I can’t believe I ever had the patience for this
Cover Artist: John Jude Palencar
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Christopher Paolini’s Eragon. I read the book over and over, got the movie on DVD so I could see it again and again, and even had the GameBoy Advance game that was too difficult for me, but it didn’t matter because when I got to the hard part, I would just restart the game from the beginning.
My love wasn’t meant to last, though; despite my obsession, I never finished the series, and I pretty much forgot about it until last year when Christopher Paolini returned to the world of Eragon with his spin-off/sequel, Murtagh. When I received a copy of Murtagh from a similarly obsessed-at-the-time friend (hi David!), I decided that I would revisit the series I once loved so much and finish it this time so that I could dive into Murtagh fully caught up.
To summarise my experience with Eragon: I generally enjoyed it. The elements it derives from more popular series are glaring, and there were some pacing issues towards the end, but it was an easy read written with passion despite a lack of experience.
Cousin Roran
Eldest picks up in the immediate aftermath of Eragon. Eragon has to travel north to train with the elves to become a Dragon Rider powerful enough to face off against the evil emperor Galbatorix (an evil emperor name if I ever heard one). Meanwhile back in his home village of Carvahall, Eragon’s cousin Roran faces his own challenges as he becomes a wanted man because of his association with Eragon.
Roran’s adventure is the best part of the book. There’s more tension in the escalating situation in Carvahall than anywhere else in the story. Roran faces a genuine moral quandary—in resisting the empire’s attempts to capture him, he places his entire village in danger. The more he resists, the worse the consequences are for the people he loves.
There are moments in this storyline that are cribbed wholesale from one of the most famous storylines in The Wheel of Time (Roran is essentially a watered-down version of Perrin from that series; from the hammer, to the beard, to defending his hometown from invasion) but the narrative does eventually deviate into a semblance of originality, which is where things get the most interesting.
Dragon Fever
As enjoyable as the Roran sequences are, we spend vastly more time with Eragon, the series’ primary protagonist, for better or worse (mostly worse). Eragon’s storyline is, simply put, a total drag. I kept waiting for the plot to kick in—what was this book actually going to be about?
Turns out, the book’s about Eragon looking at pretty scenery and learning lore.
The first book was a race for survival—Eragon and his mentor Brom were fleeing the monstrous Ra’zac for pretty much the whole story, with deviations for prison breaks, meetings with mysterious strangers and near-death experiences. Eldest, on the other hand, comes nowhere close to that level of excitement. Nothing happens. For five-hundred pages, Eragon spends his time training and pining over an elf that he fancies for no real reason other than Paolini felt the need to include a romance subplot.
It's an absolute slog, made worse by the total lack of originality on display. As a kid who hadn’t read much fantasy, this world felt real and exciting. Now it just feels like Middle-Earth-Lite. I’m not dinging Paolini too much on this—he was young when he wrote this book, and for the young readers the book is primarily aimed at, this won’t be an issue—but did leave me gasping for a sip of anything that didn’t feel like Lord of the Rings fanfiction.
I guess my biggest issue by far though, is with Eragon’s characterisation. He doesn’t feel like a real person. I can feel Paolini’s hand in every sweeping emotional outburst Eragon displays. Essentially, he behaves exactly how you’d expect him to at every single turn, which is incredibly boring. There’s no nuance in his introspections, no subtlety in his actions. His romantic feelings for the elf Arya are so obnoxious and infantile that you’ll be intermittently forced to put the book down for a dose of refreshing reality.
Conclusion
Reading Eldest is like playing with a wind-up toy. Every input leads to the exact output you’d expect. Sometimes the toy veers left, sometimes the toy veers right, but there are no surprises, and even when the toy threatens to fall off the table, you don’t really care.
Am I going to continue the series? Yes. As woeful as this book often is, I can’t help but wonder how the overall narrative will play out. Like I mentioned, Roran is an interesting character, and it looks like there are some major threats on the horizon that hopefully will provide some thrills.
There’s also a perverse joy in reading a series where you kind of hate the main character. Here’s to Eragon’s premature demise in book three.
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