As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I’m reading the Old Kingdom Chronicles, a series by Garth Nix. The series isn’t new by any means, but it’s new to me, and I’m having a lot of feelings about it. We need to talk about Sabriel, the first book in the series.

Full confession: I started Sabriel several times before actually finishing it. I loved the aesthetics of the book, but the beginning felt slow and plodding. It takes about a third of the novel for things to even properly begin. That being said, after I got through that first part, I couldn’t put the book down. I’m not sure how to even describe Sabriel, or my experience with it. The only way I can think to talk about it, today, is in terms of my personal experience.

Today is the year anniversary of my mom’s death. I wasn’t expecting it, and it hit me out of nowhere. She was here, then she wasn’t. There were a lot of details about her health that she never told me, and things were worse than they seemed. I only found out after she was gone. Because of Covid, I couldn’t be with her. Not only was I several states away, but a pandemic was raging. Hospitals wouldn’t allow visitors, and I felt helpless. My mom and I never had a perfect relationship, and she could often be distant, but I loved her. Sabriel made me confront some of those feelings I have about my mom, and I couldn’t help but read it in light of my own experience.

Sabriel knows her dad, but she also doesn’t. For one thing, she doesn’t know that Abhorsen isn’t his name, it’s a title. There are so many details Sabriel’s father doesn’t tell her because he thinks he has time, but none of that matters when Sabriel realizes that her father has crossed over into Death and needs her help. She drops everything to go to him, and has a perilous adventure in the process.

Light spoilers for Sabriel to follow

Please look at beautiful baby Mogget on Sabriel’s shoulder.

On the way to find her father’s body, which Sabriel needs in order to bring him back to Life, Sabriel discovers things she never knew about her world and her family. She reflects on her relationship with her dad. She only saw him twice a year, though they visited often through a sort of magical telephone. In a lot of ways, I felt the same about my mom. There were a lot of things she didn’t want to talk about, or maybe I didn’t ask the right questions. Some parts of her life story feel like more myth than truth, something that’s gotten distorted over time through a game of generational telephone.

When Sabriel finds her father, she doesn’t get to spend much time with him. He returns to Life for 100 heartbeats in order to help his daughter and her friends escape from a terrible situation. Sabriel does get to say goodbye, though, in a heartfelt embrace on the other side of Death. She gets to tell her father she cares for him. He tells her, “Everyone and everything has a time to die.” Including him, even if Sabriel isn’t ready for him to go.

Sabriel is about death, but it’s also about the power to keep living even in the face of terrible circumstances and overwhelming odds. I never got to say goodbye to my mom, and I never will, but reading Sabriel as I neared the anniversary of her death gave me a weird sort of comfort. It’s hard to explain, but it made me feel like maybe death isn’t as scary as people make it out to be. It’s just a fact. Everyone lives, and everyone dies, and we don’t get to choose when either of those things happen.

I’m not over my mom’s death by any means, and I’m not really sure if grief is something you get over. Maybe it just evolves into different forms. There are days where I’ll be working, then suddenly remember something about her and start crying. There are days I don’t think about her at all, imagining that she’s off in Atlanta and I’ll see her at Christmas. Sometimes I think I’ll call her to tell her about a cool movie I saw, then remember that she’s not around to talk to me. Death isn’t final in Sabriel’s world, but it is in mine. And that hurts.

Unrelated to my personal experience, there are a lot of things in Sabriel I enjoyed from a literary/reader point of view. The magic system in Sabriel is amazing, though I’m not sure I fully understand it yet. The book has a little of everything, mysterious old magic no one gets, runic magic (Charter Magic), and necromantic magic performed with a bandolier of bells. All of these traditions combine to create a rich world. It feels like Sabriel’s home has history, though Nix doesn’t feel the need to dump it all on readers in the first book. Good fantasy novels have to be set in interesting worlds.

Also, Mogget is a beautiful baby angel kitten and he deserves good things.

I’m excited to read the next installment of Nix’s series. Hopefully I’ll have something more coherent for everyone then!