Book Summary — The Legend of Drizzt
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The past two months I got stuck reading The Legend of Drizzt series and didn’t realise it was a 36 (!) book series! I devoured 13 of the books but had to call it quits to not go down the vortex for the rest of the year.
The reason I loved it so much is that it (1) describes a completely new world — the Underdark and (2) it hinges on a protagonist with unshakeable principles and character.
1 paragraph summary:
The Legend of Drizzt, follows the story of a dark elf who is born in the Underdark. It paints a world of dark elves living in pitch blackness and constant fear of betrayal and death. The books build on Drizzt’s journey throughout the world looking for purpose and a home. It’s a gripping story with character development, action and strong principles.
1) Homeland
2) Exile
3) Sojourn
4) Crystal Shard
The meekest of animals will fight bravely when it is backed against a wall, for it has nothing left to lose. A poor man is more deadly than a rich man because he puts less value on his own life. And a man stranded homeless on the frozen steppes with the first winds of winter already beginning to blow is a formidable enemy indeed!
5) Streams of Silver
6) Halfling’s Gem
Luck is simply the advantage a true warrior gains in executing the correct course of action.
Nowhere might you learn more than in a land unlike your own.
Are you more trapped by the way the world sees ye or by the way ye see the world seein’ ye?
7) Legacy
8) Starless Night
I rarely pray. I prefer to speak to my goddess through my daily actions, and through my honest emotions. I need not gloss over what has occurred with petty words, twisting them to show myself most favorably. If Mielikki is with me, then she knows the truth, knows how I act and how I feel.
Courageous people do not surrender hope.
9) Siege of Darkness
To any intelligent being, there is no emotion more important than hope. Individually or collectively, we must hope that the future will be better than the past, that our offspring, and theirs after them, will be a bit closer tho an ideal society, whatever our perception of that might be.
10) Passage of Dawn
I walk the road with friends, and so I have my home.
We are the center. In each of our minds — some may call it arrogance, or selfishness — we are the center, and all the world moves about us, and for us, and because of us. This is the paradox of community, the one and the whole, the desires of the one often in direct conflict with the needs of the whole. Who among us has not wondered if all the world is no more than a personal dream?
For what is a rational being if not a choice? And there can be no evil, nor any good, without intent.
That was the danger of nostalgia, Drizzt realised. One often remembered the good of the past while forgetting the troubles.
11) Silent Blade
What manner of joy might we find in our lives if we cannot understand the joys and pains of those around us, if we cannot share in a greater community?
Without purpose, we will find no satisfaction. Without satisfaction, he will find no contentment, and without contentment, he will find no joy.
—
For respect is the guiding principle of friendship, the lighthouse beacon that directs the course of any true friendship. And respect demands trust.
12) Spine of the World
First, they blur the past, erasing memories pleasant and unpleasant, and second, they eliminate any thoughts of the future. Intoxicants lock the imbiber in the present, the here and now, without regard for the future, without consideration of the past.
That is the trap, a defeatist perspective that allows for attempted satiation of physical pleasures wantonly, recklessly. An intoxicated person will attempt even foolhardy dares because that inner guidance, even to the point of survival instinct itself, can be so impaired.
That is the trap, the defeatist perspective, that I cannot tolerate.
13) Sea of Swords
We are all dying, every moment that passes of every day. That is the inescapable truth of this existence. It is a truth that can paralyse us with fear, or one that can energise us with impatience, with the desire to explore and experience, with the hope — nay, the iron will! — to find a memory in every action.
“If only I could go back to that age, knowing what I now know!” Those words amuse me profoundly, for in truth, the lament should be, “If only I could reclaim the lust and the joy I knew then!”
We need to be reminded sometimes that a sunrise lasts but a few minutes. But its beauty can burn in our hearts eternally.
Hardship begets achievement, achievement begets joy — true joy, and the sense of accomplishment that defines who we are as thinking beings.
The path to joy is paved in a sense of confidence and self-worth, a feeling that we have made the world a little bit better, perhaps, or that we fought on for our beliefs despite adversity.
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