young talents

still about those literary chain posts that some blogs have been posting recently. one book that has not changed anything at all on me was eragon (and eldest), by christopher paolini. i mean, i like fantasy literature, and if i were a religious guy i'd have an altar of some sort at home praising tolkien and philip pullman. but even though paolini has written a very nice story, it is disappointing in many ways.

i believe it comes from something i've called "the young talent syndrome". nowadays there is this tendency in the publishers, and everyone is looking for young people who like to write (sometimes these so-called young talents have no clue about writing, but still) to make them world wide best sellers. which, in my opinion, is a serious mistake. not saying that paolini is a bad writer - he is all right, without being brilliant. but someone who becomes a published writer at the age of 16 (and even 22, for what it's worth) lacks many, many things.

being the first, experience. life experience. let's take, for example, the main love story in paolini's saga, between the young rider eragon and the proud elf arya. i haven't read the last book (it's not written yet, as far as i know), but so far it seems to me something so platonic and so boring. it's not even tragic, for god's sake. but it doesn't come as a surprise. i mean, the guy has 16 years old. what does he know about love? about hatred? about mismatches, about improbabilities and impossibilities? and what has he read already? no matter how much we like to read, it's quite unlikely that, at the age of 16, we've read enough with enough attention to understand some ideas and concepts. i'm not telling that i know all this stuff from the beginning to the end. but i'm only 22. there's still so much to read and to learn and to feel.

the storyline itself is no big deal. it's simple, and okay, simple is good. it's not hard to follow. it keeps the reader close to the book to a certain degree. but it also lacks the epic dimension that is everything for a fantasy tale. i mean, it's too simple. it's always clear where lies good and evil (it's not so obvious in tolkien, and even less obvious in his dark materials trilogy by philip pullman). the heroes seem to fall too much in the old stereotypes (with the exception of the big bad guy, king galbatorix, who is always present without showing up - this is the best feature of the books so far). the conversion of eragon' brother to the darkside is not new as well - and i bet the guy will come back to the light before the end, whether he lives or dies.

i'm looking forward to read the last book, because despite everything i kinda liked the story. but i can't help but feel that it would be so much better if he had published it at the age of 36 instead of 16. i really do. it has no underlying layers. no depht. it lacks what made me feel that the lord of the rings (even the hobbit), the northern lights and the snow queen were not children's literature in any way. they really weren't (and that's the eternal mistake). a child, a teenager, is not ready to understand the deepest layers of meaning that tolkien conceived or the questions placed by pullman, even though they might find some gags amusing and the epic battles outstanding. could a child understand the desperate heroism of the riders of rohan when they charged against the armies of mordor in the plains of pellenor? could a teenager understand the religious issue that drives the entire trilogy written by pullman?

i think not. but they wouldn't find difficult at all to follow eragon's adventures. and that's exactly my point.