Eragon – 1/5
Eragon - 1/5 … but only because I don’t give zeroes.
Literature is not like the Special Olympics. You don’t get points just for trying and not everybody is a winner.
This is true for everyone except, apparently, Christopher Paolini. He is a winner in the same way that Dan Brown is a My Pet Rock winner for fad o’ the nonce, or the Lemony Snickets are for the Must Find the Next Potter land grab.
The backstory behind Eragon is a whole lot more interesting than the book itself. Paolini wrote the book as a 15 year old. Apparently the “good job kid” pat on the head turned into massive number of book orders by a desperate publisher. Too bad they didn’t choose a book worth publishing.
Want to know how bad it is? Here’s the first sentence:
Wind howled through the night, carrying a scent that would change the world.
That’s right, people, a scent is going to change the world. Only it turns out not to be the scent that changes the world at all. Shocking misdirection or amateur hour at the word processor, you make the call.
In the realm of literature, as defined by the words you can read on the page in front of you, works are judged by what is on those pages rather than the backstory of the author. There was no reason for the utter piece of tripe to be published. Ever. In anything outside of a vanity publishing house. Where Paolini’s parents paid.
Look, the book shows that Paolini is a decent writer for a 15 year old. He can construct sentences fairly well and the grammar is straightforward (simplistic would be my term, but then “you’re picking on a 15 year old!” comes into play). I admire the dedication it took for this home schooled geek to create and finish his novel.
But that’s as far as it goes. Outside of the proper sentence construction, there is nothing to recommend this book. At all. There is not one ounce of originality, interest, arc, insight, or vision evident. There is no character development. There is inconsistent and frequently poor writing. There is no motivation. There is a book written by someone who would feel right at home on a TV action series or any recent Hollywood offering (motto: “where plot creates the characters, not vice versa!”)
Every plot device, every being that populates Paolini’s world is lifted from some other fantasy book, Tolkien most of all. Even the main character’s name – Eragon – is dangerously close to a straight life of Tolkien’s “Aragorn” (not to mention one letter from “dragon”). You’ve got elves who came from across the sea, and who are the fair folk, and the best the world has to offer. Dwarves live underground with towns that are one letter removed from actual places in Norway. None of the races were native to this continent. The Mystical Mark makes an appearance. And pretty much every other cliche in the fantasy universe, yadda yadda yadda. The writing is not that remarkable either – I was a better writer at age 15, and I’m nothing on the literature scale. The best I can come up with is that this book exemplifies the middlebrow lowered expectations of the modern pop lit market. It’s depressing, really.
Paolini may develop an original vision or may actually prove to be an astute observer of human nature and interactions at some point, but if so, as evidenced by Eragon, that day is long in the future. Life’s too short to waste my time reading crap, so I will not be reading the rest of the series (too bad I already bought the second one stupid Costco fad pushers).
As a (home) school project, Eragon would get you an A for the semester. As a work of literature, it makes a great doorstop. I strongly advise against shelling out cash for this book.