Many moons ago, I really enjoyed reading Stephen Donaldson’s ‘The chronicles of Thomas Covenant’. It also appears to be built around this universal story; The grail theme with the psychological symbolism of ‘the Land’. In the books, ‘the land’ very clearly parallels Covenant’s own psyche: he is filled with self-hatred, manifested in the Land as the Despiser; he is ravaged by a corrupting disease that eats away at him. Covenant is forced to decide whether the fundamental health and beauty of the Land is worth struggling to preserve, whether it is “real” or not, mirroring the choice he must make in his own life.