Footnote
There was a period of time where every author I considered analysing as part of my doctorate promptly dropped dead. From an academic point of view that’s sort of useful because all of a sudden you’re dealing with a closed body of work, but from a, you know, human point of view it was a bit horrifying. Someone died and also no more books!
Maybe that’s why I didn’t end up focusing on any individual authors, seemed safer all round.
Robert Jordan was one of those unfortunates to be hit by this curse before I knew what I was doing. When I think about this in the clear post-thesis light my brain spasms and goes, What were you thinking? Just reading his Wheel of Time books is an epic undertaking, becoming familiar enough with them to write about them with any real authority would have been nightmarish.
But they are an incredible example. Sometimes I wish that he’d stopped at three though. That they’d been a trilogy. I would have been happy with that. I didn’t need to know the rest of the world was out there.
But. That’s the thing. Much as I critique them (and I have to because dear God did they get out of hand) his capacity for world building is spectacular. Really, an awful lot of the awesome of the books is inextricably knotted up with what is most wrong with them. Which is, obviously, that they go on forever. Because he writes them like they’re life. It just keeps happening, and there are hundreds of characters who wander in and out and you’re never really quite sure if it’s going anywhere.
The fantastic thing is that every character that wanders across his stage has this kind of complete rounded humanity to them. And he switches perspectives so cavalierly and so completely that in the moment, no matter who you’re with, from the hero closest to your heart to the worst of the villains — you understand, you get it, and you want them to win.*
I am, of course, exaggerating. By the time you work your way through eleven books most people have seriously considered wholesale slaughter of the entire cast just to get them to stop. But try asking someone who their favourite character is — you probably won’t get the same answer twice.
Which is genuinely cool. As is the depth and complexity of the world they inhabit. The sheer scope of the series allows Jordan to do some amazing things with his creation and I don’t begrudge him the space he spends on it. The problem is not actually that the series is long, it’s that it’s unmanageable. Because it stops reading like a narrative and starts reading like a history.
History is interesting. It’s fascinating. And it can be entertaining. But there’s a reason the movie versions have ‘based on a true story’ stamped on them. The real story, with all the characters and all the parts, would be confusing and probably boring, with lots of stuff no one cares about, spiked only briefly by excitement that even the main protagonists don’t understand.
So just like the later Wheel of Time books. What Jordan did with the series (quite impressively) was to create life (like Frankenstein!) but he was trying to commit art, so he missed a bit on the follow through.
* Except for Perrin apparently, who some people seem to hate rather a lot. Not totally sure why.
Kandace Mavrick
Paul McLaughlan
platform thing 
Jay
12/09/2011
People hate Perrin? Why?
I can see how some people might dislike his wife, but I don’t see why they’d dislike him over any of the other characters.
Kandace Mavrick
12/09/2011
I don’t know. The best explanation I’ve heard was simply that his story gets so far away from the others towards the end that they didn’t want to jump away.
This is purely anecdotal though, I haven’t done studies or anything. Personally, I like Perrin. (cause he has a cool name, and he’s one of the original three and… other things). But, then, my favourite character is one of the Forsaken so my judgement may be considered questionable 🙂
Michael Dawson
12/09/2011
And now we need to see how well Brandon Sanderson does finishing off the series. You could certainly tell when he took over… the writing style changes slightly. One more book to go!
As an aside, it’s a little mind-boggling that the current word total for the series is over 4 million!
Kandace Mavrick
12/09/2011
Mm. I haven’t read the Sanderson books yet. I’m not buying this ‘it has an end’ thing until the end is actually published. (At which point I’ll probably start again at the beginning, because I’m insane or something.)
Michael Dawson
12/09/2011
I’m sure I’ll probably do the same. I re-read the 10 and 11 before reading 12, and finished just as 13 was coming out, so read that too. 14 (and final?) is due out end of 2012, so I’m guessing I’ll start again from scratch as a final read sometime in the next few months (takes a lot longer for me to read a book now as I normally only read a chapter or two a day).
Kandace Mavrick
12/09/2011
And four million words is a REALLY long way to go. When I was thinking about using them for my thesis I read the first three in four days and I almost drowned. Must remember to pace myself… 😛
Wendy
13/09/2011
I will surely do the same. Last time I read anything earlier than Book 4 I was twelve. TWELVE. That said I still remember a disturbing amount about them… Probably because it was all we talked about at lunchtime at school!
Kandace Mavrick
13/09/2011
I try not to think about the fact that when I started reading them book seven wasn’t out yet and I was… thirteen? That is… too long ago.
wallace
13/09/2011
I thought Sanderson’s book was better than the last few that Jordan wrote… a lot less ‘smoothing of skirts’ and other repetitive Jordanisms and, most importantly, *stuff actually happened*. The plot advanced. Characters evolved. The end is in sight.
I really don’t want it to ever be over though. My entire family descends into geekdom when a new book is released. While my husband and my sister-in-law sit, stupefied with boredom, my brothers, mum, and I talk endlessly about where each of the forsaken is hiding and what might happen next… We are *so* cool.
Also, ‘hi’ 🙂
Kandace Mavrick
13/09/2011
I am quite interested to see what Sanderson does with it. Especially the finishing. I want to see it finish. There’s this… unsatisfying feeling about a series without an end. It makes me bitter about wanting each next book because I know I will STILL be unsatisfied. I am hoping Sanderson pulls it off, even if he’s managed to spread one book into three (and to be fair, that was kind of Jordan’s fault for leaving so much plot and so many characters lying around). But I am waiting… patiently (sure, we’ll go with that) for them all to be published so I can curl up with the whole stack and work my way through.
Also, Hi! Long time no (insert cliche of your choice).