Eragon Summary

[kippurbird]

Well. Eldest is here. Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for a long ride. The book is 668 pages long.

As I'm at work, I shan't get into the book until later on this evening. However, skimming through it I have discovered a most interesting thing. There is a five page summary of Eragon before the actual story. It reads like a Previously in the Inheritance Trilogy... and I keep on imagining that TV announcer guy's voice reading it.

This I believe is an example of Paolini's immaturity as a writer. The fact that he needs to summarize the first book instead of being confident in his writing abilities to insert the necessary information into the narrative means that he hasn't developed his craft well enough. You shouldn't need to know what happened in the previous book to enjoy the second book. Yes, admittedly this is the second book in a trilogy but hundreds of trilogies have managed to do their second book without inserting a full recap of the first book in their novels.

It's not even the characters talking about or reflecting on recent/past events (something that Terry Goodkind tends to do)in the narrative but a full on recap. Doesn't Paolini think that we've read Eragon before picking up Eldest? And even if we haven't shouldn't the narrative, as mentioned earlier, be able to tell us what we need to know?

The fact that he needs to put this in, lets me know that the novel isn't starting out well at all. It tells me that the author is not trusting of his story to tell what has happened before. Which means that he doesn't trust himself to be able to tell what has happened before. If he doesn't trust his writing abilities, why should we the readers trust them?

It's something that I would expect a fan fiction writer to do, and in fact have seen them do. They write summaries of what has happened in their other fan fics to explain what will happen in the sequel. Thus reaffirm of the opinion that this story is nothing more that an overtly long fan fic in disguise.

Or on another point entirely it could be that Paolini doesn't trust his readers to know or remember what has happened before so he has to recap everything for them. It's as if the author doesn't trust his reader's intelligence (which, seeing some of Eragon's fans, I can see why) and has to spell everything out for them in large print with small words. Which also doesn't leave much confidence in the author.

Comments

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

Wheeee, Eldest sporking! *rubs hands gleefully together in anticipation*

Just remember to take frequent breaks, keep well hydrated, and read some good fiction every once in a while, lest you have a breakdown from the buildup of dreck. 668 pages is a lot of head-meet-wallage.

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

Also, have you seen this (http://galleries.shurtugal.com/displayimage.php?album=42&pos=4)?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yes. I saw that. I wish I hadn't.

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

I find it incredibly amusing (after getting over the incredibly disturbed phase). I mean, what a ponce! His mummy made that outfit for him, and it's not even historically accurate or even remotely cool-looking!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

His mom needs better taste. Either that or she likes making her son look like an idiot.

...oh that could be it.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I think it just shows how terribly out of touch and... off, his understanding of things is.

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

What the hell is he supposed to be?

[-youngblood-.livejournal.com]

That's a pic from before Knopf picked him up and he was going around from school to school promoting his self-published book. His mom made him that pseudo-Renaissance costume for his promotions.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yup, yup and yup. I plan to do all that.

[dragonwhishes.livejournal.com]

Kippur, I wish you so much luck.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I'll need it. And you'll be there to help me. Won't you? *clings to leg*

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think it's less if you do the recap, and more how you do it.

For example, I submit to you the Belgariad and Sparhawk books Each series contains no less than three books. As a recap method, The Eddings present a few pages written by a scholar or some chronicaler, and actually go so far as to give the recap the same sort of bias that the Chronicler might have. Personal impressions, opinions, that sort of thing.

So a recap isn't necessacarily bad, just how you do it.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Yes, but those would be part of the narrative as it's actually being spoken by characters in the world. This was just a Previously in the Inheritance Trilogy with no attempt to even make it apart of the narrative or disguise it as something that a scholar wrote.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Not to mention that the 'recaps' in the Belgariad were often not direct summaries, but were historical documents filling in details about how the world came to be, the history of a particular kingdom, etc. And even when it was a retelling of the story to date, it was definitely handled with some style.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

Yeah . . . and then Eddings went and burned down his garage. I don't think we'll be seeing that style again any time soon.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

... for a moment I thought that was a euphemism for how he lost the plot and started rehashing his stories... but no, he actually burned down his garage.

I think we'll be seeing it again, when he reuses the same plot yet again in his new Garbeliad stories.

[pandoras-closet.livejournal.com]

I doubt it. His wife died soon after the burning down and she was pretty much one half of the writing team. At best, he might finish the Dreamers, but that's about it.

[jacedraccus.livejournal.com]

Yeah, true...

Actually, far as I know, Dreamers is finished, has been for a while. It was pretty disappointing, actually. Biggest deus ex machina I've ever seen.

[canadianevil.livejournal.com]

Haha, you're screwed.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

So are you, as I'm going to be bitching about it while I read it to you.

[canadianevil.livejournal.com]

Yes, but this just means that I don't actually have to read it. Hurray!

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

:P

[canadianevil.livejournal.com]

^_^

[kaerran.livejournal.com]

I just have to say that in one of the sets of LOTR that I've read are recaps of the previous books. So it's not necessarily the author's fault, it might be the publisher's.

Then again, knowing Paolini, it's probably his fault anyway.

[kaerran.livejournal.com]

That should be *have*. *headdesk*

[odclay.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but in TT the recap of FotR takes up a page and a half, and in RotK the summary of the previous books is slightly longer than three. Whereas Eragon, a much simpler story, needs a five-page summary. How much longer will the summary in the third book be, especially considering how almost nothing important happened?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

The recaps weren't written by the authors. This was written by Paolini in Paolini's style, but completely devoid of any connection to the following narrative. And it's five pages long.

[(Anonymous)]

The recap is actually not terribly uncommon, especially in a)fantasy series in which b)the books come out well apart (years, for instance) from one another. As mentioned above, it's primarily a question of how, although I think the handling of the method is more important than the acual selection of the method itself. For instance, the books where, on page five, it talks about how "as he languished in the cell, he thought about how he'd gotten there. It had all begun when..." simply disgust me. Then again, I typically don't read the recap sections anyway, as I either trust that the main body of the novel will remind me of enough or have read the previous one recently enough.

[frodo-harry.livejournal.com]

Good luck with the sporking of this piece of dreck *Hands her the complete works of J.R.R Tolkien, Terry Pratchett and Rowling to keep you sane while sporking* If you need anything else Bleeprin, painkillers or chocolate, you just have to ask.Brave brave sporker. May Elbereth keep you save.

I can't wait for more of your delicious sporking. They make my day. I have to check your profile every day now. SPROK THE HECK OUT OF ERAGON. My spell check always wants to change Eragon back to Dragon and Aragorn. Well is that a surprise.

Frodo_harry

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

My writing is going to take an interesting turn if I read Tolkien while reading Eldest. It'd like implode or something. Hah.

But thank you for the goodies. :D

[sonic-sues.livejournal.com]

Good luck. You are much braver than I am. I won't even touch Eragon.