Robert Jordan
Sep. 17th, 2007 02:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthI'm sitting here and I'm working and I decide to take a brief break. I check my e-mail, I check LJ, these are typically how I take breaks. I didn't expect to see something that would cause me to cry. I don't know if I thought this was something that WOULD cause me to cry, but it definitely has.
When I was 8, I could barely read. I was slow that way, I don't know why. But once I started, I didn't stop, and I read a ton. The summer after 4th grade changed my life completely. I read a book by Patricia C. Wrede entitled "Dealing With Dragons." It opened my eyes to an entire genre I hadn't really realized existed. Up to then I had been reading what all kids read - crap (in my case, Box Car Children, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Babysitter's Club). After that, I never read anything but fantasy.
I devoured any book of fantasy I found that summer. I turned first to Xanth, and "Spell for Chameleon." From there, I went next to David Eddings, having found the first book of the Tamuli on a "new and interesting reading" end cap. I was at my grandfather's house for the summers, and it was pretty isolated - I needed him to drive me to Hanover to find books, so one day when I finished my available supply, I started combing his shelves. I came across two things there - one was the Hobbit (and also the LoTR trilogy) and the other was a hard cover entitled "The Fires of Heaven."
I remembered the book, looking at it. The previous Christmas, my grandfathers then-girlfriend Ellie had given it to him, and here it sat, neglected, on the book shelve. I took a look, found out the first book in the series was "The Eye of the World" and that they were by Robert Jordan, and I went and bought the book. I was 9 years old.
It was late when I started the book. I used to get insomnia a lot when I was a kid (though I didn't know what it was called) but that night was an okay one, and I only read the first 20 pages or so. The next day, I picked up where I had left off.
I read the entire book in a day.
I was utterly intrigued. I hadn't read Tolkien yet. So far, I'd read a bunch of Xanth, a couple books by Wrede, and Eddings. To say the least, I was utterly unprepared to find a world with the depth and the scope of the Wheel of Time and Randland. It opened my eyes to a way of telling stories. I developed deep and abiding loves and hatreds for the characters. I read the rest of the series that was out to date - 5 books - and eagerly awaited the sixth book. When I was 11, I realized I had a crush on Rand al'Thor.
All through middle school and high school, the Wheel of Time was a crutch for me, a place to turn for solace, in a way only a small number of books were for me (Spell for Chameleon and Dealing With Dragons were the other two big solace books, with David Eddings up there too). I would reread my favorite parts over and over again, so many times that my favorite pages fell out of the bindings. I stayed up almost all night to read the sixth one when it came out. When the seventh one came out, I did the same. I made friends in HS solely with a guy named Stephen solely on the basis that he was sitting in front of me in class and he was reading Robert Jordan. For the next 3 years, he and I would read the books and we would compare theories and plumb their depths looking for what was hidden beneath the surface.
I was wandering Union Square my junior year of highschool when I saw a sign announcing the 8th book, and then further announcing that on the day it was released Robert Jordan would be there, signing it. Stephen, me, and one other friend agreed we'd go. However, the anticipation was too great, and I actually went up to Union Square during my lunch period to get the book. I was 20 minutes late to my next class, but I didn't care even though it was with my favorite teacher. I started reading immediately.
Even though I'd seen his picture in the back of the book a zillion times, Jordan didn't look like how I expected he would. He looked like someone I might normally avoid. He was heavy set and dressed in a dark suit, and he had a huge bushy gray beard, and wore a funny black cowboy hat. I didn't really know what to make of him, but at the same time I hero worshiped the ground he walked on. He read the first chapter of the book aloud, or at least the first few pages of it, and even though I'd already read it earlier that day I sat in hushed anticipation along with all the other fans there, and when he was done we all lined up to get our books signed. We noticed that there was just enough time to ask him one question each, and so we agreed amongst ourselves after talking it over. Stephen would ask how to pronounce "Nynaeve." I would ask how to pronounce "Cairhein." I don't remember what the other girl was going to ask. And he answered us, nice as could be, chatting around with the others. He was kind of aloof, but to me that didn't matter. He had a right to be aloof. He was Robert Fucking Jordan.
After I got to college, though, I didn't really have the time for WoT any more. It was such a pain in the ass having to reread the whole series each time a new one came out. The 8th one ended up disappointing me, too. When the 9th one came out, I didn't hardly bother to read it, and I haven't completed one since, though I've still bought each one the day it came out. I'd read them all one last time when the series finished.
Even so, I tried to reread them twice. I ran my very first game in the WoT setting, and ran another game at my first Gencon.
I had long talks with others about the genre in which I faced a lot of facts about my favorite series, and when all was said and done I found myself frequently agreeing with all the bad things people had to say about it, and all the ways in which I HATED it and was angry with Jordan for fucking things up, and why couldn't he write a female character who wasn't a raving bitch, and why was I reading this thing when I hated 90% of the characters in it?
But none of that could dispose of a fundamental truth. The Wheel of Time series is and always has been a part of my life as a geek, a part of my life as a writer, a part of my life as a reader. It's part - a big part - of why I love fantasy. Any thing that I've done, any thing that I've become in the 15 years since I started reading the Wheel of Time has been at least slightly flavored by the feelings it has stirred in me. It has reduced me to tears, it has left me delighted, it has caused me to fall in love, it has caused me to get so angry - at things that happened, at the books themselves - that I cursed and put the damn thing away. But I always, always, always pulled it out again. In bad times it's been a friend and a support when I didn't have any actual friends or supports because I was a geek in a middle school that had no geeks.
It's hard to explain, I guess, why it has meant so much to me. Even when I read other series and knew that there were ways in which it was a rip off, knew there were "better" ways to write fantasy, I still loved it. Even when I was in conversations saying how much I hated X about it, I always loved it deep down. And even when I was telling any one who would ask me not to read it, I also always said that I thought that once the series was finished they should read it. I just didn't want to see others going through what I was going through - year after year of waiting, year after year of wanting to know what happened to my first love (I've admitted about Rand before, I'm not ashamed to admit it again. ;) ), year after year of just wanting to see how the last battle would go. I was in fucking elementary school when I started this series, I've been waiting for the end of The Wheel of Time for three fifths of my life! And so I warned others away, I told them to wait. And while I would happily rip to shreds with other people who I knew were underneath it all as utterly and hopelessly hooked as I was, I never was happy to hear someone talk about actually disliking it. It always made me angry, and I while I wouldn't fight that hard - it's not really in my nature to do so - I would agree to disagree. To each their own.
As the series grew longer, when I was in HS, Stephen and I would joke that if he died before it finished, we would hold a sceance, raise his spirit, and get him to tell us how it ended. I don't even believe in spirits, not in the way that this attempt would require, but it didn't matter. Even when I knew that he was sick, I somehow never really thought that he would die. How could he die? Robert Jordan is clearly immortal, in the same way that Rand is always young and foolish and clueless and utterly adorable hot when I pick up the first book, even when I know what happens later.
And now I'm sitting here, and the sun is shining brightly through the window, and my laundry has been done downstairs for almost 30 minutes, and I have all this work I need to do, but somehow, all I can do is cry. And I'm not crying because of the last book, even though I should be. Somehow, it has nothing to do with the last book. I'm crying because Robert Jordan is dead. He changed my life, he gave me so much. The thing he created has meant so much to me though out my life. I'm crying because I'm grieving for a man who, I suppose in a very strange and far off sense, I love.
I do wonder what will happen now in the last book. But that's a concern for tomorrow or the next day. I suspect we'll hear soon enough, because god knows I'm not the only person who has waited for years to learn the conclusion. In the mean time, if anyone knows someone really good at sceances, or at least who knows how to spell it, let me know. I'll bring the candles, I'll find Stephen some how, and any one else who wants to join in (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swan_tower, you game?) and we'll see if we can't communicate with the dead.
But first, I think I need to grieve, to cry, just a little longer. And maybe, just maybe, go out and buy a copy of the first book, and start again one more time. As if I didn't already own three copies of the first book. But somehow, I feel the end might just be the time to go back to the beginning.
You'll never know how much you meant to me, how much you meant, I'm sure, to many people like me. I'm sure I'm not the only person blogging about this, I'm sure I'm not the only person crying. You'll be sorely, sorely missed. Good bye, Robert Jordan.
