Book Tamers| book reviews

A really good fantasy novel needs three things:

1) A captivating story and characters with whom the reader can identify himself.
2) A complex magical/religious system that can affect the plot in many ways.
3) A narrative style that is easy to follow and readable.

They’re not my rules and they are not at all settled, but they are common sense. A writer can’t take them into account if he wants to obtain a certain effect, but there is a limit for fantasy novels.
Elantris is Brandon Sanderson’s first novel and a quite ambitious one. Actually, it is too ambitious in some parts and plans too poorly in others. But, if Sanderson’s next novels will be as good as the last pages in Elantris (and I’m sure they are), I can’t wait to read them.

But let us return to our subject. I said in the beginning that fantasy novels need a captivating story and catchy characters so that the reader can relate to them. I can say a lot about the story in Elantris, but it’s hard to say it’s not captivating.

There was a kind of gods in Arelon. They were called Elantrians and they lived in the city of Elantris. They did powerful magic and anyone could become one of them if taken by Shaod – the transformation. Shaod came at night and transformed a man, no matter his social condition, into an Elantrian. Then, that man went live on Elantris. It may sound utopian, but it is an interesting premise. Things happen and their magic is lost, and Elantrians transform into beggars that wander around their ruined city. But Shaod continues and the people he gets are now cursed, not blessed.

After the fall of Elantris, merchants in neighbour cities plot a revolution and they form a monarchy, where the richest of people declare themselves nobles and the others become servants. Ten years later, Prince Raoden is struck by Shaod and thrown in Elantris, as tradition says. Sarene, the fiancée he never knew, gets to the city a few days later, wishing to form an alliance between her country, Teoden and Arelon. This alliance would have fought against Fjorden, a theocratic empire that wants to conquer all unfaithful peoples. Things get more complicated when Hrathen, the great priest of Fjorden empire, arrives; his mission is to reclaim the kingdom of Arelon to the religion of Shu-Dereth.

From now on the story will follow the three heros. Prince Raoden tries to find out why Elantris has been destroyed, Sarene will struggle to save the arelonian monarchy, and Hrathen will spend his time plotting and doubting his own religion. The latter is by far the most interesting, although there is not so much empathy involved. The story is told in the third person, in cycles of three chapters- one for each character. This way, the reader knows more than each character and there is an emotional bond with every character. I have to add however that characters’ names (Raoden, Sarene Kiin, Iadon, Eondel, Saolin, Kaise, Svrakiss, Dilaf…) are impossible and they break all rules of phonetics.

The magic system is the foundation of the book and Sanderson takes good care in revealing it gradually. The rhythm of the revealing is not all perfect and the end is dangerously close to deus ex machina, but magic in Elantris is well planned and logically explained. The same thing happens with the religious part, represented by the war between the two great doctrines– Shu-Dereth and Shu-Korath. Although Hrathen will explain some of the foundations of his religion, the true differences will be seen in the short theological discussions between characters. As a whole, Sanderson’s interest for magic and his world’s religion is praiseworthy and it should be the same for every fantasy writer.

Once the magic and the story put aside, we get to the ugly part. I would like to observe that two points out of three is not bad at all. I would want to say the same thing about Sanderson’s prose, but I would.

In Elantris, prose is insipid, colourless and inodorous. Even worse, it is simplistic, very direct, non-esthetical, and even naïve and annoying. Sanderson has no interest for the art of writing. He’s no James Joyce, to conquer all narrative barriers, and he’s not Gene Wolfe, to turn words easily and to find new and dangerous uses for them. Sanderson is more interested by his story and the magic, so the prose suffers. The descriptions are very short or long and full of epithets. Two in three verbs are in the present participle form, characters’ thoughts are summarized in short sentences, and dialogues refer to platitudes or things that the characters already knew, but had to share them with us.

The good part is that, once you give up any expectancy for good literature, the story is captivating and you get to really like the characters. And the last part of the books is definitely written later than the others, for Sanderson’s writing leaps. Well, better late than never.

At the end, Elantris is a standard fantasy novel, with princes, princesses and warrior monks and draws attention to itself because of the magic, the religion and the social speech. It was hard to get over the writing part, but once I did, I discovered an interesting story with characters I really enjoyed.

Written by Cristi