[Books] The Wheel of Time: The Eye of the World

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.

And thus my journey through the Wheel of Time really begins.

I'm going to come out and say this right at the start - I really, really enjoyed re-reading 'The Eye of the World'. I had vague memories of the writing being somewhat wordy, and of the pace of the story being overly slow, but I suspect these were a)influenced by what I've read and heard about the series since I last read any of the books, and b)the last books I read from the series. Because this book is fast-paced, tightly plotted, and despite it's roughly 600page length (in my copy at least) it doesn't seem overly long.

Three things in particular struck me whilst reading through it. First, there's so much that happens! It's crammed full of fantastic scenes, driven partly by the classic 'numerically superior villains chase a smaller band of heroes' plot device. My particular favourites are the escape from Shadar Logoth, and final battle where we meet the first Forsaken the Green Man sacrifices himself, and our main hero Rand al'Thor discovers hints of who and what he really is. But the early scenes at the village are also very enjoyable to read, with the attack on the farmhouse followed by a tense journey, and then fleeing home.

The second thing that I noticed was just how much I actually remembered of the book! I'm not going to claim that I remembered every detail, but I certainly remembered most of the salient plot events. As I was going along I found myself thinking 'Oooh, I remember what comes next. That's going to be good'.   There were a couple of points that I remembered, but could have sworn were in a later book (Thom's sacrifice to let Mat and Rand escape, and Perrin's encounter with Elyas and the Wolves); again, the amount of stuff crammed in here is fantastic.

The original cover art for 'The Eye of the World', but Darrell K Sweet. (Credit: benjaminrose.com)

The third thing was the comparisons to 'The Fellowship of the Ring'. When asked about the Wheel of Time over the last few years I've often said that there are strong similarities to J R R Tolkien's opening chapter from the Lord of the Rings. But that's actually not true. I'm not saying that there are no similarities - there are definitely some places where I was strongly reminded of that other book (the rider in black hunting Rand on the road, for example, as well as the heroes being forced to enter somewhere they would rather not go to avoid pursuit, and the escape from the village via a ferry). But it's by no means overbearing.

What 'The Eye of the World' does share with 'The Fellowship of the Ring' is the sense that it's both a complete story in and of itself, as well as being the first entry in a longer series. But that's something that I feel Robert Jordan pulls off slightly more successfully, as this could quite happily be a standalone. book. 

I really enjoyed my reread of 'The Eye of the World', and am already some way through the sequel. I'm finding it difficult to put them down, and am getting through 50-75 pages a night at the moment. It's going to be a fun journey.