The Story So Far

Kinnall Darival is writing his memoir, or maybe a confession to his crimes, as he sits in hiding, with the authorities weeks or maybe hours from capturing him. Kinnall has committed a blasphemy in his culture, a society dominated by a religious code called the Covenant, in that he has taken to be selfish, even using first-person singular pronouns. Brothan is a cutthroat planet, settled by a group of humans centuries ago, the humans in questions being basically Puritans IN SPAAAAAAAACE. Selfishness is considered taboo among Kinnall’s people, which includes revealing one’s inner emotions and turmoil to others, with the exception of one’s bondsiblings. Kinnall has (or had) a healthy relationship with Noim, his bondbrother, but he has a strong pseudo-incestuous crush on Halum, his bondsister, which is a problem since bondsiblings are forbidden from having romantic/sexual relations. This tension in their relationship lacks closure, on account of Halum being dead by the time Kinnall is telling us his story. There was another and arguably bigger problem for Kinnall, which is that when he was quite young his father, the septarch of Salla, died unexpectedly in a hunting accident, which made Stirron, Kinnall’s brother, next in line for the throne. Being presumably the person to succeed Stirron and thus the person most likely to be killed, and also not wanting the throne for himself that much, Kinnall does what any of us would do: he goes into exile.

Mind you that I’m recapping the first installment’s plot in chronological order, but Kinnall/Silverberg does not relate this shit to us as such; rather Kinnall’s memoir jumps all over the place chronologically, although the broad strokes of its trajectory are still linear. We know in advance that Halum dies and that Kinnall with meet a man from Earth named Schweiz who introduces him to a certain “potion” which alters his consciousness. Upon leaving his home province of Salla, Kinnall uses nepotism to nab a job as a day laborer, then ditching that for a sailing stint. (There is mention of some modern tech like cars and boats, but Borthan is more or less a medieval futurist landscape, like what Jack Vance was fond of writing about.) At this point there are ripples of discontent in Kinnall’s mind, against his culture’s staunch anti-individualism and the fact that he can’t bust a nut in the one girl he actually likes (a lot of Kinnall’s internal conflict boils down to sexual angst, which for some reason was the norm for Silverberg protagonists), but the dam is about the burst outright.

Enhancing Image

The second installment is primarily concerned with two relationships Kinnall forms at this point in his life, now in exile and living rather comfortably in Manneran. He quickly takes a liking to Loimel, who is either Halum’s cousin or half-sister (depending on which story you wanna belive), and is a dead ringer for her to the point where Kinnall confuses her for Halum at first. Kinnall makes no secret to us, and seems to all but say as such to Loimel herself, that he courts and then married Loimel simply because of the strong family resemblance, regardless of whatever personality Loimel herself has. This turns out to be just as well, since Loimel is shown (at least from Kinnall’s perspective) to be a totally cold-hearted and aloof woman. The result is that Kinnall knows every facet of Halum’s personality but is unable to have a physically intimate relationship with her, while Loimel is physically available but not emotionally. Is this irony? It’s hard to gauge how much of Loimel’s coldness toward Kinnall is true to how she is normally and how much it’s Kinnall projecting, since even when he’s having sex with Halum’s lookalike he’s unable to get to know Loimel as a person. Their marriage is a loveless one, although this is far from unusual in the culture of this world; on the contrary, that Kinnall and Loimel both start having affairs behind each other’s backs is considered business as usual for marriages here. I can’t tell if Silverberg is trying to make a comment on something, but it’s worth mentioning that his first marriage didn’t end until some years after A Time of Changes was published. Just as important, and perhaps unintended on Silverberg’s part, is that we don’t get to know either of the female main characters very well, despite how much Kinnall adores Halum. The men in A Time of Changes are at least knowable to some extent, but their female counterparts come off as slightly less human. I’m tempted to say this boils down to Silverberg (at least at this point in his career) just not being very good at writing women.

Then there’s Schweiz, a visitor from Earth who meets Kinnall through some bureaucratic maneuvering (reminder that Kinnall uses nepotism and charm to live comfortably like he does at this point in the story), who we heard about at the very beginning of the novel, but are only now being introduced to properly. Schweiz is described as being rather physically similar to how Silverberg was at this time, complete with the male pattern baldness, and in terms of personality he could also be said to overlap with Silverberg. This creates a bit of a problem with characterization, since Kinnall is already clearly a self-insert for Silverberg, the result being you have two Silverberg-esque characters in a room together, which sounds like a bad time if you’re not a neurotic compulsively heterosexual white man. We do get at least one good scene out of this, which is indeed the turning point in the novel. You see that Kinnall and Schweiz quickly befriend each other (maybe a little too quickly) and they soon reach that “let’s do drugs together” phase of every healthy relationship, be it platonic or romantic. (Oh what, you don’t try out mind-altering substances with your friends? For shame.) The nifty drug Schweiz brings to the table turns out to be a kind of empathy drug, in which the two participants swap perspectives and not only share each other’s personalities but their memories as well. In the span of what seems like only a few minutes you can get an impression of someone’s whole life story, and vice versa. This is so indicative of when the novel was written (the late ’60s and early ’70s, the age of the hippies) that it hurts. It’s funny because I always imagine Silverberg as one of those squares, like Jack Kerouac, who may dabble in heavy drinking and light drug use, but who seems more content to surround himself with people who are more daring and perhaps more interesting. If anything dates this novel, aside from its gender politics, it’s the optimistic view on hallucinogens.

Of course, I’m not one to talk, as I did weed regularly for a bit until a couple years ago. (Honestly the worst thing about weed, aside from the hunger and dry mouth, is that there’s a 50/50 chance you’ll feel as if you’re being sent off to meet your maker. You’ll either feel at peace with the world or you’ll be scared shitless of some impending doom which does not exist.) Needless to say this mind-altering drug breaks the dam open for Kinnall’s discontent with his society’s restrictions.

A Step Farther Out

I liked this installment more than the first by a good margin, mostly because the plot has settled in by this point and the reader is not being as barraged with backstory that hinders the pacing. I have to also admit I don’t mind Kinnall as much by now, although I would still hesitate to say I like him. It’s also a problem that Kinnall and Schweiz both feel like Silverberg’s self-inserts, and also that their friendship develops in seemingly record-time. When P. Schuyler Miller reviewed A Time of Changes he mentioned that the serial version was a “condensation” of the book, although I’ve not seen any other sources that say the book version is an expansion, and also comparing page counts between the magazine and book versions they seem to clock in at about the same length. Still, I’m cautiously optimistic about where Silverberg takes this story for its final installment, since I’m at least liking it more than most of the other novels of his from this era that I’ve read. We’ll just have to wait and see.

See you next time.