When I was 8, I could barely read. I was slow that way, I don't know why. But once I started, I didn't stop, and I read a ton. The summer after 4th grade changed my life completely. I read a book by Patricia C. Wrede entitled "Dealing With Dragons." It opened my eyes to an entire genre I hadn't really realized existed. Up to then I had been reading what all kids read - crap (in my case, Box Car Children, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Babysitter's Club). After that, I never read anything but fantasy.
I devoured any book of fantasy I found that summer. I turned first to Xanth, and "Spell for Chameleon." From there, I went next to David Eddings, having found the first book of the Tamuli on a "new and interesting reading" end cap. I was at my grandfather's house for the summers, and it was pretty isolated - I needed him to drive me to Hanover to find books, so one day when I finished my available supply, I started combing his shelves. I came across two things there - one was the Hobbit (and also the LoTR trilogy) and the other was a hard cover entitled "The Fires of Heaven."
I remembered the book, looking at it. The previous Christmas, my grandfathers then-girlfriend Ellie had given it to him, and here it sat, neglected, on the book shelve. I took a look, found out the first book in the series was "The Eye of the World" and that they were by Robert Jordan, and I went and bought the book. I was 9 years old.
It was late when I started the book. I used to get insomnia a lot when I was a kid (though I didn't know what it was called) but that night was an okay one, and I only read the first 20 pages or so. The next day, I picked up where I had left off.
I read the entire book in a day.
I was utterly intrigued. I hadn't read Tolkien yet. So far, I'd read a bunch of Xanth, a couple books by Wrede, and Eddings. To say the least, I was utterly unprepared to find a world with the depth and the scope of the Wheel of Time and Randland. It opened my eyes to a way of telling stories. I developed deep and abiding loves and hatreds for the characters. I read the rest of the series that was out to date - 5 books - and eagerly awaited the sixth book. When I was 11, I realized I had a crush on Rand al'Thor.
All through middle school and high school, the Wheel of Time was a crutch for me, a place to turn for solace, in a way only a small number of books were for me (Spell for Chameleon and Dealing With Dragons were the other two big solace books, with David Eddings up there too). I would reread my favorite parts over and over again, so many times that my favorite pages fell out of the bindings. I stayed up almost all night to read the sixth one when it came out. When the seventh one came out, I did the same. I made friends in HS solely with a guy named Stephen solely on the basis that he was sitting in front of me in class and he was reading Robert Jordan. For the next 3 years, he and I would read the books and we would compare theories and plumb their depths looking for what was hidden beneath the surface.
I was wandering Union Square my junior year of highschool when I saw a sign announcing the 8th book, and then further announcing that on the day it was released Robert Jordan would be there, signing it. Stephen, me, and one other friend agreed we'd go. However, the anticipation was too great, and I actually went up to Union Square during my lunch period to get the book. I was 20 minutes late to my next class, but I didn't care even though it was with my favorite teacher. I started reading immediately.
Even though I'd seen his picture in the back of the book a zillion times, Jordan didn't look like how I expected he would. He looked like someone I might normally avoid. He was heavy set and dressed in a dark suit, and he had a huge bushy gray beard, and wore a funny black cowboy hat. I didn't really know what to make of him, but at the same time I hero worshiped the ground he walked on. He read the first chapter of the book aloud, or at least the first few pages of it, and even though I'd already read it earlier that day I sat in hushed anticipation along with all the other fans there, and when he was done we all lined up to get our books signed. We noticed that there was just enough time to ask him one question each, and so we agreed amongst ourselves after talking it over. Stephen would ask how to pronounce "Nynaeve." I would ask how to pronounce "Cairhein." I don't remember what the other girl was going to ask. And he answered us, nice as could be, chatting around with the others. He was kind of aloof, but to me that didn't matter. He had a right to be aloof. He was Robert Fucking Jordan.
After I got to college, though, I didn't really have the time for WoT any more. It was such a pain in the ass having to reread the whole series each time a new one came out. The 8th one ended up disappointing me, too. When the 9th one came out, I didn't hardly bother to read it, and I haven't completed one since, though I've still bought each one the day it came out. I'd read them all one last time when the series finished.
Even so, I tried to reread them twice. I ran my very first game in the WoT setting, and ran another game at my first Gencon.
