(no subject)

[entelein]

OK, so: reading a few more pages of Eragon, we get to the part where the traveling merchants clear their stalls away after a day of hard selling, and the troubadors come in and do their merry-making thing, y'know, to the delight and rapture of the poor mountain folk who are at a loss to create entertainment for themselves.

And the old, weathered bard comes forth at the last, and tells a tale of a Dragon Rider Gone Bad, and he was So Bad, that he killed his former friends, betraying from within their little group of fearsome Riders. In his mightiest battle before becoming Completely Bad, he kicks a guy in the balls, and then decapitates him.

And then the Villagers, Sad and Weary, and some with Tears Upon Their Cheeks, wandered slowly off to ponder such a story of Darkness.

I really don't know how much more I can take of this.

Comments

[coffeejedi.livejournal.com]

he was a good mystical knight with magic powers, and we went bad and killed the other ones... he didn't happen to fall into a volcano during a duel with his teacher and get turned into a cyborg, did he?

[thunderclap8.livejournal.com]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thunderclap8.livejournal.com]

also, Wikipedia points out the same thing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eragon#Critical_reaction_and_rebuttal

[coffeejedi.livejournal.com]

that should be "HE went bad", not "WE went bad", it was not any kind of Gollum-esque Freudian slip based on my avatar.... really, seriously.... shutup

[scarpe-scrappy.livejournal.com]

Well, it was written by a teenage boy.

The nut-kicking makes more sense in that context.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I can get that - I mean, the bard totally cops to it being a totally underhanded thing to do, but omg, the raucous laughter from my office as the villagers were all somber afterwards!

"O, hey nonny nonny, done gone donkey punched the jewels. O, hey nonny, fa la la la, we are now plunged into darkness."

[clayfoot.livejournal.com]

The dramatic impact is breathtaking, simply breathtaking.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Literally!

[gupfee.livejournal.com]

Just wait until you make it to Eldest (if you get that far). It's choked with pages of made-up Dwarvish and Elven that is pretty much unpronouncable, even with the guide in the back. When we got to the many-paged conversation in Dwarvish, I just showed M the pages and told her she could read it herself later if she wanted, but there was no way I was working through that gobbledygook out loud.

I think the remarkable thing about Eragon is that it was written by a 15 year old. I can't imagine putting together a story that long and complex when I was 15.

Unfortunately, it's a 15-year-old's mishmash of high fantasy a la Tolkien, but it's a pretty decent children's book (all the 10 year olds at my daughter's school are big fans.) I don't understand why adults criticize a book that is patently for kids, as if it is an adult fantasy.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

I don't understand why adults criticize a book that is patently for kids, as if it is an adult fantasy.

I really love kid lit. I have all the Harry Potters, Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) is my secret boyfriend, I own the special two-ink version of Neverending Story, and I even purchased all the Edward Eager magic books, when I was very very poor. Good kid lit helped me a lot as a shy kid. I fed on stuff that was smart, that didn't talk down to me, inspired me to become a better writer/artist myself.

I read it now for the same reasons - I like recapturing the part of myself, to remember what it was like to anticipate change and to experience wonder. It's part and parcel of my furious love for good ARGs.

I spoke to the basis for my criticism with this:

It's very self-indulgent writing, isn't it, when someone tells you all the time what a character meant when he snorted abruptly, or turned on his heel? Are we so stupid as readers that we need to be told this, in every instance? Or have it re-phrased for us in the next paragraph, as if we were goldfish with no capacity for memory?

Part of me, the little devil's advocate that almost always turns up useless, says, "Well, this is not exactly adult fiction. This book was in the Young Adult section."

To the tiny demonic voice I reply, "That's no excuse. Kids are a lot smarter than we ever give them credit for. How are they ever to learn nuance and brevity if they only read stuff that is designed to spoon-feed their emotions? They will grow up to be bossy know-it-alls. They will learn that blather is a weapon. They will never delight in zen, in a moment bare of explanation."

I ain't gonna fault anyone else for reading it, and liking it. I might take weephun's advice and just glide through it, even though it's really difficult to keep from picking out very obvious elements from Paolini's own reading/viewing list, and it tends to take me out of the story. I've been looking for escapism on the train, not nitpicking.

[melange428.livejournal.com]

A good kids' book holds up. You can read it at 12 and go back to it two, six, fifteen years later and still recognize it as a good novel. A truly great kids' novel can be enjoyed by people of many different ages. No one who loves Eragon at 12 will go back at 16 or 20 and say, wow! what an amazing book! I can say this with some authority because I work at a children's bookstore and we've got many, many teenage customers who wouldn't touch Eldest with a ten foot pole because they went to reread Eragon first and couldn't believe they'd ever thought it was a good book.

Adults criticize a book that is patently for kids because kids deserve to read books that aren't derivative crap. I've read better fanfiction than Eragon. I read most of the fantasy published for kids, and the majority of it is well-written and enjoyable. Eragon just sucks.

[gupfee.livejournal.com]

Geez, do we have to pull out the LIT-ah-ruh-ture argument? I'm not arguing that there is or isn't better stuff out there. Of course there is. For a kid's book, Eragon is not that bad. Captain Underpants is a piece of crap, but kids love it. A few years ago everyone was up in arms about Goosebumps and how badly they sucked as books. Didn't stop kids from devouring them.

