Eldest: A reveiw
Fantasy is my thing. I am very "into" all things fantastical- dragons, magic, elves, etc, etc. So, when I saw the blue dragon on the front cover of the book "Eragon," I immeadiately bought it, praying that maybe, MAYBE, this fantasy wouldn't be another Lord of the Rings ripoff.
I was semi-dissapointed, but also treated.
In "Eldest", the second book of the Inheritence trilogy, (of which "Eragon" was the first) Paolini takes old fantasy cliché's (such as elves) and makes them his own, though he does borrow a lot. The elves you find within these pages are not Tolkien's elves- they are different, wilder, more exotic and less perfect. The cultures are different, the Urgals- who many complained to be too close to orcs in the first book- are found to be actual sentient beings one can form an allaiance with, the dwarves do not have an unexplained lack of women, and there are quite a few creative, un-thought-of-before creatures and things in this story that kept my imagination flowing quite happily. Over all, this book was a good exercise of the imagination and rather creative.
At least, in the details. In the bigger things, not so much.
The plot, I find, is eerily similar to the Star Wars trilogy, in a different setting and with Dragon Riders as an equivalent to the Jedi. There is an empire, good times before the empire when the jedi dragon riders kept peace until two of their own, Anakin Morzan, and Palaptine Galbatorix, betrays them and sets up an Empire, erradicating the rest of the jedi dragon riders. But then a young farmboy, Luke Eragon, discovers two droids a dragon egg that leads him to become a jedi dragon rider, and find out that [ELDEST SPOILER!] Darth Vader Morzan is his father.
In the emotions level, I don't think Paolini quite cuts it. When someone dies, or is thought to have died, the main character forgets about them in a page or two, occasionally coming back to the character's mourning but never truely expressing how it feels to lose someone, caputring the mixture of confusion, loneliness, doubt, anger and fear. In fact, there was only one character I could find myself even remotely connecting to emotionally: Roran, cousin of Eragon and a semi-main character.
In the arena of Roran, Paolini was able to express very well how much it wounded his each time he killed somone: it is like a base beat to his story, the shock at extinguishing another's life, at seeing those horror stuck eyes. Now I have killed eight. That phrase (numbers growing throught the tale, of course) is like the base of Roran's story, beating out a steady rythmn and making him altogether human and relateable. So often in the fantasy genre people are rather "whatever" about killing another person, a feeling that is probably unlikely to eminate from any of us, had we just killed someone. It is a good message, and altogether commendable.
Roran was also beleivable in his greif at losing Katrina, his lover and one of those captured by the empire. Horrified and unable to protect her, she is always, always present in his mind, much like somone in at least their first year after losing a loved one, unlike Eragon who forgets his best friend Murtagh's deaths all too quickly.
With the other characters, however, oftentimes I felt like banging my head on the wall at Paolini's odd notions of what love and mourning were- rather fake, though you could see glimmers of real people beneath. I think that if Master Paolini worked on character development more, refined himself in that area, he would certainly be producing many characters as good as or better than Roran. Oftentimes these characters were confusing in their choices, or much too out of canon, or altogether without motives, such as Murtagh's turn to serving the bad guys. Why? It is not adequately explained, and the character does not follow his own canon in his actions once he is bound to the bad guys. (he was forced to swear to them in an irrevocable manner) The impression one would get of Murtagh in the first book is that he would nobly defend the weak, but here he is, refusing to let Eragon kill him so that the world might be saved, because his own life is "more important than any strangers'"?! Tis confusing, folks.
Though this book is marketed to children it has some rather disturbing content that leads me to suggest it to no one under thirteen. My main reason behind this is because of the uneeded nudity and description of an elf's gentitals, (though no one has/talks about sex), along with rather violent descriptions of battle which could be frightening to some.There are also very confusing religions and beleifs that conflict with much of the christian lifestyle. If you are a parent, I humbly suggest that you read the book before your child and decide for yourself if they are mature enough and planted firmly enough in their faith to read this book. Perhaps you could read it aloud with them, and have discussions after a reading session about the good things that characters did in what you just read, and the bad stuff. Have them tell you what they thought was good/bad, and ask them why they thought so. Turn it into a learning experience.
In conclusion, if you don't mind this tale being kinda anti-climatic, and not emotionally drawing except in one corner, then you will probably enjoy this tale, for it's messages are often strong, the writing fair and the world interesting. It is, simply, the sort of tale that you'd read one friday night because you were bored; enjoyable, but certainly nothing to be all thrilled about.