I had long talks with others about the genre in which I faced a lot of facts about my favorite series, and when all was said and done I found myself frequently agreeing with all the bad things people had to say about it, and all the ways in which I HATED it and was angry with Jordan for fucking things up, and why couldn't he write a female character who wasn't a raving bitch, and why was I reading this thing when I hated 90% of the characters in it?
But none of that could dispose of a fundamental truth. The Wheel of Time series is and always has been a part of my life as a geek, a part of my life as a writer, a part of my life as a reader. It's part - a big part - of why I love fantasy. Any thing that I've done, any thing that I've become in the 15 years since I started reading the Wheel of Time has been at least slightly flavored by the feelings it has stirred in me. It has reduced me to tears, it has left me delighted, it has caused me to fall in love, it has caused me to get so angry - at things that happened, at the books themselves - that I cursed and put the damn thing away. But I always, always, always pulled it out again. In bad times it's been a friend and a support when I didn't have any actual friends or supports because I was a geek in a middle school that had no geeks.
It's hard to explain, I guess, why it has meant so much to me. Even when I read other series and knew that there were ways in which it was a rip off, knew there were "better" ways to write fantasy, I still loved it. Even when I was in conversations saying how much I hated X about it, I always loved it deep down. And even when I was telling any one who would ask me not to read it, I also always said that I thought that once the series was finished they should read it. I just didn't want to see others going through what I was going through - year after year of waiting, year after year of wanting to know what happened to my first love (I've admitted about Rand before, I'm not ashamed to admit it again. ;) ), year after year of just wanting to see how the last battle would go. I was in fucking elementary school when I started this series, I've been waiting for the end of The Wheel of Time for three fifths of my life! And so I warned others away, I told them to wait. And while I would happily rip to shreds with other people who I knew were underneath it all as utterly and hopelessly hooked as I was, I never was happy to hear someone talk about actually disliking it. It always made me angry, and I while I wouldn't fight that hard - it's not really in my nature to do so - I would agree to disagree. To each their own.
As the series grew longer, when I was in HS, Stephen and I would joke that if he died before it finished, we would hold a sceance, raise his spirit, and get him to tell us how it ended. I don't even believe in spirits, not in the way that this attempt would require, but it didn't matter. Even when I knew that he was sick, I somehow never really thought that he would die. How could he die? Robert Jordan is clearly immortal, in the same way that Rand is always young and foolish and clueless and utterly adorable hot when I pick up the first book, even when I know what happens later.
And now I'm sitting here, and the sun is shining brightly through the window, and my laundry has been done downstairs for almost 30 minutes, and I have all this work I need to do, but somehow, all I can do is cry. And I'm not crying because of the last book, even though I should be. Somehow, it has nothing to do with the last book. I'm crying because Robert Jordan is dead. He changed my life, he gave me so much. The thing he created has meant so much to me though out my life. I'm crying because I'm grieving for a man who, I suppose in a very strange and far off sense, I love.
I do wonder what will happen now in the last book. But that's a concern for tomorrow or the next day. I suspect we'll hear soon enough, because god knows I'm not the only person who has waited for years to learn the conclusion. In the mean time, if anyone knows someone really good at sceances, or at least who knows how to spell it, let me know. I'll bring the candles, I'll find Stephen some how, and any one else who wants to join in (
swan_tower, you game?) and we'll see if we can't communicate with the dead.But first, I think I need to grieve, to cry, just a little longer. And maybe, just maybe, go out and buy a copy of the first book, and start again one more time. As if I didn't already own three copies of the first book. But somehow, I feel the end might just be the time to go back to the beginning.
You'll never know how much you meant to me, how much you meant, I'm sure, to many people like me. I'm sure I'm not the only person blogging about this, I'm sure I'm not the only person crying. You'll be sorely, sorely missed. Good bye, Robert Jordan.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 06:30 am (UTC)I think it's particularly sad to us when an artistic sort of person dies, because creative work can affect us so profoundly. I want these people to live forever -- it's sad to even think of Sondheim or Boublil/Schoenberg not being with us some day. Anyway, I enjoyed reading your Robert Jordan memories.
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 11:49 am (UTC)Anyway, I'm still finding this topic very saddening, so consider this a "thanks for the well wishes" to all you who posted replies. :)
no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-17 07:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 01:45 am (UTC)I'm sorry :(
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2007-09-18 02:17 am (UTC)