Some thoughts on The Wheel of Time

[saithkar]

It was in late January 2000 that I embarked upon Robert Jordan's The Eye of the World - a millennial beginning to a millennial epic - and I finished the concluding volume, A Memory of Light, this February. This means that the 14 books have taken me almost exactly 15 years to read, literally half a lifetime in my case, and therefore I believe some

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[carminalizarin]

Having heard the horror stories about how bloated, rambling, ponderous, vast, LONG, etc. this series was (not to mention the fact that we're apparently supposed to receive the term "darkfriend" with a straight face), with much of that consisting of boring crap, I never bothered trying to read it. (I similarly got burned out about 200 pages into the fourth ASoIaF book, though the first is definitely one of the better fantasy novels I've read). I've read a decent amount ABOUT it, though, and I find its backstory quite interesting. Particularly the Forsaken and how they are essentially "human arch-demons", with their names even reflecting this fact; the way myth swells as time goes by never fails to fascinate me (kinda like how I strongly suspect that the northern European concept of "trolls" has its origins in the fact that Neanderthals were still hanging around there for a long time).

Brandon Sanderson has another series called "Mistborn" (which predates his completion of WoT, apparently) that I thought sounded cool, but I should probably read more reviews and stuff.

Also interesting that you mentioned Eddings and Feist. Oddly enough, I read Feist's Serpentwar Saga when I was a teenager, but didn't actually like it much, and ended up passing the first book on to my brother, who in turn passed it on to others, and they all loved it and ended up reading everything the man has written. I also found his original Riftwar series to be, so far, quite dull and generic - I say "so far" because I started reading the first one in about 2011 and it took me at least two years to get through it, and now I'm not sure I can manage the next.

Eddings, on the other hand, I find pretty entertaining, though there is a kind of mean-spirited presumptuousness to his work; nevertheless he at least doesn't take himself too seriously (he basically decided to "try out" fantasy to see if he could make money at it).

Odd as it may sound, one of my favorite fantasy novels is The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub, which cleaves fairly close to the Hero's Journey formula but involves an alternate dimension, with a good two-thirds of the book taking place in 1981 America; and in general it just feels much different from the usual. It's also bizarrely cheesy at times and contains some poorly-thought out plot points (which may be attributable to dual authorship), but it holds a special place in my heart.

WHICH REMINDS ME that I am getting pretty bored with what you referred to as "Wardour Street." The high Middle Ages actually seem like a pretty dull period whenever someone isn't getting a sword through their head, which I suppose is why I've read more Ancient and Modern history than Medieval.

[saithkar]

While I realise the above has been quite critical there were aspects of the WoT that I did enjoy, but if I were to make a recommendation it would be that you press on with Martin. The Forsaken were a cool concept and I'd not heard that troll theory before, interesting and possibly true.

As for Sanderson, well he's also a Mormon in addition to being a mediocre writer, not saying that would make his books any worse but I think you could do better elsewhere.

I've read 6 Feist novels, the original Riftwar saga which even my 15 year old self could tell was really amateurish and cliched (I'd not bother finishing if I were you, life's too short to read crappy books), and the Empire series which I enjoyed a lot more (probably because, like the Seanchan in Jordan, the Asian-inspired culture was a refreshing change from the "Wardour Street" version of the middle ages pioneered by Sir Walter Scott and followed by almost everyone else since, that's another thing about Martin, there is a verisimilitude to his world that feels more authentic rather most Hollywood versions of the past that fantasy trades in), although they may not hold up today. I have also read 11 David Eddings novels, the Belgariad which, like Feist, was generic and boring, and the much better Elenium and Tamuli series which had more wit, a good satire of the medieval church and better characters.

As I'm sure you've inferred from my Facebook musings, I pretty much read nothing but literary fiction these days (just started a novel by Italo Calvino after finishing Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian") so it was interesting going back to what I used to read and looking at it bathed in the light of what I now know about the English language and how to use it. I have also read that thing you sent me a long while back and have been taking notes, so I'll have to get back to you in regards to that sometime soonish.

[carminalizarin]

Aye, if I live long enough for WoT to enter "classic" status so someone releases an "abridged version" of it, I'd probably read that.

Even Martin, I feel, has been overloading his books with filler and meandering soap-opera stuff since the second volume of the series. Something like HALF of A Clash of Kings could easily have been cut or greatly condensed, as most of that consisted of what I like to call "opening and closing doors" (which also shows up a lot in genre films with modest budgets that are aiming to produce sequels, and, of course, in TV series): A character opens a door and goes into a building, says something cryptic to someone near the entrance, then closes the door, goes deeper into a building, opens the door to someone's office, closes the door, has a vague, cryptic, but portentous-sounding conversation with the person in the office to hint that they have a personal history with this individual, and in general to suggest that something important is happening, or going to happen, without anything actually happening; they then open the door, leave the office, and close the door. Nevertheless, the man can produce engaging material when he disciplines himself and gets to the point. (I may be a tad biased here since ongoing-drama series have never much interested me compared to standalone movies and novels, which obviously tend to be more concise and cohesive.)

Lately I do find myself wanting to read more "literary" material; the problem is that the subject matter of much lit-fic does not interest me (especially - it must be said - if written by women). Thus I should really start compiling a bucket-list of literature that sounds like it would occupy the sweet spot between lit-fic and genre-fic, hopefully combining the best of both worlds.

I almost forgot I'd sent you that; if I recall, I only sent you the first half, and ought to finish revising the second for that purpose. You might actually like the second half better as it focuses more on psychology and a semi-realistic political revolution rather than the more straightforward fantasy elements of the first half. In any event, looking back (I finished the book almost exactly four years ago) I have mixed feelings on it; there are some parts and aspects that I feel worked well and am proud of; other parts and aspects, considerably less so. I like to think it demonstrates a certain amount of "potential" on my part, but also that it had a lot of the predictable flaws of a first novel written in one's early-mid 20's. I'll force myself to finish the latter half soon, and finally get it to you. Your feedback would be appreciated, particularly since I am still writing (mostly short fiction, which in some ways suits me better, though I have made tentative starts to a couple of new novels as well).

[saithkar]

Haha, yeah, if they ever bring out the 7 book version read that, there's probably enough material in there for 7 solid, adventure packed books, but given that there's 14 shows you just how much wasted time there is (at least the way I see it, others disagree). That "opening and closing doors" is a good description of the idea. I too am normally opposed to long TV series, I figure most stories can either be told in a 2 hour movie or they'd be better off as a book. Apart from Game of Thrones (which doesn't really count since I first read the series in 2000) the only other serial TV show I've watched lately was True Detective which was, despite its flaws, excellent viewing (and only 8 episodes which felt about right).

If you're looking for literature recommendations I'm always happy to help out. I know horror is a favourite genre of yours, but if you can name any other's I'll try and suggest a few titles based on my limited experience. Incidentally I too find myself as being somewhat of a, to use Nabokov's phrase "literary homosexual" in that almost all of the authors I feel most strongly about are male. I even read Gore Vidal's famous homosexual novel "The City and the Pillar" which was not the sort of thing I'd thought I'd ever read and found it reasonably enjoyable, mostly for the quality of Vidal's prose and the sense of the authentic experience the novel is infused with.