Enjoying the Journey
An Essay on The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
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“Journey before Destination” – Brandon Sanderson, author who finished The Wheel of Time series, following Robert Jordan, the original author’s death.
What a journey. The Wheel of Time is my favorite book series of all time. That may be a statement I change later in life, for life is change, but I knew during my first read through how much this series was impacting me. And the opening quote was not there to dismiss the destination either. The ending of the Wheel of Time is perhaps the most satisfying ending to a series I’ve read. The only one which may exceed it is The Lord of the Rings, though that comes with an entirely different flavor.
I’ll apologize at the outset of this essay. It may contain a bit more gushing than I usually do in these writings. This is the series that lead to my first tattoo after all. But what is life if not reveling in the enjoyment of the things we love?
Last November I was in a dark place. There were a lot of wonderful things happening in my life, but everything, good and bad, piled up in the same few weeks and the “black dog” appeared in a manner that I had a very hard time leashing. Out of this, I decided to return to a world where I had found so much comfort and solace, a world that I could truly dive into, where I knew so much of the history and design, but could still relive the story of. I returned to Emond’s Field, to Rand and Mat and Perrin, Egwene and Nynaeve, Moraine and Lan. I returned to the Wheel of Time, and I was home.
The first time I began the Eye of the World I did not get far. It took multiple tries, as well as a friend buying me a copy – he should have said “first hit is free” – for me to donate enough time to get through the first few chapters and into the major inciting incident of the series. The road to Winternight, where the main characters’ lives change forever, and their journey begins was a struggle I’m glad I powered through. Now, I found so much enjoyment in those early chapters. The lives of those that live in the Two Rivers make me so much happier and fill me with a melancholy I did not expect. There is so much that happens to these characters, these people, that they do not know about. Not everyone survives, and no one comes out unscathed, but it does not take away from the moments at the beginning, where their world is wonderful in a way that they don’t even know.
I put on the same music I listened to as I read the book the first time, and settled into a world at once familiar and with still so much to reveal.
There is a lot to dislike about the Wheel of Time. Quite a bit of the criticism towards the series is valid. But it all pales when placed against the wonder of the journey. There are a lot of words across the fifteen books, but I don’t think I’d delete a one (Even in book 10, by far my least favorite) …. Ok maybe, I’d delete quite a few, but that’s not for me to decide. I still love the series with all its overdescription. There is a tactility to the world that you only really get through the length of the series. I’ve only ever found it matched in Dune – which coincidentally, Robert Jordan took quite a bit of inspiration from.
But, I’m getting ahead of myself. We can talk about the series and all of its wonders as I get to each installment on my reread. Once I publish this essay, I hope the reread is far more concrete, and that I commit to finishing it. I’ve wanted to reread this series so badly and here’s my excuse. The journey of The Wheel of Time is a grand one, but it is not one to speed through, and so here we are: At the Eye of the World.
I don’t know of a singular book out there which introduces a series so well, while being as complete as this book is.
There is so much depth to The Eye of the World that it is almost overwhelming upon a reread. Prophesy and legend fill the series to the brim, but rarely to the extent of this first book. There are stories and snippets which don’t pay off until the very final book. Some of these, I’m sure were closer to the J.J. Abrams “mystery box” type of foreshadowing, where an author places a mystery with little planning and fulfills the solution when forced to in a later book – looking at you “lord of chaos” - but I doubt many of these were.
There is so much planning to the world, so much that Robert Jordan knows, even here in the first book, which the audience can only guess at.
This book is a journey. It and the book which follows may be the two most straightforward journeys in the series. You’ve heard the tale before a farmboy (or three in this case) live their normal lives in a quaint town beyond sight of the greater world, forgotten. When evil attacks their town, something about these boys is the cause of it. They must flee, reluctantly of course, and journey out into the greater world lest their home, and maybe the world, be destroyed.
What makes The Eye of the World different is the world and the people. These are not simply characters. Somehow, Jordan took what could have been simply archetypes and elevated them beyond characters into something greater. Each person in this world has their own story, their own life, which we, and the characters we’re closest with, may only see a glimpse of. They have a name and a history. They make up the cultures of each place across the world. Countries as diverse as those of our own world, sometimes simplified to caricature in our main characters’ POV, but never quite simple.
This is a long book, but the pace rarely ceases. Each chapter brings a new facet of the world to light, something unexpected or unknown. Through the familiar façade of fantasy, there is a lot that will be familiar, but nothing will be truly the same as you’ve seen it before.
This book is a journey though, and not every point of a journey is thrilling. Not every moment is exciting and action packed. Sometimes those calmer moments, the moments without “plot” or between the rush of the adventure, are the best ones. These are the moments that you sink into the pages, not into a story but into a world. You leave your comfortable chair or bus seat and enter a world of Aes Sedai, Trollocs, and people with so much more to them than good or evil.
It is a journey I’ve enjoyed starting again. One can never step in the same river twice, but that shouldn’t stop us from crossing it anyway.
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Max