Rating: 3 stars
The Eye of the World is the first book in a 14-book series by Robert Jordan (and later on finished by Brandon Sanderson once Jordan passed away). We follow the battle between Light and Dark through numerous ages and see the Dragon, both hated and loved, trying to bring down darkness and stop the world’s ruination (or bring down the world’s ruination).
The first thing that needs to be said about The Eye of the World: this is a straight up Tolkien pastiche. Not because the use of mythology or because of resemblance, many other people have done things similar to Tolkien but original in their own ways (and I stand on the belief that high fantasy should move away from the path Tolkien took. There are so many other mythologies out there! Go do something different!), but because the usage of the same archetypes, the same type of characters and the same line of thought. This one even has its own Sauron (a being with flames bursting from his eyes, hiding in the darkness, invading dreams, following people’s journey to destroy him, does it get any more Sauron?).
Ok, ok. It is not original (what defines originality anyway? Tolkien’s world was not that original), but is it interesting? For me the answer is both yes and no. It took me forever to finish this book, both because of my book slump and because I could not find the story that gripping. There are elements that I found extremely interesting and the story does pick up more to the end of the book, but most time it was just somewhat interesting, and maybe not that important, fillers. Everybody and everything is described and not in the oh-my-god-what-wonderful-prose-and-world way. Sometimes I was like ‘yes, he is different, I got that, you don’t need to spend another 10 paragraphs describing him. Again.”
This leads me to talk about the characters. Rand, Perrin, and Mat are simple farmers. During the days preceding a celebration known as Bel Tine, they have their lives threatened by creatures they thought only existed in legends. They soon find out that The Dark One (the Evil incarnated who is supposed to be locked away in prison) is after them for reasons yet unknown (unknown to the three characters because we all know the answer since the beginning). They are helped by Moiraine, an Aes Sedai (a group of female magic-wielders responsible for the safety of the world) and Lan, a Guardian. Together (and they are joined by Egwene and Ninaeve) they set foot to Tar Valon, the home of the Aes Sedai where they will get help. Of course, things do not go according to plan.
Anyway, the characters. Rand was boring and the caricature of many heroes from this kind of story: he is different from others from his village, he lives alone with his father –that later on may not be his real father – and has powers that he didn’t know he had. Now he must battle with himself and with the dark powers to somehow come up intact from a battle he know he will probably lose (and we know he won’t because there are other 13 books out there). His problem, to me, was not being a stereotype, was just not being anything else but a stereotype. He lacked personality and was completely two-dimensional. Mat was even worse and his only strength was being a reckless idiot. Perrin was the one I liked the most and the one I think sees more character development, even though is not much.
The plot could have filled a three-hundred page book. Instead we get a 800-page book. I sincerely do not know why. Not much happens, the twists are all predictable, and we have lots of explanations for things that do not need explaining and lack of explanations for things that most certainly need explaining.
Now, the creatures of evil. I’m sad to say that none of them were particularly scary to me. Creatures names Trollocs do not make me scared, I just think they are hilarious (my five-year-old brain immediately though, the first time I saw the name: ‘oh bollocks, here come the Trollocs”. How can you take seriously something with that name?). And the Dark One himself was not terrifying in the slightest, especially because I knew how the book would end.
Overall, it was a nice tale, even though I found it extremely predictable. There were some nice elements to it and the world is interesting, but I could not get hooked by the story or the characters. However, I’m interested in knowing what is going to happen. I might give the other books a chance.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário