouldn’t have bothered me especially. But now, he was one of the keys to my past, and quite possibly my future also. So I would try to help him, in any way I could, until I’d learned all I wanted from him. I knew that there wasn’t much brotherly love lost between the two of us. But I knew that on the one hand he was nobody’s fool; he was resourceful, shrewd, strangely sentimental over the damnedest things; and on the other hand, his word wasn’t worth the spit behind it, and he’d probably sell my corpse to the medical school of his choice if he could get much for it. I remembered the little fink all right, with only a touch of affection, perhaps for a few pleasant times it seemed we had spent together. But trust him? Never. I decided I wouldn’t tell Flora he was coming until the last possible moment. He might be made to serve as an ace, or at least a knave, in the hole.

Random here sounds like a REAL piece of shit, but don’t worry, he absolutely is. He doesn’t quite live up to his sneaky betrayer nature, but wow does he hate women. He goes through a pretty significant alteration through the books and in many ways it mirrors Corwin’s journey – he matures quite a bit, he grows and changes. But damn he’s a real piece of shit until then. He’s one of the better fleshed-out siblings, maybe because it can be fun to write terrible people.

One thing to note is that Random apparently can take shortcuts through the Shadow. He talks about taking a circuitous route, and avoiding “the wrong shadows.” They can not only travel from one world to another, but take shortcuts from one place to a different place within that world.

Corwin falls asleep (again) and wakes up when Flora gets back home. She’s tried to walk into Amber instead of Trumping there – which narratively allows Corwin to find the cards and also establishes that it’s possible to walk to Amber and that another Amberite can alter the path, throw up obstacles. It doesn’t really make sense. She has Trumps for Amber proper, for Eric, and for several other siblings. Why hoof it, unless she believes nobody would answer her call? She’d still be able to Trump into Amber, though. Zelazny digs into this a bit in a later book, but still.

Amberites being able to affect other peoples’ journey through Shadow, along with a few other things, pops up in the first two books and then not to often after that. In some ways, Zelazny powered-down his Pattern users. A character in a later book refers to Corwin as a sorcerer but he doesn’t really do much magic at all… especially compared to certain of his siblings.

Flora also refers to Corwin as “being in exile TOO.” This infers that she’s in exile, but she’s also keeping watch over Corwin which isn’t an exile-ish thing to do.

Another noteworthy Shadow-Magic thing that pops up like ONCE and never again is when Corwin muses about his age. He looks “thirty-ish” but senses he’s older than that… and that “Shadows would lie for me,” as in he could look a specific wage or what-not. Again, it’s a bit of magic that gets dropped quickly although later we get full-on shapeshifters and Corwin himself is directly descended from shapeshifters.

Corwin also mentions that at one point he and his siblings hung out together, all chill, with “no tension, no friction among them.”

Then Random walks in.

References:

Donner and Blitzen are the names of two of Santa’s reindeer. “Donner” means “thunder” and “blitzen” means “lightning,” as well.

Unicorns are mythical creatures. Now depicted as horses with single long spiral horns emerging from their foreheads, older depictions were more goat-like and the horn often curved or was like a single antler. Unicorns are attracted to purity, able to be tamed by a virginal maiden. Their horns can be used to purify poison and heal infection. While associated with (young, virginal) women they're associated with the masculine.

“Rampant” and “dexter” are heraldric terms. The unicorn is rearing up, hooves raised (“rampant”) and facing to the left (“dexter”).

“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” a short story published in 1820 by Washington Irving, is a spooky story set in the Hudson Valley, near Westchester County. The locals have a legend about the ghost of a long-dead cavalryman who lost his head to a cannonball and rides at night searching for revenge. Ichabod Crane, the tall skinny arrogant outsider school teacher, sweeps into town and tries to woo a young woman from a wealthy family. The local who’s taken with her pranks the guy unceasingly. Crane finally screws his courage to the sticking place and asks the girl out. When she refuses, he takes off and heads home. While headed home a horseman with no head comes galloping up behind him and hurls his head at Crane. The next day, Crane’s gone from the town. It’s inferred that this was another prank, the “head” was a pumpkin, and Crane ran off like a coward. There’s been a lot of films and tv shows based on and about the story, which is especially popular at Halloween.

A lance is a very specific thing, and that thing is not a spear. If you’ve seen a knight on horseback jousting, that’s what a lance is. They’re about eleven feet long so frankly I don’t know how easy it would be to “lean on” one. Most of the art I’ve seen of this Trump involves a spear or a staff, not a lance.

