Words&Dirt

Summary:

Naomi Novik’s The Golden Enclaves is the third and final book in her Scholomance trilogy. Still reeling from the chaos of graduation day, Galadriel and her companions are tossed into a complex tangle of international conflicts threatening to disrupt the lives of magic users everywhere. Through providing aid to compromised enclaves across several continents, they learn more about how Galadriel and Orion’s unique abilities can either shore up or further destabilize the wizard community. Overflowing with vibrant creativity, intense emotions, and brilliant metaphors for real-world ethical problems, The Golden Enclaves is a stunning and powerful conclusion to one of the best stories I have ever read.

Key Concepts and Notes:

• The most obviously laudable aspect of the Scholomance series is its phenomenal worldbuilding. Novik clearly planned her magic system with incredible precision, and The Golden Enclaves contains a thrilling sequence of revelations that illuminate her vision like some dazzling literary stained glass window. This is especially true when it comes to the logical consequences of the “balancing principle” between mana and malia. In just three short novels, Novik achieves a degree of world coherence much higher than that of most other fantasy writers I have encountered. Combined with her conversational writing style, this makes the Scholomance not only a brilliant feat of imagination but also accessible to a wide range of readers.
• The fact that Novik’s worldbuilding is not my favorite feature of the Scholomance is a testament to its depth and quality. Personally, I think Novik’s best magic trick is that she wrote what is essentially a manifesto of contemporary ethical philosophy and successfully disguised it as a fantasy series starring angsty teenagers. I’m sure that many people will read these books and have no idea that the person who wrote them is obsessed with coordination problems, Thucydides traps, economic externalities, multipolar traps, and trolley problems. And this is a very good thing, because it means that the Scholomance can accomplish one of literature’s highest social goods, which is to introduce readers to new and valuable ideas without it feeling like hard work. And for those of us who recognize what Novik’s up to, it’s rewarding and tremendously fun to observe how artfully she weaves all these ethical concepts into a single narrative.
• At its core, I think Novik’s underlying message can be distilled into two statements. First, the true enemy of human beings and life everywhere is physics––specifically entropy. We unfortunately live in a harsh and indifferent universe where physical systems break down by default, and it takes a lot of luck, time, energy, and organization to scrape even a basic ecosystem together, let alone one that can support the existence and flourishing of intelligent life. Human well-being is always threatened by entropy’s onslaught, so the invention of less costly and more durable ways to sustain ourselves should be our highest collective priority. Second, very bad things tend to happen when we fight entropy by creating systems that require inequality, social injustice, and zero-sum games to function “properly.” Humanity’s great challenge is to envision and engineer better ways of collectively fighting entropy without disenfranchising large groups of people who lose out on the benefits enjoyed by a privileged few. I’m just cynical enough to question whether this goal is even possible, but I am also very confident that it’s worth believing in and fighting for.
• The Golden Enclaves explores some new emotional and psychological territory compared to the previous two books, including how people cope with grief and trauma, struggle with the desire for revenge, and discover the capacity for forgiveness. Much of this plays out in Galadriel’s interactions with her Mum and extended family.
• I’m a bit embarrassed that I didn’t notice this until the third book, but Orion is an apt representation of what Warren Farrell calls “heroic intelligence.” Heroic intelligence is what we get when we tell boys and men that their personal value derives solely from their ability to sacrifice themselves to protect other people. Heroic intelligence is not inherently damaging, but it tends to be “socialization for a short life” when not balanced out by “health intelligence,” including self-love and self-care (The Boy Crisis, 43). I found this to be a useful lens through which to view Orion’s character arc.
• I consider sex scenes extremely difficult to write well––even for talented writers––so I have to give props to Novik for writing a few of the best sex scenes that I have read. These scenes contain just the right combination of emotional impact and genuine eroticism, and are resolutely sex-positive in their depiction of how carnal connection with others can serve us well in stressful moments.
• Finally, I want to say that, for whatever set of reasons, these books affected me in a very deep way. Novik’s story and characters spoke directly and forcefully to the best parts of me, both as an emotional, empathic being and also as an intellectual problem-solver. I think this series––and especially The Golden Enclaves––represents a distinctive peak on humanity’s contemporary fictional landscape.

Favorite Quotes:

Mum doesn’t have a passport or a mobile either. She’d have told me to just set off into the world and trust it to get me where I’m supposed to be. That always works for her, but the world has given me the strong impression that it thinks I’m supposed to be in a dark fortress on top of a mountain somewhere, wreathed with storms and lightning cracking down as I laugh maniacally, so I didn’t really trust that approach myself. (134)

I’d needed most of last year to wrap my head around the idea that anyone had been willing to be my ally at all, my ally and my friend, and not just someone using me at arm’s length, warily. I’d never thought about what it would be like having that relationship after getting out. And this was what it was like: I was welcome. (183)

Stay here, please stay, be our shelter, be our home, be loved. (291)

As long as I can remember––I’ve had the power to do the most monstrous things I could imagine. And all I’ve ever wanted, all my life, is for someone to tell me––that I was in the clear. That I’d never do something so horrible I couldn’t walk away from it. But there’s no one. There’s no one who can hand you a badge and make you all right. The only way to be all right is to keep on being all right, as best you can. (297)

To speak the future is to shape the future. (328)

You got us out for good, and now they’re starting a war over the bones. There’s a better way. We know there’s a better way. And you’re trying to find it. We’ll all come. (359)

I couldn’t do the work I wanted myself, but I could make room for the work in the world. (399)

Rating: 10/10