I don't read horror novels, but it's not because I don't like a good scare. I just don't like gore. I really dislike plot complications that ooze.
So it's somewhat surprising that not only did I read Garth Nix's Sabriel, I thought it brilliant. Now, two months after my first read, I can still recall the chills I got, and the nightmares this creepy little book inspired.
Abhorsen is a necromancer, a magician who understands (at least partially) what makes the dead die, and how to keep them dead. In the world of the Old Kingdom, making sure the dead stay that way is a full-time job, and one which has earned Abhorsen many powerful enemies--including Kerrigor.
Because of the strength of his enemies, Abhorsen sends his only child, Sabriel, to the neighboring country of Ancelstierre. There, the magics of the Old Kingdom rarely intrude, and Sabriel becomes a student at Wyverly, where she has a chance to grow into normal adulthood. Well, relatively normal, at any rate. As the book opens, we see that Sabriel has inherited Abhorsen's ability to communicate with the dead, and she revives a pet rabbit that had been run over moments before, thus breaking her promise to her father that she would never restore the dead to life.
Sabriel's life becomes more complicated when she receives a messenger from her father, telling her that he has been entrapped in the waters of death by some malignant force. The messenger brings, also, Abhorsen's tools of necromancy: a sword, a bandolier with seven pouches, and seven magical bells, each with its own role in dealings with the dead.
As she rushes to her father's aid, deep in the Old Kingdom, Sabriel discovers that the borders between Ancelstierre and the Old Kingdom are encroached upon by the dead. The magic that is supposed to keep the dead from Ancelstierre is weakening, and Abhorsen's disappearance is the cause. Or, more correctly, the resurrection of the powerful Kerrigor, whose banishment to the world of the dead was Abhorsen's doing, is the cause.
So her quest to find her father has more than just personal meaning. On it could depend the lives of the citizens of Ancelstierre, as well as those of the Old Kingdom.
This all sounds like a fairly typical high fantasy plot, and it is. Sabriel is young, and basically untried. She is a stranger to the Old Kingdom, even if that is her homeland, and she is set a nearly impossible task. But this is no standard fantasy character. Sabriel is young, innocent, strong, intelligent, and aware. Her journey into the Old Kingdom isn't made as a lark, or with any misconception about her chances for survival, but she isn't a noble, self-sacrificing soul with no flaws.
Other characters Sabriel encounters are equally complex, from the catlike spirit Mogget, whose true nature is a mystery, and who is bound as a servant to Sabriel's family, to the enchanted Touchstone, whom Sabriel rescues from imprisonment, to Abhorsen himself and the terrifying Kerrigor. The characters are flawed, human (even the non-human ones), and compelling.
But it is the complexity of the world, with its rules about magic and death, the uncertainty of even that which we assume is the most certain thing in the world, that makes Sabriel extremely powerful. The dead who return to the Old Kingdom are malevolent, powerful, and fearless. What could they fear, after all? They take the forms of giant, shuffling demons, of human corpses, of insidious parasites. They are zombies and worse than zombies, killers and vampiric blood-suckers, bringers of cold, of lethargy, of fear, of pain. And they are everywhere.
Everywhere.
In one scene, Sabriel is trapped on a island while the dead creatures (who cannot cross running water) build a bridge from the mainland. She can see them building it, can see that even when one of the creatures falls into the water, there are two to take its place, and can see that Kerrigor has simply raided the local graveyard for helpers.
Does Sabriel escape? I'm not telling. But even if she does, it isn't before I was so scared that I screamed when a cat jumped onto the bed.
I cared passionately about Sabriel, all the more because her circumstances are so dire, her options so few. This is not a happy book (what book about death is?), though it has its moments of humor and even joy. It is compelling and vivid, and I read it despite the tension it caused me.
Two months later, as I write this review, the book is lying on my desk and I feel the urge to read it again. What greater praise can I possibly give?
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