Title: The Wheel of Time (Books 1-11)
Author: Robert Jordan
Themes: There are a a lot of them but I think for me the biggest one is Identity
Quotes: “We are always more afraid than we wish to be, but we can always be braver than we expect.”
Reading/Listening Time: 13 days, 23 hours, 51 minutes
Rant:
This series was my "silver tuna" as far as reading in 2017. I wanted to read a full, epic fantasy series from start to finish, and sadly I wasn't able to complete this goal for one simple reason:
I loved it too much.
Even the parts that were boring, or annoying. I loved them. I really think this author is the only one I've read that year who even approaches doing what Mr Tolkien did with his writing as far as how immersive and meaningful the world he creates is.
Reasonably I could have finished it well before New Years, but I got so accustomed to the narrative and the way Mr Robert Jordan tells his story that at the point in the the story where he died and his writing was picked up by another author...I just could not stand the transition.
I even tried reading one of Brandon Sanderson's books beforehand just so I could acclimate myself to his writing style. I know a lot of people who enjoy Mr Sanderson's books, but I guess I just don't understand those people because I thought "Mistborn" sucked...and I could probably mean that in a good way except for I don't effing care to when this guy is taking over the writing of what's become one of my favorite series' OF ALL TIME...
Review:
I was first introduced to The Wheel of Time in a writing workshop some years ago, and it was presented as an example of a fantasy book that didn't conform to literary archetypal story patterns. Now that I've read through most of it, I don't really know that I agree with that perspective 100%. I think just because it's so long, it's probably harder to pick up on where and how those patterns play out. What I think Mr Jordan was trying to do is find a marriage between the traditional "Hero's Journey", which kinda conveys a western perspective on life's journey and the idea that we can better ourselves through change, and the Hindu tradition that life and time are cyclical in nature, and that things that happen tend to repeat themselves: not only in our lives but in history and ultimately the cosmos, or all that exists.
One of my favorite things about this series is that it takes some pretty metaphysical concepts and explains them in a really concrete metaphors. The most iconic of these I think is definitely "The Wheel" itself: which describes all of creation as a spinning wheel and loom, continually in motion, weaving a grand tapestry with the "life threads" of living beings who live, die, and are reborn to serve the creator's pattern.
I've always thought of that kind of fatalistic philosophy as something that was really unfulfilling: who wants to be stuck doing the same things for the rest of eternity? If freewill is an illusion and the fate of some unknown cosmic mechanism arbitrarily rules all of our destinies for the rest of eternity...
Gosh that sounds quite dreary...
And it totally would be, if it weren't for the inherent complexity of human identity: variations in the pattern. In the first half of the series, there's this repeated refrain where several of the characters re-affirm their identity almost like a mantra-
"I am a blacksmith/wisdom/sheepherder of the Two Rivers/Emond's Field." even when those identities have kind of become obsolete because SPOILER ALERT they're actually not a blacksmith/wisdom/sheepherder anymore and they don't even live in the two rivers anymore...END SPOILER But that's the part of them that they value about themselves! It gives them structure and belonging, and even when you find out you are more than just those things it's still kinda the core of your being and it can give you power. To me it's interesting that where you come from can be less something that you need to overcome and more something you need to incorporate into the wholeness of your identity.
Instead of focusing on the futility of trying to change your destiny, you can focus on fulfilling it in the best possible way.
Notes:
I really like the thematic review, so I think I'll end it there even though I'd like to go through an analyze the story in a bit more detail sometime. There's a lot in here that's quite iconic...
Instead, please enjoy my Epic Character Posters and some of my favorite quotes from the series:
-"I would not mind you in my head", Lews Therin said, sounding almost sane, "if you were not so clearly mad."
-"There is one rule, above all others, for being a man. Whatever comes, face it on your feet."
-"Hope is like a piece of string when you're drowning; it just isn't enough to get you out by itself."
"I once saw a man hanging from a cliff. The brink was crumbling under his fingers, and the only thing near enough to grasp was a tuft of grass, a few long blades with roots barely clinging to the rock. The only chance he had of climbing back up on the cliff. So he grabbed it." His abrupt chuckle held no mirth. "He had to know it would pull free..."
"You know my choices. I am clinging to that tuft of grass on the cliff’s lip, praying for it to hold one more heartbeat."
-"Only a fool thought he knew what was in a woman's head just because she had a smile on her face."
-"Galad is so good he'd make you tear your hair out".
-"Almost dead yesterday, maybe dead tomorrow, but alive, gloriously alive, today."
MOAR WOT QUOTES:
-"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 above the great mountainous island of Tremalking. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning..."
-"A tool made for a purpose is not demeaned by being used for that purpose"
-"Sometimes old enemies fight so long that they become allies and never realize it. They think they strike at you, but they have become so closely linked it is as if you guided the blow yourself."
-"Everything is linked, Rand. Whether it lives or not, whether it thinks or not, everything that is, fits together. The tree does not think, but it is part of the whole and the whole has a feeling."
