The Time of Contempt

The Time of Contempt, the fourth volume of The Witcher saga, shows the best and worst of its author, Andrzej Sapkowski: on the one hand, there is a story full of intriguing characters and complex social relations; on the other, there is the usual repetition of ideas and severe problems in the structure of the book.

The story begins shortly after the events of Blood of Elves, with Princess Cirilla being taken by Yennefer to a witchcraft school while Geralt tries to discover the identity and intentions of the girl’s pursuers.

Ciri remains the protagonist, and her future is the big question in the story: will her good intentions prevail in the end or will the curse attached to her family dictate her emotions and actions, leading her to a path of war? Will she be able to choose which road to take or her destination is already sealed by fate?

The book’s main theme is the same one of Sword of Destiny. Consequently, the fatalism of that work is present here as well, imbuing the atmosphere with pessimism: the reader is led to question whether Ciri has the capacity to confront something that even Geralt couldn’t conquer.

Sapkowski works well with this atmosphere, reinforcing it at every turn with foreboding signs. The prophecies she utters, which always indicate someone’s death, come true exactly as she described. Not only that, but the very concept of death is also constantly related to the girl. The knight that pursues her, for example, is defined by his black helmet shaped like a bird of prey. This allusion to vultures is even more pertinent when one notices that Ciri seems to be frequently drawn to situations that end with various corpses scattered across the floor. In one scene, Sapkowski – never subtle – even describes ghostly knights following the girl during a storm.

Despite that, Ciri is a witcher who refuses to kill other human beings even when her own life is at stake. She’s a curious and energetic child whose personality contrasts with the menacing aura that surrounds her. She makes pranks all the time, is childish to the point of naming a unicorn “little horse,” believes she gives sharp answers to her instructors (even though some are just innocent), and aspires to just stay close to those she loves.

The princess, however, is not unaware of the world’s cruelty: her trauma, formed when she watched her kingdom being invaded, still haunts her, influencing her decisions. If she becomes an interesting character it’s precisely because of the discrepancy between her joyful personality and the tragic aura that surrounds her.

This contrast is also present in the tone of the narrative, which varies between extremes, sometimes in the same chapter, surprising the reader. The Time of Contempt has scenes taken from young adult literature, such as Ciri’s adventures in a city, which result in a clash with a monster; some satirical comedy, with the long gathering of wizards that looks like a parody of the political intrigue of books such as A Game of Thrones; and scenes filled with gore, such as the descriptions surrounding a certain group of rebels. At one point the reader is reading very cliché dialogues and, at another, philosophical discussions.

It’s a book that, at one point, contains comic passages built on the absurd:

“But I can’t imagine your wily old fox is capable of surprising me. Not after what I’ve been through here. I’ve been mauled by spies and jumped by endangered reptiles and ermines. I’ve been fed non-existent caviar. Nymphomaniacs with no interest in men have questioned my manhood. I’ve been threatened with rape on a hedgehog, menaced by the prospect of pregnancy, and even of an orgasm, but one without any of the ritual movements.”

And, at another, passages with graphic descriptions of violence:

“In the valley of the River Velda, the caravan of manhunters was routed and massacred by a gang of Nilfgaardian marauders. All the manhunters and male captives were killed. Only the girls were spared. The girls didn’t know why they had been spared. Their ignorance did not last long. Mistle was the only one to survive. She was pulled out of the ditch where she had been thrown naked, covered in bruises, filth, mud and congealed blood, by Asse, the son of the village blacksmith, who had been hunting the Nilfgaardians for three days, insane with the desire for revenge for what the marauders had done to his father, mother and sisters, which he’d had to watch, hidden in a hemp field.”

Sapkowski, as in previous books, moves elegantly between these passages, not making the tone changes feel too sudden, always putting comic bits – especially irony – in the more heavy scenes, and a bit of violence in lighter scenes (a puppy, for example, is torn apart by the creature that Ciri faces in the city). Meanwhile, the more strong moments of violence are frequently preceded by a gradual increase in tension. The result is that the book becomes a bit unpredictable and fascinating.

Nevertheless, The Time of Contempt resembles almost nothing the book that began the series, The Last Wish. The first volume of The Witcher series is structured almost like an unpretentious collection of short stories, which in turn drew inspiration from classic fairy tales such as Snow White and Beauty and the Beast, focusing only on the moral dilemmas of the protagonist Geralt. Here, the worldbuilding is already acquiring epic proportions, its original inspirations have been abandoned, and even the protagonism has moved from Geralt to Ciri.

The issue of neutrality so defended by Geralt, but criticized by others in the first book, for example, gets only a brief mention in The Time of Contempt, when one of the characters teases the witcher, warning him that remaining neutral on certain political debates usually helps the oppressor: a sorcerer asks Geralt about his position on feminism – whether women should remain submissive or fight to secure equality – just for the fun of watching the witcher realize what his usual response would mean.

Sapkowski makes this book the most complex so far in the series when it’s dealing with social issues. The best example is how the rebel group of elves and dwarves, called Scoia’tael, is portrayed. It would be simple for the author to frame the issue as a simple problem of racism (all inhumans of this world even have to pay additional taxes for being who they are) and to describe the Scoia’tael in a one-dimensional fashion. But Sapkowski goes a step further, placing the emperor of Nilfgaard – who plans to expand his territories to Geralt’s continent – fostering a culture of hatred in this rebel group, which distorts their primary goals and makes them commit and defend the same atrocities they have suffered. The Scoia’tael no longer fight for their rights, but are manipulated and guided by the emperor to cause political instability in the region: they have become a tool to help someone seize power.

The author, however, shows many difficulties regarding exposition, especially now that Geralt’s world has expanded and become more complex. The explanations offered to the reader are lengthy and didactic, with characters recounting events for several pages. There is always some reason for them to discuss this information, but the delivery is far from elegant.  Besides that, the meaning of the title continues to be repeatedly explained by the characters and the narrator – “time of contempt” appears nine times throughout the story – which is always tiresome.

Moreover, as in the previous book, the narrative structure here is practically a mess, with the story reaching its climax at the middle point and then having an epilogue so huge that it basically functions as the beginning of a new story. The third book, Blood of Elves, ends without a climax, and that climax is the one that happens in the middle of The Time of Contempt. The scene itself is exciting and would have worked perfectly at the end of that book, but positioned halfway through The Time of Contempt it obviously feels out of place. Not only that but, after this climax, the novel continues for nearly two hundred pages, giving the impression of starting a new story with new characters and settings.

The narrative in The Time of Contempt is more ambitious than ever, but that doesn’t mean it has become better: overbearing exposition and a problematic structure still hinder an otherwise great story.

August 26, 2019.

Review originally published in Portuguese on May 18, 2015.