Inheritance (2011)

After an entirely too long period of no new books from Christopher Paolini, the wait is finally over. I had been waiting for this book to come out for the past few years. Like most fans of the book, I had read Eragon and the following books years ago. So, having to wait longer than a year or so was fairly irksome. That being said, I high-tailed it to my nearest bookstore the hour it opened to by my copy ASAP. I read as much as possible before and after my classes all day Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this passed week (minus time allotted for social things and homework that I didn't particularly want to participate in).

I was hungrily devouring this thing chapter after chapter. Questions like: Who will be the new dragon rider? How will Eragon best Galbatorix when he's so much more powerful? Will the future that Angela saw for Eragon come true? Will we ever learn anything about Angela? How will Murtagh fare in all of this? He killed people, will he get any redemption? What of Nasuada and Murtagh? I always thought they might have a thing. Who's going to be the new King/Queen of Alagaesia assuming Galbatorix is defeated? WILL ARYA AND ERAGON EVER GET TOGETHER?! Will Roran survive to be a daddy with his super cute hometown sweetheart? plagued my sister and me. I mean, we would have long conversation about how these plot points would be resolved.

Having said that, the conclusions I got from this book (for the most part) were absolutely horrid. As I finished reading I realized that I was woefully disappointed and altogether unhappy with the way Paolini chose to end a series that had such potential. And it isn't even that I didn't like the ending (I didn't), it's that the ending doesn't fit the characters or serve any purpose. There have been several series over the years that I have loved that didn't end the way I wanted them to...BUT I STILL LOVED THEM. The epic Harry Potter Series, for example, had a few nit picky little things I thought could have been done differently (most notably the abominable Epilogue) but that doesn't detract from the fact that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is a fucking masterpiece.

But this, man. This, I can't take. I'm rather incensed by the way this book was handled.

(SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS AHEAD)

From the beginning of this book, things started to bother me. For instance, the sheer abundance of battle scenes were probably necessary but must we really have an account of every individual fight, blow by blow? It got a little exhausting. Also, some things that took up whole chapters were seemingly pointless. I get that Roran needed the acclaim brought on by the Battle of Arroughs to advance his character. But why do we have to spend several chapters bogged down there? We get it, he's a badass and he loves Katrina. Also, the whole Eragon-saves-a-baby-with-a-cleft-chin-thing...what was that about? I thought it would be just another thing to bring him closer to Arya and improve people's opinion of him and if that was the case it could be wrapped up in like a chapter at most. Paolini also uses the "Even as" thing like every other line.

Furthermore, we don't even mention the Vault of Souls until over halfway through the book. I get that Eragon needed to be at the end of his rope to go off and do something risky but it wasn't even mentioned AT ALL. I mean, the Deathly Hallows weren't known about right off the bat but we still got mention of them a fair time before the final battle. And don't even get me started on the green dragon. It's the freaking COVER OF THE BOOK and we don't even see the damn thing until the very end. We all pretty much knew it would hatch for Arya, but why couldn't it hatch earlier in the book? Yeah, okay, it was in Galbatorix's castle and whatever. But since Murtagh turned out to be good and totally in love with Nasuada (duh) why couldn't he have snuck it out and left for Eragon to find?

Several people seemed to be totally out of character, too. Like Orrin for instance. Are we supposed to believe he turned into a drunken asshole because of STRESS? He's not my favorite character but he was kind of enjoyable as an eccentric scientist who happens to be a King. In this mess he's a drunken idiot who does stupid things, almost comes to blows with Roran, and tries to take the throne of all of Alagaesia. WTF? And Arya. Dear God. She has been one of the best characters in the whole series and now she get's reduced to this two dimensional idiot. Why would she take the throne? She said in a previous book that she had no interest in being Queen. And in this book when Eragon asks if she'll be Queen after her mother she says "Not exactly." and that she's not Princess. And if Eragon can't be King of Alagaesia because he's a Rider, then why doesn't that count for Arya?

I kept thinking that Orrin turning into such a dick would end up being becaus he was a spy for Galbatorix the whole time. I mean, everyone kept mentioning high ranking spies in the Varden. I could have understood Orrin turning into an asshole if that was the case but, nope, that plot point was never resolved.

The eventual Vault of Souls scene was handled very well. Even though we all probably guessed that all those Dragon heart of hearts would be in there, the eggs came as a total surprise. I liked that. Plus, Eragon and Saphira having to know their true names before entering was a nice touch. A little soul searching before the final battle is nice. I also liked the inevitable Murtagh/Eragon battle. It was cool that all of those practice sessions with Arya lead to Eragon knowing his opponent so well. I also liked that Eragon defeats Galbatorix by a seemingly innocent and desperate move that leads to Galby finally understanding that he was wrong. Hell, I even liked that Elva was so important and the miraculous emergence of that magical death dart thing.

