The White Council

Re: Wheel of Time

Tolkien and Inklings Discussion

: The Lord of the Rings used to be my all time favorite book, but now the Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan is. Just thought I'd let anyone know who hasn't read it yet. I used to think nothing could come close the the greatness of Middle-Earth, I found it hard to believe there is something better! The only downfall is book 9 is still in the works and the series is far from complete, but in contrast... it's nice to have more to read rather than the few books by Tolkien and wishing there was more.

I believe now that Tolkien's work may be the greatest work in epic literature. Period. Tolkien works through allegory masterfully, composes technically and aesthetically compelling poetry, spent a good time of his life creating languages and an entire mythology for a world that he completely made up. He concocted a world which is, sometimes, more real than my world, despite being fantastic.

Jordan is not as good. That does not mean that he is bad, though. In fact, I think that his skills as a storyteller surpass Tolkien's. While not as literarily or technically brilliant as LotR, WoT is a vast world. I doubt that any other fantastic world has been created within literature to match Jordan's for sheer size. As the size of the world grows, so grows too, exponentially, the difficulty in holding the world together, maintaining connectedness. Jordan pulls that off very well. He has a lively sense of humor, has extremely painstakingly developed characters, and the volume of sub-plots is actually more like real life than if there were less plots. The countless rules Jordan has created in his world all, magically, work together. He develops in detail the concept of magic and why magic works. He has created a system of measurement and time for his world. He utilizes original creatures. How tired am I of seeing trolls, elves, fairies, etc.? Myrdraal are especially intriguing. I need to read the books again. There are also creatures without bones, creatures that suck away the soul, large amphibian-like bear creatures with three eyes. Gray Men and Dark hounds are pretty good, too. He also does a great job incorporating just enough familiar mythological constructs so that the reader does not lose bearings. he uses the Great Hunt, Trollocs (which are really an orc-troll construct). His system of theology is developed, a sort of quasi-Zoroastrianism, he has the magic down to a science. Again, his magic is original. Many of his ter'angreal are brilliant. Alo, his magic is familiar enough. The dreamworld is always a great place for poetic writing. The dualistic One Power is well-worn, but still fits.

I am very pleased with character development. Mat Cauthon and Thom Merrilin are two of my favorite characters in literature. Granted, Rand is a bit hackneyed, but you still gotta love the multiple personality thing. It makes for great plot twists.

As for their being no closure as yet: Wait for the end of the series, then talk about it. It's only 8/13 complete.

Jordan is a master storyteller. He captured my imagination. It is precisely those sub-plots which I find so greast about WoT. I've been yearning for something which creates a world that can stand up to this sort of exploration. I hate it when authors create a world and theneither don't go far enough in developing it and just keep writing about the same aspects of the world, or they create this beautiful world, then onmly write one or two books on the subject. One might accuse Tolkien of this. So, WoT fulfills something inside of me. The different sub-plots are, for me, constant thrills of discovery.

I have noticed that it is mostly Tolkien fanatics within the fantasy community who dislike WoT. Perhaps we feel that a series is, in some sense (whether by scope or fan following) threatening Tolkien's fantasy primacy. Please realize that I am not doing this.

Here's the distinction I think that I am trying to make. Jordan is at the very tip-top of the fantasy genre. On the other hand, Tolkien is at the very tip-top of literature, of any genre. While I do think that WoT has a lot of literary merit, I don't think that Jordan was writing his series to showcase his literary skills, but rather to spin a great yarn. He succeeded. -olorin