[Suzerain of Sheol]

Donning my purple hat for a second: please keep it civil and avoid personal attacks. Thank you.

On the subject: there's a difference between being inspired by a work or idea, and incorporating it wholesale into your own work with the serial numbers filed off.

And, unfortunately (I suppose), having an original fantasy setting only gets you to 0 on the scale of quality fantasy. It's assumed that a good fantasy book will be innovative and creative in its use of genre conventions. (And, of course, that goes for any genre) There's still the lion's share of the work to be done melding prose, plot, theme, pacing, characterization, dialogue, etc... to actually produce of a competently-written novel that tells a story worth reading.

For my own personal purposes, Eragon (and it's sequels) doesn't do that, from the few pages I've made myself look at. But, I admit to having very high standards, and I've dismissed other successful authors for the same reasons I dismissed Paolini's series. So, my own views on the subject aren't exactly representative.

I do wonder how the translation reads, since from I saw from the English text, the prose was over-written, dense, and seemingly out of control on the author's part -- which is rather typical of a writer of that age.

Also, I'm aware of the status of the movie, I was just relying on it to have some basic understanding of what this story is about -- I can do that, yes? Or is it truly that unfaithful to the book?

[Kotetsu]

Well, the BASIC plotline was still in the movie. But major parts were changed to an extent that the whole story didn't make any sense anymore when compared to the book.
They could never turn the second book into a movie now because the first one changed so many things that they would have to remake it.

The German version reads very well, speech-wise. They probably adapted the translations so that the language would sound good and consistent, so I can only talk about the CONTENT, not really HOW it is told.
That probably makes the book better :D

Also: I didn't attack him/her personally, I just think it IS very childish and insulting to twist the words of someone so that you can disregard everything else they said and claim they said something entirely different and completely contrary to their actual view.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Well, I've forgotten as many of the details of the film as I could manage to, so I ought to be okay. :p

And that's interesting, It's entirely possible (even probable) that the translator was a better writer than Paolini. :p

[Kotetsu]

Well, I have the third book in English, though.
Since I'm not a native speaker it is probably harder for me to distinguish "good" and "bad" literature just based on the writing style, unless it is extremely ridiculous. And I have definitely read worse stuff before but I'm still kinda thankful for my German translation. XD

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Actually, you just reminded me of this -- command of the language is another thing that doesn't earn you any points as a writer, it just puts you at the baseline. If the actual text shows signs that the author doesn't fully understand the conventions of their own language (or even the definitions and connotations of the words they're using) then that severely tarnishes, if not outright obliterates, any other good qualities the story might possess on its own. A story has to be readable to be good -- if the reader gets thrown out of the narrative time and again because of mistakes or improperly-used words, there's no way they can enjoy the story, or even focus on it.

Also, I'm on the opposite spectrum. I'm an English major and a writer, myself, so I tend to obsess over things like sentence structure and word choice. I'd be hopeless at reading a text in another language, though. :p

[Kotetsu]

I wish I was as good as that in English, haha :D
My dream is to be fluent in English one day but it's such a looong long way to go.
My posts must be horrible to read for you, then. xD 'm very sorry.

I've actually written a lot of short stories before and all this talk makes me wish even more that I could just translate them into English easily. Because publishing them is out of question and you only get some readers on the internet if you're writing in English.

Anyways, I'm not into Eragon for the brilliant use of the English language or the original storyline. I'm just into it because it's a kind of story that just leaves me curious as to how it will all end. I just really want to know what happens to all the characters. xD

[Quiet Man Cometh]

Translations can make or break a novel I believe. It may be that the German translation of Eragon is better written than the English one written by Paolini himself. By virtue of the change in language things are likely to be different.

I'm in the same category as Suzerain is, English lit major and a writer, but you could say I'm in another room at times. I don't mind reading an unoriginal or poor story if the writing is good enough. It's not the story of Eragon that bothers me as much as the actual writing of the book. I'd love to try reading it in German but unfortunately the best I might be able to manage would be a few words here and there.

Your English is very good by the way. I wouldn't have guessed from your posts that you didn't normally speak the language. :)

[Kotetsu]

Ha ha, thanks a lot! I try to learn as much as I can (:

It's very seldom that a translated version is better than its original, though.
But I am very happy that I CAN read/watch most original versions of the books and movies I like.
Maybe I will pick up an English version of the first two Eragon novels at a local bookstore. If books weren't bloody expensive here in Australia, I wouldn't mind spending a few dollars on them. But they are probably +20$ each. :<

[Alpha]

Personally, I enjoy the books. The first was a bit painful to get through, but to date I have not regretted reading the series. Eldest was good, and Brisingr introduced a lot to be expanded upon in the final book Inheritance. And the movie....don't even get me started. They need to just remake the first and start from the beginning.

