The Book That Wouldn't Burn

While the library contains countless volumes of fiction, they are disproportionately ignored in favor of nonfiction texts in their translation and spread. Characters like Arpix believe that this quirk of the library exists because fiction, by virtue of not being “fact,” inherently has less value. However, the real reason is that the king and his supporters wanted to suppress dissenting ideas within the kingdom. When talking to Arpix about the subject, Livira asserts, “A story is new. It can capture something as large as the spirit of the age or as small as the emotion of a man watching the last leaf fall from a tree, or sometimes both, and make one a reflection of the other” (230). Thus, Mark Lawrence firmly establishes the philosophy that fiction represents freedom for those reading and writing it and can be used to explore complex, imaginative, or outright subversive ideas that challenge the status quo.

Fiction also holds a different kind of truth than nonfiction, and Lawrence explores this idea through Livira’s relationship with literature and storytelling. One of Livira’s main traits is her near-photographic memory, which allows her to retain and access information that others would forget. However, as even she notes, “Her memory was essentially infallible as far as facts were concerned, but emotion had a tendency to dry like ink and cease to glisten” (301).