![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
unforthI hear by way of ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
swan_tower that David Eddings has died. While this doesn't effect me emotionally to the extent that Robert Jordan's death did, still it definitely causes me a pause for reflection.
It's summer. I'm 10 years old, staying at my grandfather's house in New Hampshire. There wasn't loads to do there - the TVs didn't do much, no internet of course - I spent my time playing out doors, going to science day camp, messing around with Cassie (a dog) and reading. The summer before, I'd finally started to read voraciously thanks to my mom's giving me the Little House books for Christmas; she'd had to stop paying me a penny per page because I re-read the series so many times that she owed me $80 at the end of that summer. This summer, I didn't need the fiscal encouragement. The previous spring I'd gotten my hands on a copy of "Dealing with Dragons" by way of a Scholastic Books order form, and I read it over the summer and immediately fell in love. The staff at the Dartmouth Bookstore seemed eager to foster my interest in reading, and recommended that I read "A Spell for Chameleon" by Piers Anthony. I was super-excited about this, because that was shelved in the sci fi/fantasy section downstairs, rather than in the children's section - it was a grown-up book! I went downstairs and a I found the in-store copy, and my grandfather came to get me so we could leave. As we were going, a book on an end cap by the cash register caught my eye. It was another grown-up book, with a dark purple cover, a neat little picture, and shiny gold lettering, "Domes of Fire." I snagged that book, too - I don't think I read the back of it, even.
I read "A Spell for Chameleon" first, and it would become one of my favorite books - I read it easily a dozen+ times per year for the first few years. But I wanted to read more of these grown-up books, and so I read Domes of Fire too. When we next went to the bookstore, I was very disappointed to discover that I couldn't get the next book of the Domes of Fire series, just like I couldn't get the third book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, cause it wasn't out yet. Poking around, though, I found the Belgariad, and I was hooked on Eddings.
That summer was a turning point in my life. I read like crazy, and by the end of the summer I'd read all 17 Xanth books out at the time, the Belgariad and the Mallorean, Terry Brooks, and more. In the next couple of years, I would develop a chronic fear of starting new series, not willing to risk adding new "friends" to my brain - a way of handling a problematic middle school experience - but poking around on my grandfather's book shelves, I still got through the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and a neglected Christmas present - given to my grandfather by his then-girlfriend the previous Christmas and utterly ignored, a hard-cover copy of Fires of Heaven that has launched the longest term obsession of my life. I compulsively re-read my favorites; in the span of three years I read "A Spell for Chameleon" well over 50 times (I once quoted the entire first chapter to my mom just to see if I could), the Scions of Shannara books at least 4 or 5; Robert Jordan was too long to re-read all of so I bent down the pages for the chapters with my favorite parts and re-read those, and of course I re-read the Eddings books repeatedly - but I used to skip the fourth book of the Belgariad and the first book the Mallorean, cause back then I didn't like reading about battles. I wanted Belgareth to be my grandfather and Polgara my guardian, and Garian my leader; I wanted C'Nedra to die with the fiery passion of a million suns; I loved Zaketh, and I thought Silk was just about the coolest guy ever - but Mandorallin's armor was the coolest. And if any of those are wrong, well, it's been a while. :) I remember reading an interview with Eddings in which he said he'd not be writing more in that world, and how sad it made me, until he got to explaining why - that he refused to be the author who started writing books like, "Silk goes to (place in the world)," and I understood and began to realized that sometimes, series have to end no matter how much I might love the characters, and it was better that way. So much of what shaped me came from these sources - and I never saw them as Lord of the Rings rip-offs, because I HATED Lord of the Rings when I read it (though I loved the Hobbit) and do this day I've never re-read the whole series (though I've tried!).
(tangent: as a side of effect of writing the above paragraph, I have discovered that a long-cherished childhood memory is somewhat inaccurate: I couldn't possibly have read Robert Jordan that first summer, because I know it started with Fires of Heaven, which didn't come out until that fall, 1993 - I was 10 in summer '93, and had just graduated 5th grade. I would therefore have read RJ the following summer, in '94 at the age of 11, though I've thought it was 10 for ages now. This change jibes with other stuff I recall, such as that I didn't end up waiting all that long for Lord of Chaos, which came out fall of '94, thus deluding me into thinking that I wouldn't have to wait years for the others.../tangent)
Lying in my bed one night near the end of 7th grade, we had an assignment to write a poem about ourselves. I'd gotten into bed pretty satisfied with what I'd written, but lying there making up stories about my personal Mary Sue who would wander around the worlds of the books I'd read, I thought of another line of the poem. I don't remember exactly what I wrote (I'm totally gonna go dig this out of my files, but first I want to see how close I can get, since I haven't read this poem in more than 10 years), but it was something like, "when the pages of the book I'm reading becomes indistinguishable from the feel of the armor of knight about whose adventures I'm reading, what does it mean?" And I rolled over in the dark and picked up my notebook and wrote this down, and I still remember, I was thinking about Sparhawk. These characters were my friends, my mentors, my anchor for three years of my life.
