[Reading] I'm going to make a few enemies here...

[jon_chaisson]

I got about twenty or so pages into Christopher Paolini's Eragon and I had to put it down. Now, don't get me wrong, I thought the premise was good, but the style was just irritating me too much to want to continue.

I have to admit it's for two reasons, one of style and one for selfish reasons. First it annoyed me because, yes, I know it was written when he was what--fifteen or sixteen?--and yes, I know it's basically a kid's book, but it still bothered me that it read like a writer who really hadn't learned his chops yet. How do I know this? Because the style of writing is very much what my style sounded like when I wrote at that age. Very much along the lines of:

Character did this. He went there. He looked like this. He was wearing that. He thought this.

Next paragraph: Character thought this. He said something to someone.

Next paragraph...and so on.

Just very sparse, three-sentence paragraphs and a lot of boring noun-verb sentences. I really wish I could have gotten into it more, but it was just too damn frustrating to read.

Which brings me to the selfish reason: Hell, I wrote and the finished version of the IWN at that age back in 1987. Had I but known Eragon would get past the editors, that damn novel would have been finished and out of my head YEARS ago. ;)

Comments

A different POV on Eragon and Eldest (bot not disagreeing)

[sleeping-dragon.livejournal.com]

I can't say I minded Eragon, and I thought Eldest was interesting. Yes, he's clearly immature as a writer, and a human being, and yes, he clearly rips off Tolkien and many others, but I wasn't reading it to see if it was the next HP or some amazing work of brilliance. I was reading it because it was mindless fluff for a study break. I suspect my utter lack of expectations had a lot to do with the fact that I enjoyed it. Would I want that series to be my only reading material on a desert island? No. Hell, no. But it definitely worked as mindless fluff for a study break. Like the Alex Rider books - not exactly literature, but fun and enjoyable nonetheless. And, for the record, I probably will buy the last one when it comes out, if only to find out how the story ends...