The Wheel of Time Book 14: A Memory of Light

“Loial, son of Arent, son of Halen, had secretly always wanted to be hasty.” (A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson)

“Yes, I’m alive,” Mat said. “I’m usually pretty good at staying alive. I’ve only failed one time that I can remember, and it hardly counts.” (A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson)

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You’re a perfect reader for WOT of if you read 300+ pages per week, if you have a high tolerance for repetition, and if you can withstand some bleakness. Of course, you must like fantasy. You have to thrive on the details: descriptions of horses, necklines of dresses, and complicated political schemes. You have to be willing to put in a lot of work for a huge payoff in the finale (think Harry Potter, times ten). You’re a perfect reader for WOT if you are, honestly, a bit lonely. I’ve never read a book where the characters feel so much friends before – part of it is the sheer number of hours you spend with them, and partly it’s that they’re so complicated (and partly it’s Matrim Cauthon, the best fantasy character ever created).

I wish that I could give WOT a blanket recommendation. I wish that I could say it was required reading for all of humanity; that there was no one I could think of who wouldn’t benefit from its pages. I wish I could recommend it to everyone because I enjoyed it so much. I feel bereft now that it’s over, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from beginning Eye of the World again. Though it not may seem like it on this blog, I haven’t read any other fiction since I started this series. I’ve lived and breathed it every day (with no pauses between books) for six months. I want everyone else to experience it like I did… but, even in the midst of all my gratitude for the series, for its epic existence, I realize that WOT is not for everyone.

If you wouldn’t enjoy reading an exquisite (albeit flawed) 11,550 pages of high fantasy, you know who you are. But, if you’re on the fence, worrying about the likelihood of failure, consider these tips for getting through it (even books 8 and 10):

Tips for finishing the series:

1. Momentum and consistency are integral for getting through all 14 books. You need a big, daily reading habit. To beef up your daily reading, consider reading Atomic Habits or Tiny Habits (similar info – former has a personal trainer tone, later has academic tone) before you start the series. These books will help you to analyze your daily reading habit and find more time to squeeze in more pages (tips include making your habits small and stacking new habits by anchoring them to pre-existing habits.) Only an unshakable daily reading habit will get you through the middle of the series.
2. If at all possible, read the series both in print and audio simultaneously (on audio, listen at 1.5x or even 2x speed). Switching between audio and print is a great way to increase your reading volume. You can read print as you normally would (meals, evenings, etc), and then get through some extra pages on audio while doing other things (dishes, driving, pushing kids on the swing, etc).
3. Read them all back to back. Don’t give yourself any time between to second guess your goals. Consistency helps you keep the momentum going, but it also helps you remember the thousands of plots, sub-plots, and sub-sub-sub plots.
4. If you’re feeling particularly ambitious and scholarly, keep a notebook or cheat sheet near you so you can write down the name of all the secret darkfriends as they pop up – this will help with the inevitable late-series confusion. I didn’t do this, but I wish I would have.

A Trick of the Light

“What people mistook for safety was in fact captivity.” (A Trick of the Light, Louise Penny)

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Now I see what Louise Penny is doing. She isn’t writing formulaic genre fiction, where one book stacks evenly upon the next; the corner of each plot lining up with the one before it. She’s writing literature, she’s writing mainly about the characters and the form of each piece happens to be a murder mystery. The series is a long-range study of these characters, parsed out into segments, seemingly predictable, but actually not at all predicted.

After the first five books, I thought that I had the feeling of the Gamache series. I thought that Penny had pigeonholed herself into a corner and that the plots would get less and less plausible as she moved through the 17+ book series. Each character would maintain their well-defined role, finding unlikely bodies in the same small village. I’m happy to admit that I was wrong. Books 6 and 7 of the series were completely different than the first five, showing main characters willing to admit their mistakes, self-reflect, and change. Even the structure of the novels changed, moving to not only a multiple-perspective narrative, but a multiple-plot narrative, with threads tangling back to previous books, switching between past and present.

I’m actually feeling some trepidation on embarking on the next book; if Penny is willing to change so much of her characters and formula, what will she change next? The next time I pick up Gamache, it won’t be for the familiar feel of the Three Pines and old friends, but because I want to be surprised, because I want to see these familiar characters in new and startling situations.

