his wheel, my time
So, Ross has a post in memory of Robert Jordan, author of the Wheel of Time fantasy series. Since modern fantasy is a semi-academic semi-specialty of mine, I have long felt guilty at not having read a word of Jordan. But, you know, I look at all those brick-like things on the shelf at Borders and my heart sinks. (As the Duke of Gloucester said when presented with another volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, “Another damned, thick, square, book! Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon?”) And even Jordan’s committed fans seem almost universally to acknowledge that the series is too much of a good thing.
At such moments I’m reminded that in his fabulous book Proust’s Way Roger Shattuck offers, in a footnote, as though he doesn’t want everyone to notice it, a suggested abridgment of In Search of Lost Time: read the first two-thirds of Swann’s Way, Part II of Within a Budding Grove, etc. etc. Someone should do that for would-be readers of Jordan.
You should at least read Jordan’s first book in the “Wheel of Time” series, “Eye of the World.” It’s really one of the better fantasy books I remember reading in high school, lo these dozen years ago or more. But after book three, the series starts to slide, and by book six, all momentum is lost. I gave up around book nine.
Now, if incredible fantasy is what you want, go read Steven Erikson’s “The Malazan Book of the Fallen” series. It’ll blow your mind.
— James F. Elliott · Jun 3, 12:34 AM · #
Jordan is really fast reading. Too fast, actually—it’s easy to just sort of gloss over things. But I can much more quickly read a Jordan novel than anything academic longer than a journal article.
— Justin · Jun 3, 02:43 AM · #
“Since modern fantasy is a semi-academic semi-specialty of mine, I have long felt guilty at not having read a word of Jordan. But, you know, I look at all those brick-like things on the shelf at Borders and my heart sinks.”
analagous statements: “Since classic fantasy is a specialty of mine, I’ve always regretted not reading Tolkien, but the books just seem too long”
“Since math is a specialty of mine, I’ve always regretted not learning algebra”
Quite simply, Jordan’s work is a sine qua non with regard to modern fantasy epics.
— RMH · Jun 3, 02:39 PM · #
Isn’t brevity a weird criteria for an English professor to value in a book?
— Lifafa Das · Jun 3, 03:42 PM · #
Come now. You can’t just say you’re a semi-expert in modern fantasy without listing a few good novels you have read and recommend. I don’t suppose you’re a Gene Wolfe fan?
— Michael · Jun 3, 04:19 PM · #
RMH: Like not reading Tolkien? Really?
Lifafa: Who said anything about brevity? Tolkien I love. I think Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (1150 pages) is the greatest book of the 20th century. But the friggin’ Wheel of friggin’ Time is TEN THOUSAND friggin’ PAGES.
Michael: I’m a pretty big Book of the New Sun fan. I’m also especially fond of John Crowley.
— Alan Jacobs · Jun 3, 06:12 PM · #
Jordan’s prodigious imagination and ability to conceive interesting subplots, characters and storylines far outstrip his abilities as a writer. To be truly good, the Wheel of Time series would have needed much more severe editing than it received. It started out well – very promising in fact. I could put up with his so-so writing as long as the story remained compelling. I could also enjoy (even wanted) a sprawliing fantasy epic with many separate storylines. But things got out of hand after the first two or three books (which weren’t masterpieces but were fun enough to read and bring me back for more), and he just wasn’t able to rein the ever-multiplying story lines (or himself) in. And the writing went from pedestrian-but-adequate to a painful near caricature of itself. I agree with the Jordan-critical posters on Ross’s site. I’d say don’t waste your time, unless you feel like you need to be familiar with them as part of your semi-academic semi-specialty.
— Karl · Jun 3, 06:36 PM · #
I also strongly recommend Wolfe’s Soldier series to anyone who likes Till We Have Faces.
— Michael · Jun 3, 08:48 PM · #
Absolutely. Like not reading Tolkien.
Tolkien, and others, are essential to an understanding of classic fantasy literature. Jordan, and others, are essential to modern fantasy literature.
This is not to say that Jordan’s work is more important than Tolkien’s, as one would be correct in pointing out that Tolkien’s work, for fantasy literature as a whole, is more important, as he did more to define the genre than anybody else. But your claim was an understanding of modern fantasy, and Jordan’s influence on modern fantasy (good or bad) is too important to wave off by deciding that the books are too long.
— RMH · Jun 4, 03:42 PM · #
Aside from Alan’s expressed interest in the field, long books are not daunting just because they are long. For a ten thousand page opus to be worth reading, it has to be really damn good — better than whatever else you would have been reading for those weeks, like scintillating American Scene comment threads.
Besides, people – we have a Russian Reading Challenge going on. Back to work!
— Matt Frost · Jun 4, 05:02 PM · #