The Inheritance Cycle: Eragon by: Christopher Paolini

 

Let’s take a minute before I get into this book to discuss Star Wars: A New Hope and the work of Joseph Campbell.  Joseph Campbell was an American writer whose literary work and analysis is most well remembered for focusing on the nature of stories and story structure.  The Hero with a Thousand Faces is where he first referred to the hero’s journey and the monomyth (a term taken from James Joyce).  These concepts essentially posit that every story has the same structure and characterization from the point of a protagonist.  A summation of the journey is a call to adventure which is then rejected, before the hero suffers a loss to push them onto an adventure (crossing a threshold which will transform the hero), a mentor figure guiding them through initial challenges before often being excised from the story, more challenges for the hero before a descent into the abyss for the low point and death of the hero, a rebirth for the hero leading to a final transformation and the eventual return to the previous or new status quo.  While this is fairly vague, it should be as it is describing archetypes in a story and not literally every story to the letter.  There are variations, omissions from the format and additives depending on genre and what an author is attempting to accomplish, but essentially stories follow some sort of hero’s journey style structure.  I bring up Star Wars: A New Hope because in writing the seminal science fiction film, George Lucas adheres to the hero’s journey to the letter in a science fiction coating.  Luke Skywalker is the hero, Princess Leia’s message for Obi-Wan Kenobi’s help is the call to adventure, Luke’s responsibilities on the farm stop him from initially going off to find Ben Kenobi, the death of his aunt and uncle are the crossing of the threshold, there are challenges in getting to where Leia is being held while Luke begins to learn about the Force, the death of Kenobi at the hands of Darth Vader is the death of the hero, and the final challenge to overcome is blowing up the Death Star, ending the film with the ceremony declaring Luke a savior of the galaxy.

 

I spent so much time on this preamble as discussing Eragon is a difficult task.  Published independently in 2002, it is the first book in The Inheritance Cycle written by Christopher Paolini who was only 15 years old when he begun writing.  I bring up this age because while the series sold incredibly well, well enough to be picked up by a traditional publisher for release in 2003 with the three sequels coming in 2005, 2008, and 2011 respectively, it is a book that in recent years has garnered a lot of criticism for being wholly unoriginal.  While this criticism is harsh, it is not an inaccurate criticism, as the plot structure and characters of Eragon follow George Lucas’ interpretation of the hero’s journey, as seen in Star Wars: A New Hope, almost down to the letter, including where the initial Star Wars trilogy would go in subsequent films though instead of science fiction, this takes the form of epic fantasy specifically inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien in terms of setting, Ursula K. LeGuinn in terms of magic system, and Anne McCaffrey in terms of how the dragons work.  Yet, I don’t wish this review to be seen as bashing Paolini, since when he wrote this book he was a teenager doing what any teenage writer would do, take the interesting elements of the stories he clearly loved and smash them together to form his own narrative.  I do wish to dispel the idea that Paolini was just using the hero’s journey, as if this were the case there would not be analogues to every major Star Wars character, Eragon is Luke, Brom is Obi-Wan, Murtagh is Han Solo, Arya is Leia, Durza is Vader, Galbatorix is the Emperor, and the only real new character is Saphira, Eragon’s dragon, who really doesn’t have a Star Wars analogue.  Saphira as a character is a lot of fun, she has this smug sense of importance and continually grows, though some of her teasing feels like Paolini wanting to have a reason to reveal information to someone whenever the plot requires it.

 

It’s when Paolini isn’t sticking to the Star Wars script or writing a Tolkein homage that Eragon is allowed to shine, some of the towns Eragon and Brom visit as well as the opening chapters do manage to be engaging and give kernels of interesting ideas and characters, as well as an exploration of the magic system where Paolini is allowed to get the interesting bits across.  The writing and prose are at best average, you occasionally get a good one liner or even a scene, but this is clearly a book that has been edited to make a 15-year old’s prose presentable.  This makes it perfectly readable, though the simple style is enhanced if you are a younger reader, as this is a book explicitly marketed towards children (I’m only reading this since Paolini is releasing two books next year and has announced it is being adapted into a streaming series for Disney+).  Paolini throughout has this great sense of childlike wonder with a protagonist that will be easy for children to imprint themselves on, though one that does at least have some struggle.  Eragon as a character is at least partially falling into the Mary Sue trope, but like any character labelled with that particular trope it isn’t always accurate.  The length of the book also makes this a great example of a gateway to epic fantasy, this first book clocks in at just over 500 pages but rarely do you feel that length.  The worldbuilding also shines through Paolini’s imagination coming across in a map and several varied cities, using the work of Tolkein as building blocks.  The final sequence of the book while clearly inspired by sequences in The Fellowship of the Ring in particular are interesting and deal with a resistance movement who has their own motivations and potential for backstabbing our heroes.  It does fall down by ending with essentially the tease that the plot of Eldest will at least in part be following The Empire Strikes Back for Eragon as a character.

 

Eragon as a book is not really a good book, but it is not one that I can bring myself to thrash.  Any adaptation will have to contend with the fact that it was written by someone who was very young, though luckily by the time it was published traditionally Paolini was 20, nearly 30 by the time the series was finished.  After this book Paolini has the chance to make some experience work to improve his craft.  Is it a book I’d recommend people read if they’ve already read a lot of fantasy?  Most definitely not, it is a book that does tropes and sticks to them without understanding what makes tropes work, but it is a decent enough gateway fantasy and it is a series with potential.  It’s a series I will be covering (prior to this I had only read Eragon itself once) and while I am perhaps a bit hesitant to give it a score since it was written initially by a child, I can only give it a score of 5/10.