The Wheel of Time Book 4: The Shadow Rising

“About his own supposed adventures, he said, ‘Mainly I’ve just tried to keep from having my head split open. That’s what adventures are, that and finding a place to sleep for the night, and something to eat. You go hungry a lot having adventures, and sleep cold or wet or both.” (The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan)

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I’ve always been a big proponent of audiobooks. I’ve thought of them as ‘books for busy people’ and, personally, always have one going while I’m doing dishes or pushing the kids on the swing. In my capacity as a librarian, I had a few conversations with patrons about whether audiobooks ‘counted as’ reading (counted how, I now wonder? As morally ‘good’?), and I always came down firmly on the side of audiobooks. And yet, I’ve never before been forced to only listen to audiobooks for such a long period of time (forced only by the long wait list time on Libby for the print versions, not by gunpoint). I’ve found myself itching to get back to print, which is something I didn’t expect.

Now, I realize the difference between print and audio comes down to this: you can do stuff while you listen, which means I always do stuff while I listen. So, only about 3/4 of my attention is on the book, while 1/4 is tidying, folding laundry, or doing dishes. It is, essentially, a less immersive experience. I remember, for whatever reason, having to listen to the end of the Mistborn series on audiobook 10 or so years ago (read: before kids) – I put the CD in the stereo and stared at the knobs of the receiver for 3 hours. Yet, these days, I feel silly staring at nothing, sitting down, when there’s so much to do.

 So, if anyone were to pick my brain about the audio vs. print question these days, I think I might come down, ever so slightly, on the side of print. Print forces you to focus on just one thing, which means that all of your attention is on the book. And when all of your attention is on one thing, something magical happens – some call it Flow – that just can’t happen when you’re both folding laundry and listening to Rand Al’ Thor fight a Forsaken with a Sa’angreal.

Motivation report: still strong. I was worried that the story would start to spread out by now, with those slow passages I remembered from my first attempt. But book 4 was just as thrilling, with its multiple storylines, as the first 3. Now, let’s see how book 5 goes…

How to be a Woman

“We need to reclaim the word ‘feminism’. We need the word ‘feminism’ back real bad. When statistics come in saying that only 29% of American women would describe themselves as feminist – and only 42% of British women – I used to think, What do you think feminism IS, ladies? What part of ‘liberation for women’ is not for you? Is it freedom to vote? The right not to be owned by the man you marry? The campaign for equal pay? ‘Vogue’ by Madonna? Jeans? Did all that good shit GET ON YOUR NERVES? Or were you just DRUNK AT THE TIME OF THE SURVEY?” (How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran)

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I picked this book pretty randomly, in a frantic search for something available on Libby. How to Be a Woman was favorably compared to Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which I remember mostly liking a decade or so ago. Yet, I now see the comparison as limiting. How to Be a Woman is a hilarious feminist book, whereas Bossypants is more a feminist comedy book – see the difference?

Caitlin Moran writes about issues as seemingly unimportant as underwear choice (she’s pro granny panty, anti-thong) and important as abortion (pro-choice, of course), accompanied by hysterical, honest personal anecdotes that make the whole strident feminist pill easy to swallow. She calls for a fifth wave of feminism to examine smaller, personal issues (like bra choice, pubic hair styles, and more female-oriented porn) instead of focusing solely on large-scale worldwide issues, like education and FGM. Since this book was published in 2012, I’m pretty late to the party and most people already have their opinions about it out there. So, I’ll just say this: read it if you want an entertaining, slightly crude, book about strident feminism, don’t read it if that sort of thing offends you.

The Wheel of Time, Take 2 (Books 1&2)

“Death is lighter than a feather. Duty, heavier than a mountain.” (The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan)

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I’ve always regretted not finishing The Wheel of Time; book 8 defeated me back in 2011. I’ve tried to go back a few times, reading long summaries online to jog my memory, but I could never pick up on all of those finely woven threads. I remember endless scenes of hair brushing, infinite tertiary characters and plotlines bogging down the plot, and the slog it was to get through each chapter. Yet, I also remember each character being written in such detail that they felt like good friends. In 2011 I wrote, “All in all, it is a very absorbing work, but also difficult to recommend because of the intense time commitment.”

So I started watching The Wheel of Time on Amazon, hoping (embarrassingly) that maybe I could be lazy and just watch the series instead of reading it? However, what ended up happening is that the Amazon series tickled my memory just enough for me to think, this is not right. I had to go back to the book to confirm my suspicions: in an apparent effort to make the series cool, the directors gutted the adventure to make way for a series of emotional and gruesome scenes. Though the character names, political hierarchy, and magical system remain much the same, almost everything else is different. The basic plot, character backstories, genders, relationships, and places, have all changed. There is more sex, more violence, and more drama.