Might I suggest the Lord of the Rings? Or Narnia?
:)
I was semi-dissapointed, but also treated.
In "Eldest", the second book of the Inheritence trilogy, (of which "Eragon" was the first) Paolini takes old fantasy cliché's (such as elves) and makes them his own, though he does borrow a lot. The elves you find within these pages are not Tolkien's elves- they are different, wilder, more exotic and less perfect. The cultures are different, the Urgals- who many complained to be too close to orcs in the first book- are found to be actual sentient beings one can form an allaiance with, the dwarves do not have an unexplained lack of women, and there are quite a few creative, un-thought-of-before creatures and things in this story that kept my imagination flowing quite happily. Over all, this book was a good exercise of the imagination and rather creative.
At least, in the details. In the bigger things, not so much.
The plot, I find, is eerily similar to the Star Wars trilogy, in a different setting and with Dragon Riders as an equivalent to the Jedi. There is an empire, good times before the empire when the jedi dragon riders kept peace until two of their own, Anakin Morzan, and Palaptine Galbatorix, betrays them and sets up an Empire, erradicating the rest of the jedi dragon riders. But then a young farmboy, Luke Eragon, discovers two droids a dragon egg that leads him to become a jedi dragon rider, and find out that [ELDEST SPOILER!] Darth Vader Morzan is his father.
In the emotions level, I don't think Paolini quite cuts it. When someone dies, or is thought to have died, the main character forgets about them in a page or two, occasionally coming back to the character's mourning but never truely expressing how it feels to lose someone, caputring the mixture of confusion, loneliness, doubt, anger and fear. In fact, there was only one character I could find myself even remotely connecting to emotionally: Roran, cousin of Eragon and a semi-main character.
In the arena of Roran, Paolini was able to express very well how much it wounded his each time he killed somone: it is like a base beat to his story, the shock at extinguishing another's life, at seeing those horror stuck eyes. Now I have killed eight. That phrase (numbers growing throught the tale, of course) is like the base of Roran's story, beating out a steady rythmn and making him altogether human and relateable. So often in the fantasy genre people are rather "whatever" about killing another person, a feeling that is probably unlikely to eminate from any of us, had we just killed someone. It is a good message, and altogether commendable.
Roran was also beleivable in his greif at losing Katrina, his lover and one of those captured by the empire. Horrified and unable to protect her, she is always, always present in his mind, much like somone in at least their first year after losing a loved one, unlike Eragon who forgets his best friend Murtagh's deaths all too quickly.
With the other characters, however, oftentimes I felt like banging my head on the wall at Paolini's odd notions of what love and mourning were- rather fake, though you could see glimmers of real people beneath. I think that if Master Paolini worked on character development more, refined himself in that area, he would certainly be producing many characters as good as or better than Roran. Oftentimes these characters were confusing in their choices, or much too out of canon, or altogether without motives, such as Murtagh's turn to serving the bad guys. Why? It is not adequately explained, and the character does not follow his own canon in his actions once he is bound to the bad guys. (he was forced to swear to them in an irrevocable manner) The impression one would get of Murtagh in the first book is that he would nobly defend the weak, but here he is, refusing to let Eragon kill him so that the world might be saved, because his own life is "more important than any strangers'"?! Tis confusing, folks.
Though this book is marketed to children it has some rather disturbing content that leads me to suggest it to no one under thirteen. My main reason behind this is because of the uneeded nudity and description of an elf's gentitals, (though no one has/talks about sex), along with rather violent descriptions of battle which could be frightening to some.There are also very confusing religions and beleifs that conflict with much of the christian lifestyle. If you are a parent, I humbly suggest that you read the book before your child and decide for yourself if they are mature enough and planted firmly enough in their faith to read this book. Perhaps you could read it aloud with them, and have discussions after a reading session about the good things that characters did in what you just read, and the bad stuff. Have them tell you what they thought was good/bad, and ask them why they thought so. Turn it into a learning experience.
In conclusion, if you don't mind this tale being kinda anti-climatic, and not emotionally drawing except in one corner, then you will probably enjoy this tale, for it's messages are often strong, the writing fair and the world interesting. It is, simply, the sort of tale that you'd read one friday night because you were bored; enjoyable, but certainly nothing to be all thrilled about.
Might I suggest the Lord of the Rings? Or Narnia?
:)