“… the faint ringing and the ghost voices that indicate long distance.” is a poetic way to describe a real phenomena that once existed and does no longer. It’s something I experienced as a kid, up until the mid-00s with transatlantic phone calls especially. Just the very slight lag, a second or maybe two, and the pressure of a sound that both is and isn’t there behind and between the words of the conversation. It’s eerie and as far as I know it’s gone forever.

A fink is someone who’s unpleasant, someone who betrays people. A fink is also an informant, and “to fink” means “to reveal information.”

Ace and Knave refer to playing cards that have different values. Aces are either the most valuable or least valuable card. “An ace in the hole” is a hidden advantage kept secret until needed. It’s a poker term. A knave as a playing card is also known as the Jack; a “knave” is someone who’s deceitful, dishonest, a trickster.

Chapter two continues with the curt noir vibe. “Carl Corey” briskly summarizes his trip to town. He’s got a lot of time to kill and needs to replace… everything. He’s got nothing but the shirt on his back and it’s not even HIS shirt. It’s interesting what he feels the need to note – the bacon’s greasy, he enumerates every item he purchases. He doesn’t note anyone around him, or any conversation he might over hear. we don’t know what the diner’s like or how the sales people treat him. He’s very self contained.

He does note that nobody’s looking for him or following him.

Amidst the mundanity of greasy bacon and new shirts we get to see something a little alarming: our guy here has a horrific temper and he’s acted on it before. He doesn’t know much about himself but he knows that; that anger is a foundational aspect of who and what he is. We know he’s quick to protect himself and here he reveals what lengths he’d go to in order to do so – he’s willing to kill, to destroy, and has felt this urge before and possibly given in to it.

He’s not exactly a knight in shining armor.

He gets his mind together as he walks toward his sister’s mansion. It doesn’t look familiar, although SHE does. Zelazny describes her as

“The woman behind the desk wore a wide-collared, V-necked dress of blue-green, had long hair and low bangs, all of a cross between sunset clouds and the outer edge of a candle flame in an otherwise dark room, and natural I somehow knew, and her eyes behind glasses I didn’t think she needed were as blue as Lake Erie at three o’clock on a cloudless summer afternoon; and the color of her compressed smile matched her hair.”

This is “Evelyn Flaumel” although we later learn her name is actually Flora (short for Florimel). Her hair sounds red in this description, which fits with “the color of her compressed smile,” but she isn’t grouped in with “the redheads” later in the books and while sunset clouds can be red the outer edge of candle flames isn’t generally so. If nothing else she’s bright, she shines, she’s beautiful.

More bits of memory come back to “Carl” as he talks to her, and we get the first glimpse of Fantasy as she mentions “Shadows” and the horrors they contain. And it’s been long enough since I first read this book, I was so young when I first read this book, that I no longer remember what it was like to learn that “Shadows” doesn’t mean “darkness caused by an object blocking a light source,” but instead means something else entirely.

Bits of memory start coming faster as they talk. He speaks French, he knows why there’s no wolves left in Ireland, he remembers his brother Eric and that he hates Eric, he remembers that Evelyn’s name isn’t “Evelyn.” And he manages to hide these revelations.

Zelazny pulls a neat trick here, where one character info-dumps but indirectly. We learn more about the family, although indirectly, and learn more about Corwin. His family doesn’t like him and he’s glad of it. He also is an utterly terrible judge of character, as we later see with Bleys (and Brand). He’s an unreliable narrator in general.

He also dismisses Flora through the book as being unintelligent but… she’s not.

References:

“Sport shirts” were an informal style of shirt, often collared and button-down, with a square hem meaning you didn’t generally tuck them into your trousers. You’d wear them while playing golf or entertaining friends in your back yard, but probably not to an office job or religious service. One branch of sport shirt evolution is the polo shirt.

“A Sullivan Violation” refers to the 1911 “Sullivan Act” which required permits to carry a concealed weapon.

“Westchester” is most well known to nerds as the setting for Professor Charles Xavier’s mansion. However, it’s also the stomping grounds of Washington Irving and the setting for detectives Nero Wolfe and Trixie Belden.

“Irish Mist” is an Irish whisky blended with honey and aromatic herbs/spices.

Irish Wolfhounds are utterly massive slightly shaggy dogs. I mean, huge. They’re huge dogs. They also died out in the 1700s but were recreated about a hundred years later in a breeding program that used Deerhounds and Great Danes, which were believed to be descended from the original wolfdogs.