The fact of the matter is that The Wheel of Time is Not Cool. It’s strengths are it’s intricate plot, it’s well-developed magical system, and the complex character development. It’s not a particularly mature work. The commentary on men and women isn’t nuanced or modern. Emotion really isn’t Jordan’s strong suit. This all combines to make the WOT a problematic foundation on which to base an answer to GOT. Instead of celebrating what the series did well, the TV show substitutes in what has been working for other successful fantasy shows (lots of sex and violence), which leaves us with a gutted, superficial viewing experience.

However, I appreciated watching the show (which, out of anger, I couldn’t finish) because it spurred me to start the series again from the beginning. This time around, I plan on finishing all 14 books. So far, books one and two have flown by in a rush of adventure, with nary a hint of hair brushing or undo tertiary characters.

No One is Talking About This

“They kept raising their hands excitedly to high-five, for they had discovered something even better than being soulmates: that they were exactly, and happily, and hopelessly, the same amount of online.” (No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood)

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 Not being a typical member of my generation (internet-wise), my ‘same amount of online’ person would probably be in their 70’s (I actually know several people in their 70’s much more online than me). My amount of online is checking e-mail once a day, reading the news in the morning, looking up info, posting on this blog, and, of course, Libby. From certain perspectives, it’s laughable. So, when Lockwood writes of being online in startling, lyrical bursts, when she speaks of a shared consciousness and new language emerging from group chats, I thought yes, this is exactly how I want to experience being online: second-hand, through a novel.

For about a hundred pages, I thought that the book had absolutely no plot, and I was fine with that. Then, a baby dies. I’m telling you this without worrying about spoilers because I think that every novel where a child dies should have a big warning on the spine so you don’t even have to pull it off the shelf. I almost never read books where children die (unless it’s in the background, in some sort of sweeping, war-related drama), but this one snuck up on me and by the time it was obvious what was happening, I was already thoroughly committed. I kept hoping for the author to return to her disconnected comments on the internet and modern life, but she never did.

Burnout

“It’s true that rest makes us more productive, ultimately, and if that’s an argument that helps you persuade your boss to give you more flexibility, awesome. But we think rest matters not because it makes you more productive, but because it makes you happier and healthier, less grumpy, and more creative. We think rest matters because you matter. You are not here to be “productive.” You are here to be you, to engage with your Something Larger, to move through the world with confidence and joy. And to do that, you require rest.” (Burnout by Amelia and Emily Nagoski)

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I can see that this would be a powerful book for a lot of women, but it didn’t really strike home for me. If you haven’t already jumped onto the happiness-research bandwagon, with Laurie Santos’ podcast or books by authors like Brené Brown or Dan Harris, or Kristin Neff, then the research Amelia and Emily Nagoski summarize will be revolutionary for you. However, if you’ve already done the rounds of the psychology/self-help genre, then Burnout might seem as though it’s only scraping the surface of the research out there. Though not personally helpful at this time (five years ago I would have shouted from the rafters about it), I’m glad that I read this so that I can recommend it – it’s a perfect introduction for women who want to learn about self-care and self-compassion.

However, the Nagoski sisters are a bit short on practical tips. They spend a lot of time, for example, writing about exercise and how it completes the stress cycle, which is all very convincing and good science, etc, but then they don’t get into the nitty-gritty of how to ‘do the exercise’. What does it mean to exercise? Is walking around your neighborhood exercising? Do you have to get your heart rate to a certain level? What about weight lifting? How many times a week do you need to do it? You can see the problem. Burnout does a great job inspiring the reader to act, convincing us with powerful anecdotes and research, but they don’t go the next step of describing the nitty gritty of how to incorporate the ideas into your life. In an effort to not put anyone off (e.g. putting TLDR summary sections at the end of each chapter), they left out the challenging questions about the details.

Anxious People

“That’s the power of literature, you know, it can act like little love letters between two people who can only explain their feelings by pointing at other people’s.” (Anxious People by Fredrik Backman)

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Anxious People has all of the trappings of a thriller – police interviews, a ‘hostage situation’, a bank robbery – but is, actually, a wise, humorous meditation on the ways we effect the people around us. I’ve been disappointed before by thrillers-turned-comedies (Apples Never Fall), but Anxious People is altogether different. It is never, at any point, a thriller. From first to last, it’s literature that just happens to nod at mainstays of the thriller genre. It pokes gentle fun at thrillers, whispering, “this is what you could be, in between robberies and car chases, this is the height you could aspire to.”

