Eldest: Christopher Paolini's Problem

     The book I am currently reading is Eldest by Christopher Paolini. Eragon has made it into Elf territory, and Roran is still trying to help protect the village. While reading, I have noticed a problem with the story overall. As I said in a previous blog post, the story revolves around Eragon and Roran, but the story arcs of the two have nothing in common except one thing. The reason Carvahall is being attacked is because Eragon used to live there and Roran is related to Eragon. I see this as a major problem. The way I am reading the book now is basically reading two different books at once. The only other book I have read with multiple main characters in different positions is Allegiant by Veronica Roth. In that book, the main characters are at least trying to achieve the same thing.
     I see this as a major problem for two reasons: the story feels choppy, and it becomes hard to remember what happens in each section. The way the story is going now, The novel is choppy because of the lack of coherence between each characters narrative. I could see that if the characters had completely different or the same goals in mind, it would flow a lot better. Even if it was like a bad guy vs. good guy thing, it would be more coherent. Second, without a sense of unity, the novel becomes harder and harder to remember what is going on. If you switch between travel arc and defending the town arc, you start missing key details every time you switch characters.
This also builds off the choppiness. If the two arcs were more unified, I think I would enjoy it more. I think this is probably the biggest problem with the book as of now.

Comments

  1. TuckerSeptember 4, 2017 at 6:54 PM

    I liked this book a lot when I read it and I did not think that it was bad at all. I enjoyed the way that it switched back and forth between characters

    ReplyDelete
  2. KatherineSeptember 7, 2017 at 5:15 PM

    I like the fact that you are giving constructive feedback on how the author could better his writing. Also, I like that you aren't just focusing on all of the good things in the book, but actually analyzing how the author gets his story across.

    ReplyDelete

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