I’m going to tell you up-front that I didn’t hate Brisingr by Christopher Paolini – probably a 2 or 2.5 on a scale of 1 to 5. Just to remove any tension you might have been feeling about that.
However . . .
(*************Spoiler alert********* – I’m going to discuss several specific plot points and may even give away the ending of the book, so avert your eyes if you haven’t read it yet and plan to)
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I do have problems with Brisingr.
1. Plot points
a.) When Eragon and Murtagh are fighting, Eragon tells Murtagh that he can escape Galbatorix’s hold by changing his character/real name. But later, when Oromis tells Eragon that Selena (Eragon’s mother) defied her binding oath of fealty to Morzan, Eragon asks how she could have turned against him. Of course, Oromis explains exactly what Eragon had previously explained to Murtagh. I know Eragon isn’t too smart, and seems to forget a lot of things, but come on!
b.) Another one that really doesn’t make sense (maybe someone can explain it to me – I’m definitely not good at political manipulations, so perhaps I am missing the whole point) is when Orik asks Eragon to support his claim to become king of the dwarves. Eragon waffles, and tells him “If I do, my support might turn the other clans against you. Not only will you be asking your people to ally themselves with the Varden, you will be asking them to accept a Dragon Rider as one of their own, which they have never done before and I doubt they will want to now.”
The problems I see with this reasoning are:
i.) The previous dwarf king, whom Orik is heir to, *already* adopted Eragon as part of the clan, making him “one of their own”, i.e., a dwarf by adoption; and thus part of the dwarf community as a whole. Orik even says that the only way the adoption can be undone is if Orik as clan chief banishes Eragon.
ii.) If Eragon’s support is going to turn the other clans against Orik, why would his support of a different clan’s candidate be helpful to that candidate? I mean, the point is that they don’t like what Eragon stands for, and so they won’t support Orik if Eragon is supporting him. If Eragon were supporting a different candidate, then nobody who was opposed to Eragon would support that candidate, right? (So really, to get Orik elected, Eragon’s support of a different candidate might alienate enough voters from that candidate that Orik would win; so by supporting a different candidate, he’d really be supporting Orik, wouldn’t he?)
These are just two major plot issues (I didn’t keep a list of all the questionable points) – if someone can convince me that I’m wrong, I’m willing to change my mind…
2. Show me!
Eliza Doolittle sings to Freddie – “Tell me no dreams filled with desire, if you’re on fire, show me!”
This isn’t at all related to Eragon’s calf-love for Arya. This is railing against the fact that we spend too much time in Eragon’s (and everyone else’s) head.
Paolini tells us, in detail, every little thought and emotion that flits through the transom of Eragon’s thick skull. Give your readers a little credit – SHOW us what he thinks by his actions; let us use our brains to read your message without spelling out exactly what we’re supposed to think and believe about every little thing.
We’re smart – we don’t need detailed instructions on how to read your characters. If anything, this shows Paolini’s immaturity as a writer in that a) he feels the need to control exactly how we perceive his characters and messages and/or b) that he doesn’t know *how* to write without just flat-out telling us what he wants us to know.
Why is Wuthering Heights so compelling, with two such unlikeable main characters? Because we have to think about what is going on in their minds, try to figure out why they do the things they do, how the tragic situation came to be, and what is going to happen next.
3. Yeah, I could see that coming a mile away
And that leads into my next gripe – how predictable! This covers two aspects:
a) I was mostly unsurprised at any of the “twists” or “turns” of the plot. Heavy-handed foreshadowing and plotlines that echo thousands of previous stories make it hard to avoid running headlong into the brick wall of been there, read that.
The thing is, most stories are the same, having been told and retold – the important thing is the journey. Lots of writers can tell a story in a fresh way, with characters that are captivating (whether we like them or not). Paolini hasn’t reached that point yet.
and b) The races (Elves, Dwarves, Humans, Dragons, etc.) are straight out of stereotype. I mean, I played characters like these when I started playing D&D over 30 (OMG!) years ago. There have been plenty of good variations on these races in the mountain of fantasy literature written over the years; and there will no doubt be plenty more to come. I don’t consider Paolini’s take to be a variation.
On this point, however, I think that the age of the intended audience might slightly ameliorate the use of stereotypes – perhaps many of the younger readers who haven’t read as much fantasy as those of us who’ve been around for a while will get their first taste of Elves, Dwarves, etc. from these books – hey, they might even think that Tolkien stole his ideas from Paolini. . .
And *this* leads into the next topic:
4. Characterization? What characterization?
The stereotypes are also spread throughout the rest of the cast. The evil dudes are stereotypical evil dudes, the monsters/sort-of allies are stereoptypical monsters/sort-of allies, the villagers are stereotypical villagers, ad nauseum. The use of stereotypes in lieu of characterization is definitely a sign of a writer who doesn’t have the depth of skills to show us individual characters through his writing.
The agonizing done by Eragon and Roren over their killing of enemies isn’t a bad idea, but it is extremely uneven. Eragon’s in particular was so much like an afterthought (oh yeah, I’m supposed to make sure readers know just how human and vulnerable he is), and was like a mantle that he would put on and take off, that it just didn’t convince me. Roren was a little bit better, and probably of all the characters is the one that I thought was the most realistic (notice I qualified that – sort of like “mostly harmless”). Katrina is basically just a sperm recipient.
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Let’s see – on the positive side, I didn’t throw the book across the room with cursing and exclamations of disgust (I have done that before, although usually I’ll just put the book down and back away if it is really atrocious).
It did keep my interest, and I am no doubt going to read the next episode. In all fairness, I was pretty impressed with Eragon when it first came out, based on the age of the author. Paolini has potential, and he writes well in many ways. I hope that he grows as a writer to fit his ideas – the basic framework is there, the execution, not so much.
