Warning!!!! This book is dark! Ridiculously dark! It contains abuse, humiliation, degradation, torture, imprisonment, possession, rape, incest, and much more. But to emphasize my point, these things are not the reason it is so dark. It is the way these subjects are broached, described, and carried out that makes it so disturbing.If the purpose of a novel is to allow the reader to experience things in life without having to have lived it, maybe Hart’s Hope is a magnificent piece. But, if the purpose of a novel is to entertain and amuse the audience, then this book may have failed spectacularly somewhere.This is not a horribly written book. It isn’t my favorite style as it is written more like a myth than a story. The narrator seems to have a detachment from the reality of the character’s lives and a tendency to refer to the story as its own entity which tend to take me out of the fantasy of it all. The vocabulary is vulgar. It is done on purpose, but be forewarned. The characters are an interesting blend. They are all fairly deep and complicated, but in the story most of them are being played out in a way that stereotypes them. In a strange way they are deep meaningful characters playing a shallow and meaningless role. But, we get to see a rich detail of the people in the story regardless of their importance to the plot or their stance to either side of the hero/villain line.Now we get to the tough part. The world that is created here is very deep and well thought out, but it is a world that is hard to be a part of. I had been told this is Orson Scott Card’s darkest work. I did not grasp what that truly meant. This is a book full of revolting acts and terrible situations caused by people who feel out of control of their world or morality. There is little to no uplifting message or moments in this book and that makes it very hard to take in. Instead it feels like a pessimists view of how there is no such thing as heroes and villains. We get to see the constant evolution of characters as they sway back and forth between good and evil while they justify everything through other people’s actions.This may all seem vague and confusing, but I try my best to not spoil plotlines of any sort in my reviews and I want to stick with it. This book is tough to describe from a technical sense because although there is a plotline with characters and conflict and action, those are not what makes this book. This book is horrible and wonderful, it is artistic and vulgar, it is painful and ridiculous, it is blinding and eye opening. But it is all these things because of how it treats the human experience as opposed to what actions the characters took.In the end it is a deep and incredibly dark book. Similar to the Great Gatsby it is more art than entertainment. It is a book suggested to poet and philosophers, but not for the average person. Definitely not for kids. As much as I didn’t like it while I was reading it, I think it may stick with me for a long time. And it may be better than I am giving it credit for, or it might be worse than I am claiming.
I am a fan of Card's Ender series, but I couldn't warm to this book, an early effort and his first try at fantasy. It's just too gruesome. It has a fairy tale feel in its rather distant, stilted omniscient point of view, written more as a series of vignettes then a sustained narrative. When we think "fairy tale" thanks to Disney we often think of childish, sweet and romantic stuff, where there's a nice bright line between villains and heroes. Of course a lot of the original material isn't that way--in the Grimm Brother's version of Cinderella the stepsisters cut off parts of their feet to try to make the glass slipper fit and in the end both they and the stepmother are punished by having their eyes pecked out by crows. Well, this isn't the Disney sort of fairy tale, that's for certain. Early on the graphic rape of a twelve-year-old girl as thousands look on is unsparingly depicted. No one is innocent, no one is good--or even completely evil here. One "hero" of this book is the rapist, and the victim's revenge is cruel beyond belief. I'm not saying by the way this isn't a book worth reading, that I can't understand why for some it might appeal, but this is just too brutal for me.
What do You think about Hart's Hope (2003)?
questa è la storia di Palicrovol, il barone che divenne re spodestando il suo crudele sovrano Nasilee. è la storia di Sleeve il mago, cui venne affidata non solo la figlia dell'odiato monarca, Asineth, ma anche la creatura che questa portava in grembo. è la storia di come le forze del male aiutarono Asineth a diventare una Maga più potente di Sleeve grazie al sacrificio della figlia. è la storia della bellissima Maga Asineth che volle strappare il trono a Palicrovol e torturarlo con incubi orrendi, strappandogli sposa e amici per trasformarli in oscene creature, distruggendo il culto del dolce Cervo per affondarlo nella crudeltà. è anche la storia di Orem, il figlio segreto di Palicrovol che si trovò a dividere il letto della Maga per concederle un figlio di dodici mesi, l'unico strumento per ripetere un sacrificio destinato a perpetuare il maleficio. ma soprattutto questa è la storia del Cervo e delle Dolci Sorelle, e del nuovo Dio giunto a prendere inaspettatamente il loro posto.(source: Anobii.com)
—Matteo Pellegrini
Normally, I'm a big fan of Orson Scott Card. I find him an intelligent, imaginative writer and excellent at creating real, multi-faceted characters. I also love his common themes of family, parenting, and religion. And while Hart's Hope contains all of these, it is so crude, vulgar, and downright foul in so many places that I can't imagine who would actually like reading this book. It was obviously written by a young Card--not only is it not as well constructed as his later novels, it simply reeks of immature male. I think just about every bodily function and fluid appear regularly in disgusting detail throughout the book. For me, these overwhelm and drown what could otherwise be a creative and profound story of fatherhood.
—Elly
What's all this fuss about "darkness"? Pay no mind, fantasy fans; there's nothing here worse than what you'll find in Goodkind or GRRM. There is, however, delicate prose that seems to hold great meaning. Reading the book almost feels like unrolling a tapestry (though that tapestry may hold centuries of torture, all bodily fluids, and immeasurable hate). Beauty and ugliness in all their forms are equally as common in Hart's Hope, strengthening the impact of each. Characters' motivations are explored in expert depth. I liked it very much.
—Tra-Kay