But then after the battle is over we have a ton of extra stuff happening. I was glad that Paolini included the stuff about rebuilding Alagaesia and crowning Nasuada Queen. But did we really need all that other crap? I mean, Eragon makes his rounds through the cast like three times before anything ever happens. And why did he have to leave Alagaesia? Because raising the dragons there would kill too much livestock? Really? I would have bought it if there was some side effect of killing Galbatorix, like it was Eragon's final sacrifice. But, just cause he couldn't find anywhere else to raise the dragons? What the hell did they do in the old days? I get that the old Dragon Rider Island is creepy and all but why not just rebuild it and remain in Alagaesia?

And what's with the whole everyone all of a sudden hates magic thing? Roran, Nasuada, Galbatorix, and all the humans want to get rid of anything that's not human because what? it's different? And Nasuada's big plan is to bind them all just like Galbatorix would? Eragon was right to disagree but he could have stayed and worked something out instead of running of Into The West.

And finally, Eragon and Arya. WHAT. THE. FUCK. So, Arya definitely loves him after so long of trying to convince herself she didn't. Eragon, finally worked up the nerve to tell her how he feels (again) and they told each other their true names. Arya is now the stupid Queen and Eragon is rolling out so they can't be together. But, WHY? What point does it serve? Paolini should have never made her Queen. Her place is with the Dragon Riders anyway. No one in Alagaesia is going to trust the elves if their leader is head and shoulders above the rest of the monarchies in terms of power. It's stupid and horrible. Eragon gave up his old life entirely to devote himself to killing Galbatorix and saving the world. Hell, so did Arya. And now at the end, he has to give up everything he loves to live on an island all alone with a bunch of dragons? That is harsh. I mean, goddamn. Can't a guy catch a break?

I could have dealt with all of this if Inheritance was just another book in the series. Hell, it would have been pretty ballsy to kill Galbatorix, rebuild Alagaesia, separate all of our heroes, and leave everything seeminly fixed but in total dissaray IF THIS WERE JUST ANOTHER BOOK IN A SERIES. But, this is supposed to be THE END. And it's a shitty way to end a series.

Pity me not because the light of day
At close of day no longer walks the sky;
Pity me not for beauties passed away
From field and thicket as the year goes by;
Pity me not the waning of the moon,
Nor that the ebbing tide goes out to sea,
Nor that a man's desire is hushed so soon,
And you no longer look with love on me.
This have I known always: Love is no more
Than the wide blossom which the wind assails,
Than the great tide that treads the shifting shore,
Strewing fresh wreckage gathered in the gales:
Pity me that the heart is slow to learn
What the swift mind beholds at every turn.

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

it really must be nice

it really must
be Nice, never to

have no imagination (or never
never to wonder about guys you used to(and them
slim hot queens with dam next to nothing

on)tangoing
(while a feller tries
to hold down the fifty bucks per
job with one foot and rock a

cradle with the the other)it Must be
nice never to have no doubts about why you
put the ring
on(and watching her
face grow old and tired to which

you're married and hands get red washing
things and dishes)and to never, never really wonder i
mean about the smell
of babies and how you

know the dam rent's going to and everything and never, never
Never to stand at no window
because i can't sleep(smoking sawdust

cigarettes in the
middle of the night

--ee cummings

Astonishing X-Men

Kitty Pryde's "death" just about killed me. I am so glad that Magneto pulls the damn bullet back to Earth eventually. Jesus. As if this panel wasn't enough, then you've got Kitty's monologue (from earlier in the series when her and Colossus were being cute) over some sad/cute/nostalgic scenes of the rest of the team. It goes like this:

"Everything is so fragile. There's so much conflict, so much pain...you keep waiting for the dust to settle and then you realize this is it: the dust is your life going on. If happy comes along, that weird, unbearable delight that's actually happy--I think you have to grab it while you can. You take what you can get. Cause it's here and then...gone."

And...Joss Whedon is a master of words.

Winesburg, Ohio

At the upper end of the Fair Ground, in Winesburg, there is a half decayed old grand-stand. It has never been painted and the boards are all warped out of shape. The Fair Ground stands on top of a low hill rising out of the valley of Wine Creek and from the grand-stand one can see at night, over a cornfield, the lights of the town reflected against the sky.

George and Helen climbed the hill to the Fair Ground, coming by the path past Waterworks Pond. The felling of loneliness and isolation that had come to the young man in the crowded streets of his town was both broken and intensified by the presence of Helen.What he felt was reflected in her.

In youth there are always two forces fighting in people. The warm unthinking little animal struggles against the thing that reflects and remembers, and the older, the more sophisticated thing had possession of George Willard. Sensing his mood, Helen walked beside him filled with respect. When they got to the grand-stand they climbed up under the roof and sat down on one of the long bench-like seats.

