brisingr? I loathed it.
okay, "loathe" in all its glory may be a little heavy-handed. I extraordinarily disliked brisingr. why? well...
**SPOILERS AHEAD**
- the terrible, ponderous, annoying, too-many-adjectives writing.
I mean, see how obnoxious that is? what about this phrase: "[the word hung in the air,] a verbal monolith of ambivalence."
...what the heck?
and how many times did the dude use "ambivalence"!? I want to bang him over the head with a thesaurus.
- the "jokes".
I have plenty of experience with this, and you know it. I have great pity for CP, but I'm also really irritated with him for dragging me through "witty" "conversations" between eragon and saphira. in my family, we have a saying: if it isn't funny, it isn't a joke. I examine CP through this lens and find him lacking.
(we do make an exception for the lydia bennet use. "what's he doing [trying to write something worth reading]?! what a joke!")
- the proliferate battle scenes.
(they killed me.)
thank you, O master of the brilliant and original descriptions, for helping me to experience yet another 100,000 pages of
yeah, I can't even think of anything sarcastic enough to do it justice.
- magic (?!?!?!?!?)
I utterly understand and can accept: this book has magic as a major part of the plot, it is generally consistent, and it has limits that make sense within the story. that said. what the heck is the reason for the eternal use of it? I got very tired of the [insert magic here] device. what is this, jack and annie traveling through time in their flying tree house, or something? ...or something, for sure.
- I loved how eragon matures into a wise, unselfish, thoughtful young man due to his varied experience and the sad necessity of acting like an adult. except I'm just kidding because the only change I read about was a change of shirt around, like, page 400.
over the series eragon goes from immature, inexperienced farm boy to immature, inexperienced magic ...elfperson and "Dragon Rider" (because creative titles are obviously christopher paolini's strong point). but that's not development, and what is supposed to count as "development" is choppy, because CP likes to tell us, flat out, what changed. WHY?! let us see eragon maturing. like, see him get to the point where he's able to handle any responsibility or difficulty without, like, blowing up. which never, like, actually happens. even blatantly. CP has obviously immersed himself in fantasy, but apparently he hasn't even read strunk & white. I'd gladly send him one of my own ...three... copies, if I thought he'd read it and apply it. hahahahahahaha.
I'm an optimist. maybe CP sticks a sentence in book 4 somewhere saying that "after a lot of hard work, eragon didn't get frustrated with other, ordinary people's stupidity" or something. but why do I doubt it? (let me count the ways.) in brisingr, he hasn't even learned that continuing to obsess over your elvish choochie-face when she's made it clear over the LAST 700 pages of book that she's not interested ...just isn't cute anymore. (at least we just didn't have to read about his morning shaving routine in this one. thank heaven for small favors.)
- I only read the stinking book because of murtagh, to be honest.
no, seriously, I almost thought about liking him once. he was conflicted -- girls flip for conflicted guys -- and I was like, oh cool, here's somebody a little less predictable.
*enormous sigh*
unpredictable, my foot. it's obvious from, dare I say, every interaction between the two dudes-whose-relationship-is-forever-changing, that murtagh the good-at-heart will eventually break free from galbatorix's spell because, oh horrors, we couldn't have any important character be lost to us forever, could we????? *tears hair in frustration* oh the humanity!!!
- a short sidetrack on death: I found myself smh over the cripple-who-is-whole and, in the synopsis of #4, islanzadi. for all the battles, CP has precious few people die, and it seems like the mark of a weak author when he can't use death as a compelling plot device. (which reminds me. the lady who hates roran. she shows up once in brisingr. ONCE, for crying out loud! wouldn't she be a little more active in her hate?? I was all, kill them! kill them all, mwahahaha! but no one ever listens to me.)
having oromis and glaedr die, leaving eragon mentor-less, seemed promising (except for the fact, as other people have also noted, that we weren't there to witness their deaths which is terrible, terrible, terrible execution. ...pun intended). I'm not sure how CP worked that into inheritance, but I originally optimized to myself, "it could force eragon to have to mature and learn that even dragon riders make mistakes and that he needs to be humble enough to learn from other people." why would that happen, though?? because eragon is obviously going to be the same immature, moody teenager when he leaves ala-whatever whom he was when he discovered the funky stone in garrow's backyard. *sighs heavily for so much wasted potential*
- too many incredibly frustrating relationships.
I've already said what I thought about eragon and arya. (I'll say it again. noNOnoNOnoNO.)
roran + katrina = SO fake! I got really eye-roll-y at the mushy parts.
I liked that eragon and murtagh were full brothers. it gave eragon something to work through and overcome within himself. he wasn't swayed to evil even before he knew who his father was, so I was like, that's a neat twist, there's so much room for character development here, and there's hope for murtagh, too. BUT OF COURSE CP has to SURPRIIIIIISE! make eragon's father someone you're supposed to like and look up to and appreciate. arrrrgggghhhh. *rips out hair in clumps*
it's like CP couldn't handle the idea that eragon had "bad blood" in him or something. what, he can't be a good guy unless his father was a good guy? no, I know that's technically not what he was saying, but that's the way it looks, and besides, it's just irritating. I hated that then there had to be all this justification for eragon even being brom's child; "oh they considered themselves married" and "selena wasn't more like galbatorix's consort than wife".... that just bothered me. be okay with it, or don't, but don't do this weird let's-make-everyone-in-the-right-except-for-the-mean-dictator stuff. it didn't hang together, it didn't make a lot of sense, and my head hurt by the end from all the attempts to suspend disbelief.
- at least aragorn didn't have a dragon.
others have commented on this, and I'm sure no one wants to hear my badly-articulated viewpoint. I still have to say it: what is with all the LOTR stuff?? stuff, as in: characters, names, themes, I-am-j. r. r.-tolkien complex. can't you even come up with YOUR OWN CREATURES??? *pulls hair wildly* slapping a new name (hypothetically, urgals) on some pre-existent, imaginary creatures (hypothetically, orcs)
- I had to wade through SEVEN. HUNDRED. AND FORTY. NINE. PAGES of this.
I really don't think I need to expand on this one. pun.
- christopher paolini makes all homeschoolers look bad, and I resent this imputation on my character.
now that I'm bald from all the hair-ripping, I can only swear at him. YOU HIPPOPOTAMIC LAND MASS! I hope you go back to being homeless, friendless, brainless, and unemployed, in greenland!!! warthog-faced buffoon!! hopeless souse!! silly git!!
well, that felt awesome.
- what I liked about the book:
- saphira actually had a comment that made me laugh. of course, I can't remember what it was, and whoops, the book's been returned to the library, but there was that one comment. woohoo, let's all make sure to mark our calendars.
- I liked that this book reminded me of all the real literature that exists. no, it's not all like this, oh joy oh delight oh glory!! I can always bury my frustration in dune and live happily ever -- well, not if I'm reading dune, I can't. I think this calls for a wodehouse fix. or maybe a cup of tea.
**NO MORE SPOILERS**
I am done with the inheritance cycle. I know how it ends, thanks to wikipedia, because I'm not up to another 700+ page, personal experience of this. I mean, this - this is exhausting. we are never getting back together.
like, ever.
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by all means, leave a comment if you have something to share! please keep your language clean, respectful, and polite.
staying on topic would be nice, too, but I know that can be hard sometimes.