Thought while reading

I am currently reading Robin Hobb's book Fool's Errand. Concurrently, I have been reading the subreddit for fantasy on Reddit.com. Those two verbs intersected tonight, and I wanted to share a thought or so about them.

1. Robin Hobb has been accused by certain redditors of bringing her reader along too slowly in the plot of her novels. She is completely unafraid of narrative and simple, everyday things happening to her characters. In Fool's Errand, I reached page 153 before anything of great and lasting plot importance entered into the novel. For some readers, that would mean that this book has been boring and slow. For me, it means that Hobb is unafraid to be inside of her character's head. Fitz, the main character in her previous 3 novels and this one, is a broken man who has experienced the greatest of tragic adventures in his life. He hangs onto sorrow and guilt, withdraws himself from the world, and experiences small pleasures like an ordinary person. Reading about his life is interesting to me because Hobb has made Fitz into a person. He is not simply a vessel of action, or a conduit for the plot to flow through. He is a man who has thoughts and experiences that must be understood to fully realize him. I love that.

2. In much the same way, I think that this idea is applied by fantasy authors in more instances than is perhaps normal when compared to authors of other genres. Lets consider two authors: R.A. Salvatore, and Robert Jordan.

• Salvatore is the author of the Drizz't Do'Urden series of fantasy novels. There are a million of them, and Salvatore is seen in some circles as less than a literary genius. His writing does have simple D&D and hack and slash elements in it, but in the course of his publishing career he has stayed with the same characters for 25+ books. That has given him the time to let them change, to experience tragedy and triumph, and to share those emotions with the reader through narrative. These books were a large part of my formative years in reading as I learned that character development and action can go hand in hand.

• Robert Jordan has been criticized for the slow middle-third of his Wheel of Time series. I couldn't be more confused by people who feel this. All of the hundreds of pages that Jordan supposedly "wastes" in the middle 3-5 books is spent following characters through decisions both big and small. These decisions change their lives, allow us to know the characters more fully, and therefore allow us to be drawn completely into their world.

I cannot express more strongly how much I love that, or how important that is to readers. Literature is more than metaphors and veiled allusions. Literature is living vicariously (in a good way) through characters that make you feel and experience emotions that are important to the human experience.