Welcome again to the Book Bonfire! I am your Book Club Organizer, Tom Writesabo Utstuff. Everyone get out your copies, today we’re going to cover Kama Sutra, the ancient Sanskrit text about good fuckin’.

Oh, maybe that will be covered next week. Today we’ll go over the first book of the Wheel of Time series. No, it’s not Kama Sutra! I said I was sorry about that! No more jokes! The Eye of the World, the first of many tomes covering the adventures of who knows and who cares! For all I know, the rest of the books will have nothing to do with the story and the characters of The Eye of the World. Maybe Book 3 is all about Chandler ordering seven pizzas and Joey eating every single one before Ross can smack Rachel around, making sure she only gets bruises in the places she can easily cover up!

Where the FUCK was I? Ah yes. This book was the first of many that I’ll cover chapter by chapter in my Wheel of Time write-up series, so be sure to click that link and read through my rambling synopses while I make fun of Thom the Gleeman’s sex-offending mustache, or Rand’s ability to dry up any girl’s vagina with one poorly thought-out sentence.

Or maybe you all already know the story! For the rest of you, here’s a quick, general breakdown: three hicks named Rand al’Thor, Mat Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara are more than who they seem to be. But not much more, honestly. Rand is a farmer, Perrin is a blacksmith apprentice, and I don’t remember what Mat does besides pull his pud. Their sleepy little hick town is visited by an Aes Sedai (basically a witch) named Moiraine and her Warder (basically a lackey) named Lan.

Pretty soon, after their sleepy little hick town is all but destroyed by walking pig creatures called Trollocs, they embark on an adventure wherein they walk and ride horses across the country. This happens for 800 pages. The full group is Rand, Mat, Perrin, Egwene (the young and pretty daughter of the hick town’s mayor. It’s called Emond’s Field, by the way. I should probably stop referring to that hick-ass town as a hick town), Moiraine, Lan, Thom the Gleeman (basically a fucking clown), and eventually Nynaeve (the badass know-it-all healer-type from Hicksville).

You start to learn along the way that there’s more to all of these young Emond’s Fielders than meets the eye. Rand might be the first male Aes Sedai in millenia. Perrin is some sort of Wolf Boy. Egwene and Nynaeve might be two similarly-aged Aes Sedai from the same dang (hick) town! These kids are all chosen and shit. Except Mat. He seems rather unremarkable.

Most of what happens can be attributed to the turning of the Wheel of Time. The wheel turns as the wheel wills. Whatever happens becomes part of the Pattern of time. What it all amounts to is the following: everything happens for a reason. Moiraine, as an Aes Sedai, dedicates her life to the turning of the Wheel and how it affects all the big, big, BIG stuff. Stuff like, for example, the possibility that Rand might be the Dragon reborn. That might not sound like much, dear reader, but let me tell you. The Dragon should stay dead.

Maybe.

Perhaps it helped breaking up the chapters and writing about them as I went, but I found the story engrossing. It was hard not to keep going and move ahead of my write-ups, and even though the group spends a lot of time doing not much else besides bouncing around various towns and cities, what Jordan lacks in creating compelling personalities he makes up for in believable character interactions. I think his women have stronger characterizations than the men, with Nynaeve being the most fleshed-out (and, therefore, the best). As a Wisdom (again, the town know-it-all), she presents herself as a brave, tough, no-nonsense figure of authority. And she’s good at it, but once in a while she slips. Once in a while, her vulnerabilities peak through. She’s no friend of the Aes Sedai, and she goes through some personal conflicts when she finds out — corroborated by Moiraine — that she just might be one herself… (eek)

I have to make a special note of Thom Merrilin, the “gleeman”. He’s basically a one-man travelling circus. He juggles, does gymnastics, and performs magic tricks. He knows 10,000 stories, myths, and legends from top to bottom, front to back, and he will not be afraid to tell you all 10,000 of them in one evening. The kids of Emond’s Field spend about three chapters building up the gleeman, calling themselves lucky that they will even get someone as revered as gleeman to their cute little festival. This guy turns out to be a real crank, which I found hilarious because the Emond’s Fielders deserved it.

BOOK BONFIRE DISCUSSION QUESTIONS!

Discuss the parallels between Rand and Logain. What do they have in common?
Ah yes, Logain is the newest false Dragon. The guy who is like “I’m the current King Fuck around here”. I don’t know much about Logain. They talked about him amassing armies and having hissy fits in faraway towns. They only showed him once as a prisoner in Caemlyn getting carted out in public while six Aes Sedai kept a close eye on him. I can’t remember if it was implied or they outright said it, but I’m pretty sure Logain is able to channel the One Power? THIS is what the two of them have in common. This also means that they’ll both go cuckoo nutso, as is what happens to the men who can channel this such as One Power.

I’M NOT GOOD AT READING COMPREHENSION. If there were other things they have in common, then it was lost on me. They both seem like they smell terrible, that’s another thing they have in common! NEXT!

What do you think of the women in EoTW? Which do you view as the strongest?
The women are the best characters is the book, dingus. Anyone who thinks any of the men is a better character than any of the women (other than Thom Merrilin) is full of horribly spicy beans.

Moiraine is dull as dirt, though. Maybe you have to be boring to be an Aes Sedai, OR being an Aes Sedai makes you boring! If that’s the case, I must have become an Aes Sedai 12 times over by now. Both Egwene and Nynaeve being Aes Sedai is an interesting premise. It seems to fit Nynaeve’s character more since she seems more like the Vampire Slayer type, but I’m going to guess that by Book 10 Egwene is going to handily decapitate whole armies of Fades and Trollocs. She’ll be frothing at the mouth like a feral fucking rat as she single-handedly tears the Wheel of Time world a fresh butthole.

That is to say, I think Egwene is the strongest. Every time Moiraine taps into the One Power, she gets tired. Step it up, Moiraine! With Nynaeve, there’s that one part where she cried after professing her love to Lan. Step it up, Nynaeve! Egwene has shown no weakness. She’s made out of high-alloy titanium! NEXT!

Of the three young men (Perrin, Mat and Rand) which are you most predisposed to like/dislike?
Perrin’s cool. He’s strong, he’s a bit of a thinker, and he communicates with the wolves. Ergo, he’s the most likeable. That leaves the two knuckleheads, Rand and Mat, for the dislike contest.

Rand has the personality of drywall, and Mat is a complete spaz. Rand can potentially tap into the One Power, the first man in three millennia would be able to do so. Mat is a complete spaz. Rand has a boner for Egwene. Mat is complete spaz who cursed himself by stealing a forbidden dagger from a dead city.

Hard question! I’ll circle back around to that at some other time.

FINAL THOUGHTS

I’ve seen many Wheel of Time book rankings that will put The Eye of the World around the low end of the middle tier, which bodes well. I can see why the first installment wouldn’t necessarily showcase the genius of the series yet, but I look forward to what will definitely end up being a slow burn. If I didn’t have 800 other books to read I would have picked up Book 2 right away, but I needed a break.

So yes, in short, I liked it! That sure was a lot of words to get to that final point, but I have no shame.