There is something memorable in the experience to be had by going into a fair ground that stands at the edge of a Middle Western town on a night after the annual fair has been held. The sensation is one never to be forgotten. On all sides are ghosts, not of the dead, but of living people. Here, during the day just passed, have come the people pouring in from the town and the country around. Farmers with their wives and children and all the people from the hundreds of little frame houses have gathered within these board walls. Young girls have laughed and men with beards have talked of the affairs of their lives. The place has been filled to overflowing with life. It has itched and squirmed with life and now it is night and the life has all gone away. The silence is almost terrifying. One conceals oneself standing silently beside the trunk of a tree and what there is of a reflective tendency in his nature is intensified. One shudders at the thought of the meaninglessness of life while at the same instant, and if the people of the town are his people, one loves life so intensely that tears come into the eyes.

In the darkness under the roof of the grand-stand, George Willard sat beside Helen White and felt very keenly his own insignificance in the scheme of existence. Now that he had come out of town where the presence of the people stirring about, busy with a multitude of affairs, had been so irritation, the irritation was all gone. The presence of Helen renewed and refreshed him. It was as though her woman's hand was assisting him to make some minute readjustment of the machinery of his life. He began to think of the people in the town where he had always lived with something like reverence. He had reverence for Helen. He wanted to love and to be loved by her, but he did not want at the moment to be confused by her womanhood. In the darkness he took hold of her hand and when she crept close put a hand on her shoulder. A wind began to blow and he shivered. With all his strength he tried to hold and to understand the mood that had come upon him. In that high place in the darkness the two oddly sensitive human atoms held each other tightly and waited. In the mind of each was the same thought. "I have come to this lonely place and here is this other," was the substance of the thing felt.

In Winesburg the crowded day had run itself out into the long night of the late fall. Farm horses jogged away along lonely country roads pulling their portion of weary people. Clerks began to bring samples of goods in off the sidewalks and lock the doors of stores. In the Opera House a crowd had gathered to see a show and further down Main Street the fiddlers, their instruments tuned, sweated and worked to keep the feet of youth flying over a dance floor.

In the darkness in the grand-stand Helen White and George Willard remained silent. Now and then the spell that held them was broken and they turned and tried in the dim light to see into each other's eyes. They kissed but that impulse did not last. At the upper end of the Fair Ground a half dozen men worked over horses that had raced during the afternoon. The men had built a fire and were heating kettles of water. Only their legs could be seen as they passed back and forth in the light. When the wind blew the little flames of the fire danced crazily about.

George and Helen arose and walked away into the darkness. They went along a path past a field of corn that had not yet been cut. The wind whispered among the dry corn blades. For a moment during the walk back into town the spell that held them was broken. When they had come to the crest of Waterworks Hill they stopped by a tree and George again put his hands on the girl's shoulders. She embraced him eagerly and then again they drew quickly back from that impulse. They stopped kissing and stood a little apart. Mutual respect grew big in them. They were both embarrassed and to relieve their embarrassment dropped into the animalism of youth. They laughed and began to pull and haul at each other. In some way chastened and purified by the mood they had been in, they became, not man and woman, not boy and girl, but excited little animals.

It was so they went down the hill. In the darkness they played like two splendid young things in a young world. Once, running swiftly forward, Helen tripped George and he fell. He squirmed and shouted. Shaking with laughter, he roiled down the hill. Helen ran after him. For just a moment she stopped in the darkness. There was no way of knowing what woman's thoughts went through her min but, when the bottom of the hill was reached and she came up to the boy, she took his arm and walked beside him in dignified silence. For some reason they could not have explained they had both got from their silent evening together the thing needed. Man or boy, woman or girl, they had for a moment taken hold of the thing that makes the mature life of men and women in the modern world possible.

-Sherwood Anderson (1919)

Richard Cory

Whenever Richard Cory went down to town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich--yes, richer than a king,--
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

-Edwin Arlington Robinson (1896)

The Son of Neptune

Finished reading this just last night. A very interesting second book in the series. It was nice to be back in Percy's shoes I've got to say. As much as I was annoyed by him in the early stages of the first series, I'm that much more fond of him now. He's finally got his head in the game. Plus, the two other narrators, Hazel and Frank, are good additions to the growing group of demigods.

I've gotta say, Rick Riordan has weaved quite a tangled web amongst these young people. It will be interesting to see how this all turns out. The introduction of the harpie Ella, who memorized these ancient scrolls of prophecy, is an excellent idea. She talks in riddles and most of the stuff she says is either extremely important or a great literary allusion. Plus, the whispered lines of a prophecy involving Annabeth will no doubt be answered in the next installment called...

The Mark of Athena, due at your local bookstore Fall 2012.

Sigh. I also learned via Wikipedia that this is to be a series of five with one out each year. Meaning Book Four in Fall 2013, and Book Five in Fall 2014.

Patience is a virtue I do not possess. Especially with cliffhanger endings. I will look forward to this one extra because Annabeth is my favorite character and it will be a treat to see things in her POV. But who will the other two POVs be? Or will it switch between all of the seven halfbloods needed to complete the second Great Prophecy? Only time will tell.