Hello friends! Welcome to our discussion of Sabriel by Garth Nix. This discussion is part of our 2024 Summer Book Exchange. This year the theme for the summer book exchange was a favorite book from middle school. Jacilyn chose this book as her summer read!
Content Warning!!! This book contains situations and subjects related to: blood, death, death of a parent, gore, and murder.
Spoiler Warning!!! This post is full of spoilers for Sabriel by Garth Nix.
Discussion:
Jac: Hello friends and welcome to our discussion of Sabriel, book one of the Old Kingdom Trilogy by Garth Nix. The memories I have of this series are somewhat limited - I know I read at least the first few books a couple of times over my childhood, and I remembered the basics of the story, but that was about it. While re-reading it this time around, it was obvious why it appealed to me. I love the lore, the magic system, the necromancy element - and I think that as a kid, I appreciated that it was written with a fairly mature tone. I really enjoyed this reread, and I may actually continue on and finish the series.
Michaela: This book was full of Jacilyn themed fantasy elements, and I now see her origin story for the things she loves in fantasy books! She loves a good wall separating society from the “dangerous” older wilds or civilization, I present From Blood and Ash and Game of Thrones as some of Jac’s favorites involving such themes. Also the mixed magic with technological advances, that is very Jac coded as well.
I thought the whole thing was really cool. The magic system is interesting and the lore feels really deep even though we don’t get all of it, but that’s to be expected since it's a series. It definitely felt like an epic fantasy but written in a way that felt easier to digest than others in the genre. I honestly forgot how old the main character was because she’s written so maturely. There are moments when that more young adult mentality comes out, usually involving the love interest, but it wasn’t that overwhelming YA narration that I’ve found I no longer like.
Jac: One of my favorite parts of the book was how the technological advancements were disrupted by the magic. Plus, the fact that there are two separate forms of magic, the Charter and Free Magic. We don’t get a ton of information on Free Magic in this book, so I couldn’t even begin to tell you how it’s different from the Charter outside of the obvious - the symbols and the sounds. I remember being fascinated by the bells when I was younger, and I still am at this age. As I read through, I kept flipping back to the part where Sabriel explains the bells and their meanings. The sound aspect being so important to this magic is not something I think I’ve come across in many other books, if any.
The romance aspect of this book did leave me wanting a bit more this time around. Sabriel and Touchstone obviously experience a lot together and that will have people growing closer, but when they professed their love for each other I felt like we didn’t get to see enough of their relationship developing. That’s probably an assessment that I’ve picked up as an adult fan of romance novels (honestly, my childhood self would be aghast at the thought!), so I suspect I would probably feel that way about the romance in a lot of books in this age category.
I am a sucker for a sassy side character, and Mogget delivers. The fact that he is a cat only makes it better. I don’t remember if we get more information about his story in the rest of the series, but I hope we do because I still have so many questions left! Why exactly was he created? What is he? Did he truly care about the Abhorsens he served over time? So many questions, not nearly enough answers.
Michaela: I thought the romance was actually done really well. For being the first book in a series and also being focused on a life and death mission the entire time, I thought the amount of romance was good. Especially considering Sabriel’s lack of romantic history, and the age range it's written for, I think having too much more romance in this first book would have been too much. I know young me would have eaten UP those small moments we got in this book. Even in adult fantasy books, I think the romantic elements can get to be too much especially when there’s so much else going on.
I am also a sucker for sassy side characters. I live for Mogget, I would die for Mogget. He is my favorite character. I have only questions for that cat, I need to know everything about his backstory. I will say I am confused on the bound form vs unbound form and how he wants to kill Sabriel in one vs the other. Like does he become a completely different being when unbound or does his other forms instincts take over? That was a bit confusing for me. There were some lore and magic things I felt confused about as well, but in a way that makes me want to keep reading rather than being frustrated. I thought the story kept moving at a really good pace so that I didn’t get too hung up on the things I was confused about.
I love the aesthetic of the bells and music with the magic Sabriel does. Sabriel says at one point that necromancers have to be adept at whistling and singing as a backup to their bells, and that’s so freaking cool. I love it so much, it’s such a fascinating element to the magic system for me.
Let me tell ya I was terrified Abhorsen or Touchstone were going to betray Sabriel. I am clearly traumatized by some other fantasy stories because I could feel my heart falter a couple times. When Sabriel gave Abhorsen the bell for him to buy some time….I had to stop for a second to prepare myself, but obviously that’s not how it played out. I think the father in Golden Compass is one of the people to blame for that fear of betrayal. I also was really unsure if I was meant to trust Touchstone or not, but I loved his backstory and who he actually was. I’d love to see where all that goes.
While reading this book I found so many elements of this story that I can find in other stories I like reading now. It had that “old kingdom” separation like in Game of Thrones. The technology mixed with magic had a His Dark Materials feel. The whole fantasy journey to save a loved one but also to save the world is one of my favorite plots for the genre. I think as a young reader I would have struggled with this book because there was a lot to remember which I was not good at at the time, but at the same time I think it’s a really good book to start getting into fantasy.
Jac: One thing I definitely didn’t remember was the cliffhanger at the end of the book. I figured Sabriel wouldn’t die fully, but I don’t remember the epilogue packing such a punch. I know the rest of the books have different protagonists than this one, and I don’t really remember how much more insight we get into Touchstone and Sabriel.
This is such a specific piece of the book, but I love the paperwings! The imagery of them, basically giant bespelled paper airplanes controlled by whistled charter magic!? Incredible. When the original paperwing went down, I felt some actual grief at the loss of it, much like Sabriel did. Michaela mentioned The Golden Compass above, and this book actually gives me some of those same feelings - reactions to the creativity, the lore and magic systems that were so different than anything I’d read before, that combined technology and magic. And, come to think of it, I happened upon both series at about the same time!
Well friends, that is the conclusion of our discussion of Sabriel and the conclusion of our summer book exchange! We’ll see you next time.
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