Another thing is how well boys respond to the Paolini books. They as an audience are very hard to retain, and it's crucial to keep them reading, especially at the age range that Paolini appeals to.

The reality is, anything that makes a kid pick up a book and read (especially 500+ pages!) is OK by me. I don't care if it's comic books, Captain Underpants, Eragon, or R.L. Stine.

After all, adults don't read Austen and Trollope all the time. :P

[entelein.livejournal.com]

I don't think desiring good kid lit makes anyone here a snob.

Just sayin'.


*turns up her Ace of Base*

*runs away*

[gupfee.livejournal.com]

I didn't call anyone a snob! Don't put words in my mouth!

*chases K with a water gun*

[entelein.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know, it's not worth getting our collective panties in a wad over, I know, but then what was "LIT-ah-ruh-ture" for, then? You didn't use the word "snob," but you sure as heck implied it!

I don't claim to want books to be high art. I want them readable. Eragon distracts me so damned much.

*applies sponges to self, arms herself with Toffee Blaster*

[thunderclap8.livejournal.com]

Excuse me while I stand and applaud.

Ever consider becoming a librarian? :)

[gupfee.livejournal.com]

Haha, actually yes, for about five minutes until I saw how long it took and how expensive getting an MLS was, and how low the payscale for entry-level librarians was to go along with it. It's like teaching--you go into it because you love it, I'm sure. I didn't love the idea that much. :)

[weephun.livejournal.com]

fluff book. great reading for a really lazy christmas at my mom's house. don't try to take it serious. The instant I started to actually pay attention to the details in it, it got ugly. Then I reminded myself .. fluff vacation fantasy reading ... aaaaaahhhh.

[clayfoot.livejournal.com]

But why? Life is short. You could be reading something you couldn't bear to put down. If the book just isn't holding up, why finish it?

[entelein.livejournal.com]

It is a question for the ages. Well, at least it's a question for Monday, February 27, 2006.

[thajinx.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure that's accurate either, because we'll probably only wonder for a few hours. A day constitutes 24 of them.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

This book is 509 pages. It could certainly take up a day's worth of angst with the ball-kicking ALONE.

[thajinx.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm not the one willingly torturing myself here.

[weephun.livejournal.com]

Eh, my wife bought it for me for Christmas, so it was worth the time for me to read and enjoy.

[clayfoot.livejournal.com]

Well, that's at least a micro age... or, a nano age, perhaps.

[tunaman.livejournal.com]

I heard that they're making a movie of that book. I think now I want to see it, because I think the part where he kicks a guy in the balls and then decapitates him would totally translate well to the silver screen.

[thajinx.livejournal.com]

Thanks, Gabe.

[entelein.livejournal.com]

I'll treat for Junior Mints.

[clayfoot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it reminds me of something a youth counselor used to tell us:

Counselor: "Get off the back of my truck! I've killed for less."

Me: "Oh... What do you for more?"

Counselor (pondering): "Uh... maimed and killed."

Re: movie

[shad-0.livejournal.com]

Jeremy Irons and John Malkovich, yet.

[melange428.livejournal.com]

Honestly, if thinking Eragon is a piece of shit (and its author a self-righteous little snotbag, at least when I met him) makes me a snob, then bring on the Snob Train and let me find my seat. Captain Underpants, despite being decidedly Not My Thing, is very well done for what it is. R.L. Stine (or whoever it actually is) can string a sentence together, and his new "Mostly Ghostly" series is pretty cute. There's a difference between fluff and well-written fluff, a difference between fluff that you came up with on your own and fluff that you blatantly stole from everything you've ever read because you're 14 years old and don't know any better and somehow got lucky. (Anyone want to see the book I wrote that's a complete ripoff of the Dragonriders of Pern?)

For a kids' book, Eragon is terrible, at least as far as the writing is concerned.

[gupfee.livejournal.com]

Again, I called no one a snob. I'm just saying that Eragon fulfills a role in kidlit, and it doesn't need to be high art to do so.

[pencat.livejournal.com]

You could just.. not finish :)

[tombking.livejournal.com]

So I peek at amazon to see what the book is, look at all the ratings sorted by lowest first. This seems to be more enjoyable than reading the book.

I've got into about a forth of the book and I can't read any more! I think I'll bore myself to death! My parents forced me to read this,

Cliches! Useless descriptions of /lamps/! An 'ancient language' that sounds like a dying furby!

The only thing good about this book is the artwork on the book jacket.

Get a can of Lord of the Rings and pour it in a big pot.
Add a couple of handfuls of Star Wars, a dash of Earthsea,and a pinch of Harry Potter
Stir together until not very well mixed.
Dump in a large bag of obscure adjectives.
Pour in a carton of monotony and useless description
Mix until mixture resembles throwup
Pour into pan and bake until charcoal and smelly

Decorate nicely
Ask your parents to market it
Go on a giant sales tour, bragging about age and Tolkienism
Promise a thrilling trilogy

Watch people devour your cake but run away before you see them throw up - then ignore any and all advice that might help you to make a better recipe and continue stirring up the same unedible slop.

No I think I will avoid this book, it seems to be about as much fun as hitting oneself in the head with a ballpeen hammer.

[trism.livejournal.com]

So the kid was 15. What's Terry Brooks' excuse?