Posted by Smacky the Snobby Bunny on April 10, 2000 at 16:55:23:
In Reply to: Narev is a communist (and other entertaining truths) posted by Grallon on April 10, 2000 at 13:44:25:
Oh man. You spent a lot of time on that. You're a lot like Jordan, actually, or Stephen King; failing to find the worth in conciseness, you try to find it in detail. However, unless you have a clear grasp of the concept you want to bring forth it won't be found, regardless of the number of words you type.
Whether Jordan's stories are 'new' is a very debatable point. Poetry was partially right in saying no stories are new, but Narev was also correct in that comparing Tolkien even remotely to Jordan is like comparing white diamonds to the shards of a broken glass plate.
Jordan's style is overbearing and blunt; it is abrasive, annoying, repetitive in both style and actual phrasing ("scrubbed his hand across his mouth; scrubbed his hands through his hair; scrubbed one hand across his mouth; scrubbed his hands through his hair"). It is technically correct but stylistically barren writing.
You say he shows a "unique view of male/female interaction" however his male/female characters are hamhanded stereotypes and massacred caricatures of true humanity. His men and women were dredged from the b-grade porno flick script bin.
The man's originality or lack thereof, or any author's originality or lack thereof, is a seperate issue that cuts to what makes or does not make 'art'. It is my belief that while rarely do we find something truly 'new', or alien, it is the gift of artists and writers to see the mundane with different eyes. Creativity can be defined as seeing what is there, and being able to bring it out so other people can see it as well.
Tolkien had those eyes, and backed it up with both a professor's knowledge of linguistics and a neurotic's obsession in his fantasy world. His dedication to his profession and his art resulted in a true masterpiece that holds in it depth and morality. It is this depth that takes it out of the slush-bin of "fantasy" and raises it to the higher genre of literature. It is this same depth that seperates Bradbury and the Star Wars writers, Asimov and Pohl, Lovecraft and King. Jordan doesn't have any burning madness. He writes only as any fantasy fan would write.
I'm very sorry to break this to you, but Jordan and almost all of the fantasy ever mentioned here is sterile pulp. It is empty plot, and even the plot is rehashed. Its greatest hope is to serve to spark an idea or inspiration of a better artist.