When you read it, (not if – it wouldn’t be wise to leave this reading experience up to chance) you’ll find Backman’s characteristic sensitivity and insight. Each character, even the ones that the reader initially overlooks, gets their moment of explanation, their time for Backman to make clear what lead them to this situation, and why exactly they proceed in the way they do. The so-called ‘hostage situation’ becomes not a travesty to survive, but a turning point in each hostage’s life, where they find new friendships, expose debilitating secrets, and adjust their perceptions of each other. You’ll wish you could be a character in a thriller, if only it were written by Backman, so that your life, too, could get pulled and prodded, balanced and then washed clean.

Brené Brown

“Because true belonging only happens when we present our authentic, imperfect selves to the world, our sense of belonging can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.”(Daring Greatly by Brené Brown)

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I had the strangest experience reading my first Brené Brown (Daring Greatly): every time she wrote the word ‘shame’, my mind blanked as if I were reading the sentence in a foreign language. The word didn’t trigger any meaning at all for me. If I thought about it, I thought merely, “oh that doesn’t apply to me; I don’t feel shame’. Now, considering that Brené Brown is a shame researcher and writes, primarily, about shame and vulnerability, this made for a pretty patchy reading experience. I persisted in reading the book, though I knew I wasn’t understanding it, because I felt like there might be some sentence or paragraph or chapter at the end that would explain the whole thing to me. That didn’t turn out to be the case. I finished the book and said to my husband, “that book made no sense to me. Either Brené Brown can’t write, or I’m really missing something here.”

I had to sit with the idea for months before I picked up another book by Brown to see if I could shake anything loose. This time, I had to admit that Brené Brown could write, and that the problem was definitely on my end. Shame was just such a foreign concept to me, something I had never given any thought to, that I couldn’t even understand the word when someone started talking about it. In another book (It Isn’t Me), Brené Brown clearly identifies shame and how it differs from guilt, embarrassment, and other similar emotions. Now, she probably was just as clear in Daring Greatly, but I just wasn’t ready to do the careful reading and deep thinking necessary to understand it. Finally, I felt that I was getting somewhere. After reading two books on the subject, I could finally say that shame was something that did, indeed apply to me. Brené Brown talks about this phenomenon, this cultural covering up of shame, and says that many of her readers and listeners experience something similar when she tries to speak of it – a reflexive backing away, as though from something taboo.

I really shouldn’t be done reading Brené Brown – I know that I only scratched the surface with these two books. I’m hoping that I’ll have the courage to pick her back up and that you’ll see another post on Braving the Wilderness or Atlas of the Heart someday.

Change Your Brain Change Your Life

“18–40–60 rule. It says that when you are eighteen, you worry about what everyone thinks of you; when you are forty, you don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about you; and when you’re sixty, you realize no one has been thinking about you at all.” (Change Your Brain Change Your Life by Daniel Amen)

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Although this book is chalk full of helpful wellness tips, including some of my favorites (meditation, gratitude journal, exercise, nutrition), it’s also based on a shaky premise. Amen claims that looking at the brain through scans is the only way to get real information, but then acknowledges that almost no one can get their brains scanned. Even if you could get a SPECTscan, few people are trained to read it. Instead, Amen recommends that readers just rate their behavior on a scale of 1-5 in order to self-diagnose their brain problems, and then take various supplements depending on the results of this self-administered test. I can see that Amen is well meaning, that he wants to make his discoveries available to everyone, but the idea of scanning your brain to improve your health does not translate well to a format that doesn’t include an actual brain scan.

On the other hand, I did read the whole book, and I have stopped reading many other (potentially better) books. I’ve mused before about how I haven’t quite figured out why I finish some books or stop others; it isn’t always related to their quality. I found how Amen portrayed the brain as physical organ, able to be changed by head trauma or poor diet, fascinating, and thought his scans (included as pictures) of brains with long-term alcohol use, head trauma, or other imbalances compelling as well. However, finishing the book didn’t leave me with any over-arching truth, but rather with a jumbled set of prescriptions that may (or may not, depending on my actual brain… which I can’t really scan) help change my life.

This book might be useful to you if you’re interested in getting healthy but all of the standard body-image type motivational techniques haven’t worked for you. It might also be useful if you have a known mental imbalance or previous head trauma and are wondering what you can do to help you brain. However, this is not a book that I would recommend widely.