Tuesday, January 22, 2013

An intentionally overwrought homage to Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series

The following spoiler-free piece on The Wheel of Time series is directed at fellow blogger Mac and any other potential reader who refused to begin the series until it had an end.

(Note: please refrain from any comments that might spoil any volume of the series for the uninitiated)

Unsuspecting provincial finds himself swept up by an epic struggle between the forces of good and evil, which (only very recently) now threatens his home and everyone he loves. And, oh by the way, the fate of the entire world may or may not rest on his shoulders.

So begins nearly every modern fantasy tale since Tolkien penned the prototypical (and still the greatest) model in the mid twentieth century. No author should be faulted for attempting to follow the path beaten by a master storyteller, and the Wheel of Time is no exception to this rule.

Some fantasy authors focus on grand plot and narrative, others on political machinations and war, many on character development, and still more on world building. Rarely can an author pull all these categories together, and even the master (Tolkien) needed multiple volumes of backstory and appendices to pull it off. Jordan was no exception in this regard. His story spanned continents, pitted kingdoms against each other, and drew the unsuspecting into the treacherous ‘Game of Houses.’ There are occasional ‘quests’ that stand alone, yet work toward the eventual climax of the series that span multiple books, for better or worse. This can be either rewarding or frustrating for the reader, and occasionally both at the same time. Yet, more than any other author, Jordan possessed a knack for writing those last hundred pages of a book so gripping that school, work, or any concern are easily forgotten in the furious sweeping of pages.

Writing characters (particularly women) was never Jordan’s strength. Indeed, the reader will lose track of the myriad minor and occasionally forgettable characters that cross paths with our main hero(es). For that matter, Jordan himself seemingly misplaced some of the major ones at certain points. But you never stopped caring for them or wanting, waiting desperately for the next volume to discover their fates. This stemmed from Jordan’s major triumph- the building of a compelling world that draws in the reader.

A world armed only with steel and scientific magic confronted a very real, physical threat to its survival. The characters live in and fight for (or against) the world, and we the readers love them for it. Jordan carefully portrayed these characters in this world, lovingly devoting pages to the material elements of their surroundings. A source of some criticism for the length of each book, this thick description rather contextualized the plot and characters in a way that gives them meaning to readers, and makes us care whether they live or die, and in what manner.

The Eye of the World, first volume of the series, was published in 1990, and Jordan issued a new installment every few years until the eleventh, his last solely authored volume, Knife of Dreams, in 2005. Jordan was diagnosed with cardiac amyloidosis in 2006, and after treatment died tragically in 2007. Recently established fantasy author Brandon Sanderson took up the gargantuan task of co-authoring and completing the final volume of the series, which was released in three installments under the subtitle, A Memory of Light (also the proper title of the last installment). Sanderson impressively gathered the far-flung and loose ends of Jordan’s epic tale and wove a convincing and dramatic pattern that leaves the reader satisfied but wanting more.

“The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.” (EotW, 1)

Jordan and Sanderson’s ending was not what I expected, and it came more than a decade after I expected it, but (in their words) “it was an ending,” (AMoL, 909), one that I endorse wholeheartedly.

3 comments:

Mac said...

Well done, Noho! As someone who has never read a page of the WoT series, I was able to appreciate its expansiveness, qualities and faults: and you managed to whet my appetite for the series! Definitely on the to-do list of reading for me at this point, and I'm glad to know you can give it your stamp of approval, finally!

Also, well done on making your first VT post. May there be many more... but if there aren't, or they come very intermittently, don't worry because you won't be alone!

Ek said...

Mark, I just finished the series and I will say that even though it is a major time commitment the payoff at the end is worth it. AMoL might be my favorite fantasy novel ever. Of the 900 pages, probably 800 of them involve some kind of fight or battle, but it manages not to totally ignore ideas and character development while doing this. Most of the series is not that briskly paced though, and to be honest books 7-11 have portions that are kind of tough to get through (like being on a Bible reading plan and hitting Leviticus tough to get through), but the series is so good when it works that I have to give it high marks overall.

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