(tangent: I looked it up with surprising ease, and have found the real line from the poem: "When you feel the rough pages of a book one minute, and the next you feel the metal of the armor of the Knight in Shining Armor you were reading about, are you really crazy?" - I wasn't that far off, all things considering! Anyway, I transcribed the whole poem, it's very silly but a very interesting peak into my past, and as such I'm gonna dissect it in a separate post, but not tonight - this post has eaten enough of my brain. /tangent)
But that wasn't where it started. It started with a 10 year old's boredom, Patricia C. Wrede, Piers Anthony, David Eddings, and a shiny book cover.
I haven't read anything he wrote since Polgara the Sorceress, and probably won't. But I've re-read the Belgariad once and was pleased to find it better than I remembered, and when I feel like it I'll re-read the Elenium, which I thought little of that summer (I far preferred the Garion books) but since has grown in my esteem and is one of my favorite series. I haven't re-read the Tamuli series since the very first time.
I suppose it's part of growing older, that we watch the people who influenced the course of ours lives begin to pass one by one, but that doesn't make it any less sad. For his contributions to the genre, for the enjoyability of his writing, for the influences he's had, and for what his works meant to me, I'm very sorry to hear of his death.
swan_tower that David Eddings has died. While this doesn't effect me emotionally to the extent that Robert Jordan's death did, still it definitely causes me a pause for reflection.It's summer. I'm 10 years old, staying at my grandfather's house in New Hampshire. There wasn't loads to do there - the TVs didn't do much, no internet of course - I spent my time playing out doors, going to science day camp, messing around with Cassie (a dog) and reading. The summer before, I'd finally started to read voraciously thanks to my mom's giving me the Little House books for Christmas; she'd had to stop paying me a penny per page because I re-read the series so many times that she owed me $80 at the end of that summer. This summer, I didn't need the fiscal encouragement. The previous spring I'd gotten my hands on a copy of "Dealing with Dragons" by way of a Scholastic Books order form, and I read it over the summer and immediately fell in love. The staff at the Dartmouth Bookstore seemed eager to foster my interest in reading, and recommended that I read "A Spell for Chameleon" by Piers Anthony. I was super-excited about this, because that was shelved in the sci fi/fantasy section downstairs, rather than in the children's section - it was a grown-up book! I went downstairs and a I found the in-store copy, and my grandfather came to get me so we could leave. As we were going, a book on an end cap by the cash register caught my eye. It was another grown-up book, with a dark purple cover, a neat little picture, and shiny gold lettering, "Domes of Fire." I snagged that book, too - I don't think I read the back of it, even.
I read "A Spell for Chameleon" first, and it would become one of my favorite books - I read it easily a dozen+ times per year for the first few years. But I wanted to read more of these grown-up books, and so I read Domes of Fire too. When we next went to the bookstore, I was very disappointed to discover that I couldn't get the next book of the Domes of Fire series, just like I couldn't get the third book of the Enchanted Forest Chronicles, cause it wasn't out yet. Poking around, though, I found the Belgariad, and I was hooked on Eddings.