[Lost_Ninja9213]

that would be nice, im just glad they didnt try to make a sequel. o.O itd be like the narnia movies remade i guess, though the old ones werent quite as terrible....i just read the climax of the last book, no comments for spoiler reasons, but im enjoying it :P

[Alpha]

finished the last book (more or less) and quite enjoyed it. did not quite expect the ending, and hated that it left it kind of hanging. not going to say more so as not to spoil it for those who might not have finished it.

[Daring Scylla]

Originally Posted by Kotetsu

Oh, please NEVER think the movie comes even close to the books.
Even the die-hard Eragon fanboys and fangirls loathe that movie. xD

at the risk of bringing your wrath down on me- i always try to avoid internet conflicts because they're so damn unimportant, so please don't take this as offense, I'd like to point something out. the person you're quoting didn't say anything about the movies comparing to the books. you may not be reproaching them for this reason, and i might be looking at it the wrong way , but it doesn't look very nice.
come to that, i took a look at the article you suggested, and i do find it very interesting. some of the points the writer makes are things i have noticed as well, as I've read several of the books Paolini was inspired by
in my own opinion, paolini's works are tripe that you can enjoy if you're a young kid who likes to think yourself intelligent by reading a book that is so big it could be used as a door stop. the books are also something you can enjoy if you turn your brain off. to me, they are cheap entertainment (though not by the prices in stores) hiding behind the cover of a tolkien-esque style novel. I read them with half-interest, but have no desire to own them. to each his own.
they don't hold a lot of interest to me, but I'm not going to freak out if someone else likes them - it's an opinion, for the love of Mary, and you've a right to it.
Something interesting to me is that his parents owned the publishing company that produced his book. if he had gone through more editing and used a little more originality, his books might have been better.
My problem with his books is not so much that he obviously lifted scenes, ideas, names, and concepts straight out of other fictional works, but that he was so damn blatant about it. Writers re-invent the wheel all the time, but if they're good, they're subtle about it. Paolini pretty much threw down everything he liked that someone else did in a book and expected us to be impressed, and that's the part that I think is a little lame. :cool:

[Suzerain of Sheol]

Scylla, you just (maybe unintentionally :p) raised an issue that's pretty central to the whole Paolinni discussion, for me. You described the work as "Tolkiene-sque" which, on the surface, it appears to be, but that's the extent of it, the veneer. And I get the feeling that all of Paolinni's "inspirations" were carried over in a similar fashion -- i.e. just the surface of what makes them what they are, the spectacle, leaving behind the deep thematic elements and such that actually make them good stories.

I believe read a quote from him stating that he'd studied Old Norse to write Eragon? I... have a feeling that his understanding of Old Norse didn't (and doesn't) quite compared to Tolkien's, and I think that's emblematic of his entire modus operandi.

[Daring Scylla]

Hey hey hey! that is an EXCELLENT way to put what I was trying to say. hats off to you, i suck at equivocating.
that is my big problem with eragon and the inheritance cycle - it's all fluff and no substance. i think it's cheap that he made no attempt to cover the fact that he plagiarized or 'borrowed' a lot of things from other existing works.
and he studied old Norse...? what.....? no. just no.
I read the books in english, though it's my third language, so maybe some things were lost/improved in translations of the book.
that's the final point of my argument against Paolini's books - he plagiarized GOOD THINGS but failed to keep what made them so excellent. Och, if you're going to steal someone else's work that was successful, keep the most successful parts.
he also seems arrogant, if any of his book reviews and interviews are anything to go by. I won't pass personal judgement until i actually meet him though. If I do. Like I'd ever want to.
I also think his books were sold largely on the premise of HEY LOOK A NOVEL BIG ENOUGH TO KILL SOMEONE WRITTEN BY A 15 YEAR OLD WOW!!! I know no one i knew in Ireland took the book very seriously when it came out.

[Kotetsu]

Eragon has NEVER seemed "Tolkien-esque" to me, actually... The styles in which they are written are SO different. (Even if he stole names, that doesn't mean the style comes even close to LotR, whch it dosn't)

The last book was disappointing. Eh...



@Scylla
About that movie comment:
I said that because trying to judge a BOOK by a horrible horrible MOVIE adaption does not work and is an insult to the book in my opinion. I was just pointing out that the movie was nothing like the book because someone who has not read them would not know.
This has nothing to do with "not looking very nice", I posted that to make sure that it is clear that you know nothing about the books after watching that... thing.

[Suzerain of Sheol]

I think "Tolkien-esque" was meant more in the presentation of the world it's set in, not in the actual writing. (I don't know if I'd really consider Tolkien a very good *writer* but that's not the topic at hand...) i.e. the standard fantasy tropes which all sort of hearken back to Tolkien's original impact on the genre, though, like I said above, I think it was more the case of him being "inspired" by people who were inspired by Tolkien.

And just to lay it to rest, I didn't have any problem with your comment about the film (even ignoring that it's three months old. :p) It seemed perfectly good-natured to me, not to mention that it was more or less agreeing with what I'd said about not bring the film into the discussion. :p