Chapter 4: The Gleeman

What's the deal with that word, anyway? "Gleeman"? Why not just call it a bard and leave it at that like normal people would do? "Gleeman" brings images of horrific maniacal jesters to mind, worse creatures than Darkfriends could ever hope to be. The old man who just burst out of the inn is far from those images, which is comforting but not quite fitting. I can't relate this guy to standing on his head and singing like a loon.

The door slams behind him and the first thing he does is swivel around to glare at it, and that's just so goofy that I wonder if maybe calling him a gleeman might be suitable after all. It's kind of sad, really. This is probably going to be our wise old mentor, and here he is leering at innocent doors. At least he's not condescending like Nynaeve.

Chapter 3: The Peddler

Picking up where we left off, we continue to see just how big the wagon is by its wheels, which are taller than a man each. Come on, eight horses is hard enough to swallow. How do you even move a wagon that size without it falling apart? Is this like the land version of Noah's Ark, or a fantasy version of a moving truck? It's ridiculous.

The driver of this truck wagon is named Padan Fain, a cheerful fellow who comes into Emond's Field every spring. He doesn't just bring wares to sell, he also helpfully provides information about the outside world. I'm not sure why this is such a big deal ... don't these country guys pride themselves on being separated from everybody else? Why would they be so interested in things that don't concern them in the slightest? Maybe life in Emond's Field is just that boring.

Chapter 2: Strangers

I probably shouldn't be going over every little sentence that isn't geography or history. What kind of blogger is completely and utterly mad? I know that some would say "the best kind," but since I want these posts to be at least readable I'll try and do some more summing up.

Rand and Mat lug the cider barrels into the inn, where most of the Village Council is lounging around. Haral Luhhan the blacksmith gives Mat a nasty look because he suspects that Mat pulled another childish prank involving smothering his dogs in flour and setting them loose (which he did). Mat gets distracted by Bran's wife, who's carrying honeycakes, and Rand has to get him to focus again. There, I just summarized three pages in three sentences. The subtle not-quite-tension is a bit lost in translation, but it's understood just fine, right? But the siren song of nitpicking is already calling me back ...

Chapter 1: An Empty Road

How does it take so long to make a blog post about a single chapter? It was only fifteen pages!

We begin with the book pointing out that it's beginning, or at least that it's a beginning, which is an important distinction to begin with. Even though the book had a prologue already, I guess it's technically true with this being the first chapter. The impact there is still lost though, and it comes off sounding rather pretentious. What's worse is that it's about wind, which reminds me of this:

Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world (Eragon p1).

 That said, the instance in Wheel of Time gets a pass because of the Grandfather Clause (or maybe just the Father Clause, since it was only published in 1990), and because it isn't shamelessly ripping off plotlines from superior stories. Or so it seems ...

Prologue: Dragonmount

Prologues always make me wary. I have yet to see a prologue that neither dumps loads of ominous references to names and events on the reader, nor needs to be relabeled Chapter One for its lack of temporal and/or spatial separation from the rest of the book. There's no middle ground between them, apparently, and this particular prologue cements itself neatly in the former end of the spectrum.

We begin with the aftermath of some horrific catastrophe, which left behind broken stone and earth and bodies, and it's pretty neatly described as far as visual imagery is concerned. It could have utilized the other senses more, given a more three-dimensional feel to the scene with the scent of charred meat and such, but the visuals give a pretty good idea of the scale even though they're confined to this single palace. (I think it's just the palace, anyway. It doesn't indicate that anywhere else went through "the mind-twisting", though I wouldn't be surprised if a huge earthquake-like event affected more than one area.)

About This Blog

Hey there! Have some info about what you're about to read.

Being encouraged to try reading the Wheel of Time series again, I decided to vent my frustrations at its problems through a blog. I remember reading the first two books last summer, only to give up for a variety of reasons which I can no longer remember. (Actually, all I remember about them is that they're way too long and all of the female characters are annoying.) With this blog I'm planning on giving readers a entertaining experience (hopefully) while trekking through this epic tale, rather than simply trudging through on my own.

In addition, however, I'm also interested in writing fantasy novels, yet impatience and writer's block consistently prevent me from getting any actual writing done. What I want to do is get in some more sit-down-and-typing, and that's where this blog comes in: it's also a kind of exercise to get me thinking about world-building, character development, and just how writing works in general. And I get to write a lot, of course.

I may get around to analyzing other books in the future, depending on how long and time-consuming Wheel of Time turns out to be. Does that make this series a test run? I guess so. Time to crack open The Eye of the World, take a deep breath, and start this little test.

Happy reading!