That summer was a turning point in my life. I read like crazy, and by the end of the summer I'd read all 17 Xanth books out at the time, the Belgariad and the Mallorean, Terry Brooks, and more. In the next couple of years, I would develop a chronic fear of starting new series, not willing to risk adding new "friends" to my brain - a way of handling a problematic middle school experience - but poking around on my grandfather's book shelves, I still got through the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and a neglected Christmas present - given to my grandfather by his then-girlfriend the previous Christmas and utterly ignored, a hard-cover copy of Fires of Heaven that has launched the longest term obsession of my life. I compulsively re-read my favorites; in the span of three years I read "A Spell for Chameleon" well over 50 times (I once quoted the entire first chapter to my mom just to see if I could), the Scions of Shannara books at least 4 or 5; Robert Jordan was too long to re-read all of so I bent down the pages for the chapters with my favorite parts and re-read those, and of course I re-read the Eddings books repeatedly - but I used to skip the fourth book of the Belgariad and the first book the Mallorean, cause back then I didn't like reading about battles. I wanted Belgareth to be my grandfather and Polgara my guardian, and Garian my leader; I wanted C'Nedra to die with the fiery passion of a million suns; I loved Zaketh, and I thought Silk was just about the coolest guy ever - but Mandorallin's armor was the coolest. And if any of those are wrong, well, it's been a while. :) I remember reading an interview with Eddings in which he said he'd not be writing more in that world, and how sad it made me, until he got to explaining why - that he refused to be the author who started writing books like, "Silk goes to (place in the world)," and I understood and began to realized that sometimes, series have to end no matter how much I might love the characters, and it was better that way. So much of what shaped me came from these sources - and I never saw them as Lord of the Rings rip-offs, because I HATED Lord of the Rings when I read it (though I loved the Hobbit) and do this day I've never re-read the whole series (though I've tried!).
(tangent: as a side of effect of writing the above paragraph, I have discovered that a long-cherished childhood memory is somewhat inaccurate: I couldn't possibly have read Robert Jordan that first summer, because I know it started with Fires of Heaven, which didn't come out until that fall, 1993 - I was 10 in summer '93, and had just graduated 5th grade. I would therefore have read RJ the following summer, in '94 at the age of 11, though I've thought it was 10 for ages now. This change jibes with other stuff I recall, such as that I didn't end up waiting all that long for Lord of Chaos, which came out fall of '94, thus deluding me into thinking that I wouldn't have to wait years for the others.../tangent)
Lying in my bed one night near the end of 7th grade, we had an assignment to write a poem about ourselves. I'd gotten into bed pretty satisfied with what I'd written, but lying there making up stories about my personal Mary Sue who would wander around the worlds of the books I'd read, I thought of another line of the poem. I don't remember exactly what I wrote (I'm totally gonna go dig this out of my files, but first I want to see how close I can get, since I haven't read this poem in more than 10 years), but it was something like, "when the pages of the book I'm reading becomes indistinguishable from the feel of the armor of knight about whose adventures I'm reading, what does it mean?" And I rolled over in the dark and picked up my notebook and wrote this down, and I still remember, I was thinking about Sparhawk. These characters were my friends, my mentors, my anchor for three years of my life.
(tangent: I looked it up with surprising ease, and have found the real line from the poem: "When you feel the rough pages of a book one minute, and the next you feel the metal of the armor of the Knight in Shining Armor you were reading about, are you really crazy?" - I wasn't that far off, all things considering! Anyway, I transcribed the whole poem, it's very silly but a very interesting peak into my past, and as such I'm gonna dissect it in a separate post, but not tonight - this post has eaten enough of my brain. /tangent)
But that wasn't where it started. It started with a 10 year old's boredom, Patricia C. Wrede, Piers Anthony, David Eddings, and a shiny book cover.
I haven't read anything he wrote since Polgara the Sorceress, and probably won't. But I've re-read the Belgariad once and was pleased to find it better than I remembered, and when I feel like it I'll re-read the Elenium, which I thought little of that summer (I far preferred the Garion books) but since has grown in my esteem and is one of my favorite series. I haven't re-read the Tamuli series since the very first time.
I suppose it's part of growing older, that we watch the people who influenced the course of ours lives begin to pass one by one, but that doesn't make it any less sad. For his contributions to the genre, for the enjoyability of his writing, for the influences he's had, and for what his works meant to me, I'm very sorry to hear of his death.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:38 pm (UTC)I can certainly relate to growing up under the influence of fantasy worlds. I read the Hobbit when I was 8ish. Re-read it many times until I could understand all of it. Started on LOTR and didn't put it down until I found the Dune series in high school. I still re-read it once or twice a year. I loved the Xanth books too and read the quite eagerly. I can't wait until Gwydion is old enough to read them. I'm sure they'll appeal to his quirky sense of humor.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 01:15 pm (UTC)For all of the problems with the Xanth books, I think they're a great series of gateway fantasies for young adults. I really loved them - I hope Gwydion does too! Maybe you could do one as a read aloud? (I don't know anything about kids... ;) )
no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 01:25 pm (UTC)Your friend was right about the Dune series. The first book is definitely the best, though I would argue that the others are worth reading at least once. Skip the new ones by his son though. Ugh.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-13 01:43 pm (UTC)Maybe I should go back and re-read Dune, then, and read the others - I haven't even looked at that series since I was in HS (I only read Dune once).