Wheel of Time Redux

Eleven weeks ago, I wrote a blog post, What Gives You Hope. To quote myself, “Battered by news that made me cringe and cry and rage all at the same time, I decided to sink myself so deeply into fantasy that I blocked out reality.” I sank into The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan hoping to find hope blooming by the time I finished.

 An important aside: Jordan became terminally ill before he finished the series, and some of the last books were co-written with Brandon Sanderson, an author he picked and mentored to take over for him.

 As of Sunday, I am pleased to report that I have finished all 15 books in 12 weeks. That’s 12,004 pages in my editions. Over 4.4 million words. Over 1,800 named characters. Altogether there are 147 unique point-of-view characters across 1,379 POV sections. I enjoyed every minute of reading—perhaps I enjoyed it too much.

 When I started the first book, I embarked on a Sunday afternoon amble—an enjoyable read that, since I knew the story, I could take at a leisurely pace. As I completed the first two books, I realized that my faulty memory, combined with the complexity of the story, had sprung a surprising and intriguing adventure on me. Instead of an amble, I needed hiking boots and trail poles for a long trek through challenging terrain.

 Challenging terrain, but never overwhelming. The more I read, the more I wanted to read. The parts of the story I had forgotten made this essentially a first-time read. I found myself going back and forth to the glossary much more than I had originally because I wanted to remember everything and keep it fresh.

Before I knew it, I had given up all my online vices! I wasn’t completing online jigsaw puzzles like they had a bounty on them or reading the seeming millions of news emails I receive every day from the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, and the Guardian.

 I wasn’t watching junk TV either, just the series we really like and are committed to seeing every week. I did continue to watch TV evening news, but with less regularity and sometimes not at all. I read until the wee hours practically every night regardless of my plans for the next morning.

 I became—I humbly admit—consumed with The Wheel of Time and enjoyed the reread tremendously. When I turned the last page, I felt lost. What am I going to do now that I finished? At the end of my first post about WoT, I said, “By springtime, I’m praying that things in our world will be looking up as much as they improved in the Wheel of Time’s world.”

 I finished the series just as springtime arrived. The world was still waiting—not in the way I had hoped. If anything, our world is in worse shape than before and there’s virtually nothing I can do about it but get madder and madder waiting for the chance to vote in November. Which may or may not help. Maybe you’re more optimistic, but I’m totally down on the future of the country right now.

 I don’t want to go back to jigsaw puzzles, endless news lists, and mindless reels on Facebook. The solution for me will be to resurrect another one of my fantasy series and start reading again. None of them span 15 books, which is probably for the best, time-wise.

 Before I get to that though, I am doing a deep dive into the ancillary material that explains and elucidates Jordan’s world. There are three more books to consider: The Wheel of Time Companion, The World of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, and Origins of the Wheel of Time. That’s another 1,376 undelved pages, and, lucky for me, Kindle Unlimited has the Companion book available for free.

 Let’s see if the world improves by the time I finish the next set of blessed distractions. If you’ve found distractions of your own, I’d love to hear about them.

 Ciao