I did not like Thomas Covenant. He goes on and on, endlessly kvetching about his guilt. In one place, he feels guilt because of something another character did. Also in the Thomas Covenant books, Donaldson wants to show off his vocabulary. He uses "coign" where any other person would have "balcony". He has one character say to Covenant that he is uxorious; a claim that is meretricious. Indeed, the claim is completely mendacious (for one thing, the character is unmarried) -- but what can one expect from a man who is wearing a carcanet?
In another of Donaldson's books, The Real Story, the main character, Thermopyle, is not a flawed hero, or even really an antihero. He is an unmitigated bastard with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is a thief, a murderer and a rapist. He destroyed the one friend he ever had, for no apparent reason. What makes things worse is that Thermopyle gets into trouble, and the reader is obviously expected to feel sorry for him. Why should we feel the slightest sympathy for a wholly unsympathetic character? Morn, a woman that Thermopyle has repeatedly beaten and raped, does feel sorry for him, leading me to believe that Donaldson has never met any rape victims. I have known some, and not a one of them would feel the slightest sympathy for the men who raped them under any circumstances.
In the same book, I had a serious problem with Morn's gap sickness.
My brother used to be a submariner in the Navy. On the second or third day of submarine school, the trainees would be taken out for a short trip on a submarine. Invariably, one or two of the trainees would show symptoms of claustrophobia. These trainees would then be sent elsewhere as unsuited for submarine duties for medical reasons. This was determined at the start of training, not -- as in Morn's case -- after completion.
One would expect that the trainees such as Morn would be sent out into the Gap at the beginning of their training, under controlled conditions, and those who showed gap sickness would be dealt with. Donaldson has the Space Patrol (or whatever it's called) saying "Some of our people may have serious psychological problems with the Gap, but let's not bother testing for it."
I wonder why Donaldson seems to prefer completely unsympathetic protagonists.
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