-"What he could not buy, because it was too expensive or too large, he collected by seeing and remembering. All those remnants of times gone, those wonders scattered around the world that had first pulled him aboard a ship as a boy."
-"Not yet, light please! Not yet..." (I imagine this would be like being told you're gonna get Alzheimer's disease when you get older, and everyone starts treating you like you've already got the early stages and you start getting all paranoid too.) Interesting subnote: after writing that bit (I took these quotes from my goodreads updates) I found out that I have one of the genetic markers for Alzheimers, not early-onset thank goodness but I can kind of imagine what Rand is going through.
-"Loial did not seem to think anything he himself did was brave, or worth writing down"
-“What else can we do?” Leane said eventually. She rode slumped in her saddle now like a sack of grain. “I feel so — empty. Empty.”
“Find something to fill it up,” Siuan told her firmly. “Anything. Cook for the hungry, tend the sick, find a husband and raise a houseful of children..." (Siuan is having none of it today)"
-"Everyone thinks they know the Prophecy, but what they know is what Wise Ones and Clan Chiefs have told them for generations...Not lies, but not the whole truth.""
-“Life is uncertainty and struggle, choice and change; one who knew how her life was woven into the Pattern as well as she knew how a thread was laid into a carpet would have the life of an animal. If she did not go mad. Humankind is made for uncertainty, struggle, choice and change.”
-"There is no one set path to the future. The Pattern makes the finest lace look coarse woven sacking, or tangled string."
-"Boasting was easy when no one expected you to follow through."
-"This isn't a story, [umm...I'm pretty sure it is...] he isn't some invincable hero [he's made it this far hasn't he?], and if his thread is snipped out of the pattern, the wheel of time won't notice his going [that would actually be a really interesting turn of events!], and the Creator will produce no miracles to save us [you're all screwed].""
-"Even smiling, Nynaeve was angry enough to embrace The Source." (that's it. that's all you need to know about nynaeve)"
-"You cannot tell a man he has the power to make the earth shake, then expect him to walk small."
-"Nothing ever goes as you expect. Expect nothing, and you will not be surprised. Expect nothing. Hope for nothing. Nothing." (PREAACH!)
-"Half of what I know to be true is no less insane."
| -"Men scheme and women plot, but the Wheel weaves as it
will." -"But men needed the trappings, the symbols and the names, the black coats and the pins, to help hold them together." -"And Selande had something extra, a steadiness, as if she had already faced the worst fear in her life and nothing could ever be that bad again."" |
-"If a sword had memory he might be grateful to the forge fire, but never fond of it."
-"Rand barely heard the voice in his head. Suddenly he knew he did not have to describe Kisman and the others. He could draw them so well that anyone would recognize the faces. Except, he had never been able to draw in his life. Lews Therin could, though. That should have frightened him...It should have."
-"I don't know what anybody's toes have to do with anything, or feet either" (I just...yeah this one is hilarious...you had to be there...)
-"The Creator had made the world and then left humankind to make of it what they would, a heaven or the Pit of Doom by their choosing, The Creator had made many worlds, watched each flower and die, and gone on to make endless worlds beyond. A gardener did not weep for each blossom that fell."
-"Truth almost always did come out in the end, but by the end, truth was often so wrapped around with rumors and speculation and absolute lies that most people never did believe it.""
-"You don't shoe your own horse when you have a farrier, or grind your own grain when you have a miller." (Guys sexism is real)
-"She felt like an ant that had just become aware of mountains."
-"Light, how the horror of yesterday became the uneasiness of today, once you grew accustomed..."
-"In stories everything was wrapped up by the end, real life was much messier."
-"My name is Nynaeve ti al’Meara Mandragoran. The message I want sent is this. My husband rides from World’s End toward Tarwin’s Gap, toward Tarmon Gai’don. Will he ride alone?" (EPPICC!)
-"I am nothing like these women, Toy. Nothing like them. Perhaps I could learn, but I choose not to, just as I choose not to steal or commit murder. That makes all the difference." (Considering how we know you've had at least a couple of your siblings assassinated, and you habitually brainwash your slaves and treat them like sub-human slime...I'm not quite sure how I'm supposed to take this, Tuon...)
-"I've never been on an adventure. I bet we won't either of us cry ourselves to sleep on an adventure. And if we do, we will make sure the gleemen leave that part out."
-“Duty is heavy as a mountain, death is light as a feather.”
-“I will hate the man you choose because he isn't me, and love him if he makes you smile.”
-“You have made a place in my heart where I thought there was no room for anything else. You have made flowers grow where I cultivated dust and stones. Remember this, on this journey you insist on making. If you die, I will not survive you long.”
-“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”
-“If you must mount the gallows, give a jest to the crowd, a coin the hangman, and make the drop with a smile on your lips.”
-“Run when you have to, fight when you must, rest when you can.”
-"He was swimming in a sea of other people’s expectations. Men had drowned in seas like that.”
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